About lecturing a course

ABOUT LECTURING A COURSE

The old version of the regulations to consider is https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pk0J5C1LIkXHz-aPMCXZPr1SSD0YsLULJ8IslahdyOU/edit.

Course Structure and Syllabus

Faculty members can use any instructional mode; however, they should always make sure to develop and communicate the objectives of the course to the students. In regards to this, the instructors of the courses should prepare the course syllabus for all of your courses and share them with the Department of Education (DoE) before a semester begins. The template that IU is currently using for the course syllabus is in the appendix (Add as an appendix the template for the syllabus). Such template is then reflected by the DoE into the online teaching infrastructure (currentlyMoodle) and is used as the core reference for supplying course material, schedules, and calendars to students. The deadlines to prepare and submit the syllabus are June 30 (for Fall semester courses), October 31 (for Spring semester courses), May 01 (for Summer semester courses). The instructor of the course is expected to teach with physical presence at least 70% of the lectures.

Evaluation of students performance

The following is stipulated by the University Regulation “Ongoing and interim assessment of students’ knowledge in the autonomous noncommercial organization of higher education «Innopolis University».”

Ongoing academic progress assessment (OPA)

1. Ongoing academic progress assessment (OPA) is carried out by all types of self-study and contact work of students prescribed by the disciplines, practices, and programs of research work. The OPA is carried out by a professor giving courses, by the head of practice, or by the tutor of the research work.

2. The forms of the OPA include:

• individual realization of software code,
• individual assignments,
• practical and laboratory work,
• projects,
• examinations,
• colloquiums,
• tests (hand-written or computer-based),
• reports, essays, surveys,
• oral polls,
• discussions, training, workshops.

3. Other forms of OPA might be established in accordance with the curriculum and schedule.

4. The Instructor determines the frequency, the procedure, and the forms of OPA, as well as the evaluation system for it. The Instructor has a right to introduce corrections in the quantity and procedure of OPA.

5. The Instructor must enter OPA results into the LMSMoodle.

6. The OPA results must be taken into account when the final grade is given during course evaluation. Grades received by students during the OPA are not subject to retake.

Studentsmid-semester evaluation

Within the framework of the educational process’s quality assessment, the IU Department of Education analyzes students’ progress based on the OPA results around the middle of each semester. Based on this analysis, members of the DoE hold special meetings with the under-performing students to assess the reasons behind their struggling. The following procedures are in place:

1. Each course instructor should estimate students’ performance by the end of the 9th week of the semester. This is an estimation of individual students’ final grade

2. Such an estimate should be entered in the Moodle section of the course using an assessment named “Mid Semester Evaluation (for DoE)”

3. Such an estimate should be defined with the usual letter grades (A, B, C, D - where D means “fail”)

It is noteworthy that the mid-semester evaluation is not the same as the midterm evaluation.

Final evaluation

The official term for the final course evaluation is the “Interim assessment” (IA), and it will be used below. The following is stipulated by the University Regulation “Ongoing and interim assessment of students’ knowledge in the autonomous noncommercial organization of higher education Innopolis university":

1. The schedule and the place of IA are drafted by the DoE one week prior to the beginning of an IA, which must be approved by the Director of the University. Academic faculty and students must be informed of this via their corporate e-mails.

2. The IA is conducted after completing the course or practice in full or in part. This assessment will take place in a form that depends on the educational program, the work program of the discipline (course modules) and following the procedures, prescribed by relevant regulations.

3. The forms of interim assessment are:

• a test (including a pass/fail test),
• an examination.

Both of these can be carried out in the following forms:

• verbally and in a written form,
• in the form of testing, including the use of computers, software and hardware, as

well as

• in the form of an essay or
• project defense.

The form of the interim assessment is determined by the Instructor. Students must be informed about the IA form.

4. The final grade for the course (module) and practice (research work) can include the results of the OPA.

5. Recording the IA results can be conducted in the following 2 ways:

• The Instructor enters IA results into the LMSMoodle after which the results are

transferred into the intermediate attestation report.

• The Instructor fills out the intermediate attestation report (Appendix 1 of the

cited document) and submits it to the DoE. The DoE employees then transfer the grades into LMSMoodle.

6. The results cannot be reviewed after being entered into LMS Moodle and the interim assessment report.

7. Final results of the examination (tests) from the interim assessment report shall be entered into the student’s electronic record books (LMS Moodle, a system of educational process control 1C: University, student’s portfolio, and student’s personal account (my.university.innopolis.ru)).

Rules on final examinations

1. If a student has no valid reason for being absent from the exam, he/she is considered to not have passed the exam and not fulfilled academic requirements.

2. The Instructor can provide the list of supportive materials that students are allowed to use during the exam.

3. The use of non-allowed supportive materials during the exams, breach of study discipline (cheating, use of mobile phones or PC, attempts to talk to others, etc.) as well as infringement of the regulations is prohibited. These incidents can serve as a ground for removal of the student from the room and awarding thema D (unsatisfactory) or F (Fail) marks.

4. If any of the incidents described above occur, the Instructor should inform the Vice- Rector for Education of this in written form or via the corporate mail. The Vice-Rector in their turn sends an official note on Regulations infringement to the Director of the University for further consideration and decision.

5. Presence of the third parties on exams and tests without the written permission of the Vice-Rector for Education of the University is not allowed.

6. Students with an individual education plan may pass tests and exams only during the period determined by their individual education plan.

7. Students with a valid reason of absence (illness, family circumstances, etc.) who were not able to pass tests and exams within the established timeframe are permitted to retake an exam on individual terms. The terms are approved by the direct order of the University Director.

8. For students who provide justification documents for their absence in the exam (sick leave sheet, medical certificate, etc.), the examination period may be extended by the number of calendar days indicated in the presented document. This document should be provided no later than three working days after being issued.

9. The following procedure is applied for the extension of the examination session:

• A student provides the DoE with:

1) A statement in the name of Vice-Rector for Education to extend the examination period; 2) Documents confirming the reason for the extension of the examination period (a medical certificate or other documents).

• The Vice-Rector for Education examines the submitted documents and visas

student’s statement.

• Based on this, the Department of Education of the University drafts submission

for the Director on the extension of the examination period, indicating a concrete number of extension days.

10. A student is not allowed to have an extension of the exam period if he/she does not submit the justification document in time.

Marks and grading policy

IU five-point grading system:

• “Excellent” - A - A student gets A (“Excellent”) mark when he/she shows his/her full knowledge of the subject of a study program.

• “Good" - B - The learner has the knowledge of the subject in the almost full volume of the curriculum; independently, in a logical sequence, and in a comprehensive manner, answers all the questions, emphasizing the most essential, is able to analyze, compare, classify, generalize, and systematize the studied material, highlight the main concepts, establish causal relations; clearly formulates answers, freely interprets analytical results and solves situational problems of increased complexity; is well-acquainted with basic literature and research methods; can correlate the theoretical aspects of the activities of a subject with practical problems.

• “Satisfactory" - C - The learner has only basic knowledge of the discipline; has difficulties when answering questions, operates with inaccurate wording, misses essential parts of questions. The student is able to solve only the easiest

tasks.

• “Unsatisfactory" - D - The student did not master the required minimum of subject knowledge,

is unable to answer questions even with additional probing questions from the instructor.

• “Passed" - P

• “Fail" - F - The student did not master the required minimum of subject knowledge, is unable to answer questions even with additional probing questions from the instructor.

1. The grades A, B, C, and P are considered positive and are not subject to retake in order to improve the grade. The grades D and F are considered negative (unsatisfactory).

2. A student who has completed in full the requirements of the current year’s curriculum and have successfully passed all examinations and internships is transferred to the next year in accordance with the Director’s order based on the proposal of the Vice-Rector for Education of the University.

Retakes and missed assignments

The following is stipulated by the University Regulation “Ongoing and interim assessment of students’ knowledge in the autonomous noncommercial organization of higher education Innopolis University":

1. The negative results of the interim assessment in one or several academic subjects, courses, disciplines (modules), practice (educational, industrial, pre-diploma) of the education program, as well as absence on the exam without a valid reason, are considered as unfulfilled academic requirements. Students are required to fulfill these requirements within the timeframe established by the University.

2. The University defines the schedule of retakes for each course and practice and designates for this purpose an additional exam (retake) session. This schedule is approved by the director of the university and is communicated to students through corporate e-mail.

3. The structure of the retake (including labs, oral, written, practical) is defined by the instructor. The grading policy is up to the instructor and needs to be clearly stated in the syllabus.

4. If the student has failed to fulfill his/her academic requirement during the retake for the first time (hereinafter - first retake) they have a right for a second retake with the committee assigned by the university for this retake.

5. The first retake should be held by the same instructor to whom the student failed the exam (test) for the first time. If the instructor does not have the opportunity to conduct the exam at the fixed time, the Vice-Rector for Education appoints another instructor.

6. The Committee for the second retake is approved by the director’s order on the basis of the submission of the Vice-Rector for Education of the University. The opportunity to fulfill academic requirements is granted to each student no more than twice.

7. Students must pass the retake no later than one year since the date the unfulfilled requirement originated. This period does not include the following: sick leave, academic leave, maternal leave.

8. University has the right to conduct the first and the second retake during vacation. In this case, the University must set several retake periods, both during the holidays and during the semester.

9. The second retake could not be scheduled to take place during the internship (practice) period or interim assessment period (with the exception of the IA in remote learning format).

10. Graduating students are allowed to complete their unfulfilled academic requirements before the order of their admission to the state final certification is issued.

11. The mark for the second retake is awarded based on the agreement of all committee members. The decision of the committee is adopted by a simple majority of votes, is final and is not subject to revision.

12. The results of the retake (corresponding scores and marks) are recorded in accordance with the general rules for entering the results of the interim assessment. This information is recorded by the instructor in the interim reassessment paper.

13. The students who did not liquidate the academic debt in due time are expelled from the University as having failed to fulfill their responsibilities for the conscientious mastering of the educational program and the implementation of the curriculum.

14. The retakes take place during the first week of the following semesters.

Ongoing and interim assessment for students with disabilities

The following is stipulated by the University Regulation “Ongoing and interim assessment of students’ knowledge in the autonomous noncommercial organization of higher education Innopolis university":

1. In order to conduct an ongoing and interim assessment for people with disabilities the materials must be drafted. These materials must be adapted to estimate the achievements fixed in the professional study program and the level of achieved competencies in accordance with this study program.

2. For students with disabilities the forms of ongoing and interim assessment must be adapted taking into consideration the peculiarities of their mental and physical development, individual capabilities and health (oral form, written form on paper and computer, in a form of tests, etc.).

3. In order to make education available for people with disabilities the University must meet the following requirements: the presence of the assistant(s) in the room to provide the disabled people with the necessary technical assistance; written exercises are dictated to the student with disabilities. If necessary, students with disabilities must be allowed to use any technical assistive devices.

4. For those students who have serious health problems such as speech disorder, difficulties with hearing, oral assessments must be converted into a written form.

5. If needed, the disabled student is entitled to request in written form additional time to prepare his/her answers during the test or exam. The duration of the assessment session cannot be extended by more than 1.5 hours.

6. During the assessment sessions, the disabled students must be granted the chance to use assistive devices by taking into consideration their special needs.

Storage of documents

In order to fulfill the requirements of Russian federal regulations, the Department of Education suggests the following policy. Written paper works,

1. created by students at midterm exams, final exams and retakes should be stored by a professor for 1 year from the moment of exam. This category also includes other works that students and/or professors decided to include in student’s professional portfolios. Keep these works at the professor’s office.

2. thesis works, course works, and other works with your and student signatures should be stored by DoE. Regardless of the age – take them to the Department of Education.

3. created during other activities (even if one year did not pass) can be recycled immediately. You are free to recycle these works with no preliminary actions (burning, shredding, ...). Comment: the form of the exam is defined in the syllabus. If an exam is conducted in practical or oral form and produces no paper artifacts, this should be explicitly specified at the course syllabus. Otherwise, the ministry assumes the exam is conducted in written form.

Transfer Students for BS

These are stipulated by the “Regulations on the procedure of transfer, expulsion, and reinstatement of students and grating of academic leaves" from June 1, 2017.

1. Students are allowed to transfer their education program within the first 4 weeks of a semester. The request is extended by the student.

2. The request to change a program is submitted by a student to DoE within the first two weeks of an academic calendar.

3. Within one working week from the day of submission of the request, DoE assesses the eligibility of the student for the requested transfer. In case of a positive evaluation, an interview is scheduled with the Program Coordinator.

4. On the day of the interview, the Program Coordinator holds a 1-3 hour interview and/or an exam with the student to evaluate her/his academic background and motivation.

5. Within the third week of the semester, a meeting is held in which the Program Coordinator, Dean, Vice-Rector, and the Head of DoE discuss the group of applicants and make a final decision on their applications.

6. Within one working day from the day of the final decision, DoE provides feedback to students regarding the outcome of their applications.

Transfer Students for MS

1. Students are allowed to transfer their education program within the first 4 weeks of a semester. The request is extended by the student.

2. The request to change a program is submitted by a student to DoE within the first two weeks of an academic calendar.

3. Within one working week from the day of submission of the request, DoE assesses the eligibility of the student for the requested transfer. In case of a positive evaluation, an interview is scheduled with the Program Coordinator.

4. On the day of the interview, the Program Coordinator holds a 1-3 hour interview and/or an exam with the student to evaluate her/his academic background and motivation.

5. Within the third week of the semester, a meeting is held in which the Program Coordinator, Dean, Vice-Rector, and the Head of DoE discuss the group of applicants and make a final decision on their applications.

6. Within one working day from the day of the final decision, DoE provides feedback to students regarding the outcome of their applications.

Meeting with the Student-Representatives

During the 7th or the 8th week of the semester, the instructor must perform meeting with the student representatives where s/he discusses the evolution of the course, gather feedback from the students, identifies corrective actions, and send a report of such meeting to the education department.

Management of the Thesis

Thesis is carried out according to the requirements of the Federal lawNo 273-FZ of 29.12.2012 and order No 636 of theMinistry of education of the Russian Federation of 29.06.2015. Specifically, the following provisions apply to Innopolis University:

1. For the Fall semester,

• (a) all the policies applied to courses are applied to the thesis;
• (b) in the final evaluation in the Fall semester an assessment at the C level should

be assimilated to a Fail, since there is an expectation that theses should not be mediocre.

2. For the final (Spring) evaluation of the thesis, the final grade is defined by the state thesis commission, on the basis of a proposal made by the supervisor in moodle.

3. Details on the implementation of the thesis are in Appendix ?? on page ?? for the BS theses and in Appendix ?? on page ?? for theMS theses.

4. the amount of plagiarism in texts for the thesis of the students enrolled in the BS programs should not exceed 30%;

5. the amount of plagiarism in texts for the thesis of students enrolled in theMS programs should not exceed 25%.

6. a summary report of the inspection of the texts of the thesis of University students in Plagiarism Checking System has to be submitted to the State Examination Committee by the Department of Education no later than 3 (three) calendar days before the day of the thesis defense.

7. theses made by the students of the University have to be published in the electronic the library system of the University within 5 (five) days after the defense, except for the works:

• containing the information being a state secret;
• containing information that has current or potential commercial value (production,

technical, economic, organizational) for the rightsholder due to it being unknown to third parties, and other data (including the results of intellectual activity in the scientific and technical sphere) that concerns methods of professional activity.

Participation in lab activities

1. The following provisions do not apply to student developing a thesis or a curricular project course, for which specific regulations are set.

2. During a semester of study, students can participate at activities of a lab of Innopolis University.

3. Such participation is completely voluntary on the side of the student and their hosting is completely voluntary on the side of the accepting professor and it is understood that it is undertaken because both the student and the professor consider it useful for their studies and researchers.

4. Accepting professors are encouraged to set up written agreements with students to clarify the mutual expectations and duties.

5. For the student, such participation must not interfere in any way with the course of study and cannot be a reason for:

• earning credits toward a degree
• missing classes
• skipping or delaying exams or any other formof evaluation
• asking the university to provide extra space for desks, resources for computing,

funding to attend conferences, etc For the accepting professor, such participation cannot be a reason for:

• a reduced teaching load
• extra resources or benefits of any kind (lab space, computational facilities, funds

for conferences, . . . )

Academic misconduct policy

Definitions

Primary instructor (PI) or professor – course primary instructor. Teaching assistant (TA) – any other instructor involved in teaching a course. Instructor – PI or TA. Academic misconduct -— any action or attempted action that may result in creating an unfair academic advantage for oneself or an unfair academic advantage or disadvantage for any other member or members of the academic community. Include but not limited by:

1. cheating (including plagiarism),
2. fabrication or alteration of information and documents (lies in general),
3. theft,
4. sabotage (lesson disruption, bomb calls, fire alarms).

Students shall be considered to be cheating if involved in any of the following: using unauthorized cheat sheets, opening books during closed-book tests, talking during tests, plagiarising (as defined by instructor), or in any other case of cheating detected. Plagiarism can take several forms, including but not limited to:

1. Using the exact words of another student.
2. Copying and pasting materials from the Internet or other electronic resources without

proper citation, quotation or referencing.

1. Accepting excessive assistance from another person in writing.
2. Writing a computer program that is the same or closely similar to public sources or

solutions of other students.

The similarity is a machine-determined score that should not exceed the given percentage. The percentage is determined by the regulation document for the exact work (e.g. course project, BS/MS thesis, or coding assignment). Similarity can include quotations, in-text citations, names, titles, terms, and code. Similarity can be measured:

1. among students’ works,
2. as well as with other datasets.

Similarity checks shall only be applied to long text works in natural or programming language to prove the fact of copying. For example, similarity reports are a necessary part of thesis validation procedure and coding assignments, but such reports cannot be applied to exam works and tests, where similarity does not necessarily mean copying. As there is no universal scale for similarity, for each particular assignment and course professor should clearly specify expectations for similarity in the policy document or in assignment notification. If a group of students receives the same assignment, not passing a similarity check shall be treated as plagiarism. If a student is doing a personal task (thesis, project, ...), high similarity cases shall be managed by the supervisor. In our university, we use jPlag for code similarity detection, Turnitin for essay check and Antiplagiat for thesis check. If you want to get tutorials on these systems, please contact the Department of Education (education@innopolis.ru).

Statement

All academic misconduct cases shall be reported to the IU Department of Education (DoE) and Student Affairs Office (SAO) using the official email address (education@innopolis.ru, 319@innopolis.ru). Specify the following:

1. Student(s) name(s) involved and their roles;
2. Date and time the case was detected;
3. Course affected by the situation;
4. Short description of the situation. Please refer to this policy or other policy documents

which you use to identify the misconduct.

The Student Affairs Office should create a track record of student’s activities including misconduct cases starting from the Bootcamp participation until the final thesis defense. We assume that there is a publicly available cheating policy document for the whole course, particular assignment, or exam, i.e. it is clear if it is allowed or not to use electronic devices, notes, cheat sheets, books, etc. during the tests. Any violation of the said policy, as well as plagiarism cases, shall be considered equally. The committee decision shall be taken with a consensus of all participants. The process participants shall be able to know the committee members. The committee shall be of 3 people: a course professor, a teacher not involved in the course affected, and an official student representative. Cases involving the first-year students should be considered with the most thoroughness.

Procedure

Should an instructor (teaching assistant or professor) have reason to believe that one or more works are copied from unauthorized resources, and action on a test is taken in violation, or work of one student is copied from another (as defined in plagiarism clarification), the the procedure below shall be followed.

1. The instructor shall report the case to DoE and SAO (education@innopolis.ru and 319@innopolis.ru).
2. The instructor shall inform the suspected students about the above finding separately, and discuss this incident. They shall be penalized as per the recommendations below and a report will be submitted to DoE outlining these decisions. In case of copying from each other—both students shall be penalized. The actions of the instructor are considered final.
3. In the event of an appeal to the DoE, the student must present a clear written rationale for why the decision was in error. If the DoE agrees that the student appeal has merit then an appeal committee is formed of one student representative, the course PI, and an unrelated professor selected by the DoE. Otherwise, the decision of the course PI is considered final and the report is entered.

• The student shall contact the committee and provide the said committee with the following materials: a cheating policy for this course/test/exam, students’ papers/code, any other findings, including the student’s arguments.
• The committee shall study the above materials.
• The committee can contact the students to listen to their arguments or ask questions. However, this shall be upon the committee’s discretion.
• The committee shall make an appeal decision to either accept or reject. This decision shall be final.
• Any fabrications of data or false statements made to the DoE or the Committee during the appeals process will be seen as a separate instance of misconduct and the DoE or the Committee may impose additional outcomes if necessary when the actions have impeded investigation.

Procedure from instructor’s point of view

1. Instructor reports the violation case to DoE and SAO.
2. Instructor notifies students involved (can be BCC in report email).
3. In case of student’s appeal, instructor may be invited to participate in committee.

Procedure from student’s point of view

1. The student gets a notification about academic misconduct.
2. The student may appeal. He/she collects the documents (3.a) and submits to DoE and

SAO.

Procedure from an administration point of view

1. DoE and SAO get the report about student misconduct.
2. SAO tracks the record and asks DoE to act in case violation is not the first (see penalty section).
3. In case of student’s appeal, DoE with the help of programmanagers collects a committee.

Penalty

Note that the following are the minimal actions.

1. Should a student be found to have committed misconduct for the first time, such a student shall receive zero points for the particular work (assignment/exam/test/homework)
2. Should a student be found to have committed misconduct for the second time, the following actions shall be taken:
   1. Such a student shall:
      1. receive zero points for the course (or courses if 2 cheating instances are detected in different courses);
      2. be sent to retake.
   2. An official warning shall be issued for the said student.
3. Should a student be found to have committed misconduct for the third time (without respect to the course), such a student shall be expelled from Innopolis University.

In the event that the actions were of a grievous nature, e.g. a student using a work for hire an assignment, a bomb/shooting threat, etc., the DoE maintains the right to increase the outcomes. A student might also be subject to additional actions on the part of the professor or DoE in order to maintain class order, have recompense of the action, or in order to learn a proper scholarly methodology, e.g. be required to make an apology to classmates affected, be required to write an essay or attend a course on how to cite properly, etc.