B227 Data Communications

Assignment 1 Marking Guide

For assignment 1, The marks for each question and each sub-question are indicated at the beginning of the questions. All the answers will be assessed based on three criteria:

Material given - you are only expected to give material from the lecture notes and textbook. In the case that you give all possible relevant contents from the textbook, and you do well in the other two criteria, you can score very highly. If you do decide to go out and find extra material, I welcome it, and you increase your chances of getting higher marks if your original material you got from the book happens not to be complete. You can't obviously score more than the full allocated marks.
Show Understanding - It is very important that you show your tutor (who is assessing your assignment) you understand the material you present. The more they are convinced you understand, and the less they believe you are regurgitating from the lecture notes or textbook, the higher you will score.
Structure and Presentation - This applies to how concise and clear your answers are; how it is broken up into proper sections (if necessary) so that the points come across; etc. It is basically how easily readable your answers are. This criteria DOESN'T mean fancy formatting, or colors, or pictures. I'm not looking for that, or even welcome that. For formatting all it need to be is neat and clean.

Not all three criteria will be relevant in ALL questions and sub-questions. Eg. the second criteria doesn't make much sense in question 3(a).

How much you should write depends on a balance between these three criteria. Write as concisely as possible, but still be clear and give all the material you have. The marks for each sub-question will NOT be broken down into three marks for these three criteria. We will consider all three when giving a mark. You need to be good in all three to get top marks for a sub-question. But if you happen to be brilliant in one criteria, it may make up for slight deficiencies in another.

If you have time, finish your assignment before the due date, and show it to you tutor for comments so they can give you corrections you should make. The is especially important for the last two criteria.

H.L. Hiew
Unit Coordinator

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