Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/Discrete and numerical mathematics/Learning plan/Academic year 2018-2019

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As you can read in several sites within Wikipedia (Help:Introduction to talk pages; Wikipedia:Tutorial/Talk pages; Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines; Help:Talk pages), talk pages are used to discuss improvements to Wikipedia articles or pages, for example, which sections to add, which topics to move to other articles or pages, which photos to use, what level of detail to use to describe a particular topic, etc.; in particular, Wikipedia is not a forum.

In this way, this page must be used to discuss the learning plan, its development and assessment. Is it effective to add more examples or exercises to the learning plan page? Would it be better to transfer the solutions to these exercises to other sub-pages of the plan? Do we open other sub-pages to upload our solutions, which are different from the solutions worked in the classroom? Do we the students propose more examples with solution? How could we include such proposals as examples in existing articles in the Spanish Wikipedia? Is it necessary to open a section on the exact format of the exam? All this discussion, in addition to being necessary as a matter of common sense, is essential for the project's progress in the Spanish Wikipedia.

Welcome to the course and to its learning plan strengthened by the English Wikipedia

Estimable and respectable student:
My name is Juan Miguel León Rojas and I am part of the teaching staff that will accompany you during the second semester of the 2018-2019 academic year.
I would like to welcome you to the course 'Further Mathematics', aimed at the study of basic concepts of Discrete and Numerical Mathematics.
Now, I briefly introduce you to the course.
As you know, you have the possibility of taking it in Spanish or English. In both cases, I will try to use a clear and simple language without forgetting the university environment we are working in.

The course program (sheet 12a)

You can consult the course program (sheet 12a), here:

https://zurbaran.unex.es/cloud/index.php/s/RqzqR04EI0UwnXX

The learning plan for the course

The aim of the learning plan, published on the English Wikipedia, is to successfully carry out the course program (sheet 12a):

Wikipedia:School and university projects/Discrete and numerical mathematics/Learning plan

You should devote attention to:

The project 'Discrete and numerical mathematics'

The learning plan includes, as an optional out-of-class practical activity, the learning project 'Discrete and numerical mathematics'. The academic component of the present third edition of the project, for the academic course 2018/2019, starts on Thursday, January 31. You can read its descriptive web page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School and university projects/Discrete and numerical mathematics

Once you have read that web page, and if you are interested in the project and only if you have queries or need help to do what you have been told (on that web page) to do or want to help your colleagues to do it or want to share questions, concerns or suggestions about the project, you could attend the day referred to above, i.e., on Thursday, January 31, at 4:00 p.m., to Room O5 (meeting will finish at no later than 5:30 p.m.). (Bring a computer if you need help). (This meeting will be in Spanish).

It is important that you become aware that joining the university project 'Discrete numerical mathematics' is optional. Therefore, it is entirely up to you to do it. But if you do it, remember, you are required to:

(a) use your true identity on free, open and public access web pages (Wikipedia) — although you can use an alias as your username, you must report your real identity (first, middle and last name) on your user page on the English Wikipedia —;
(b) be polite and respect diversity (please remember, diversity is a wealth, it is neither a problem nor a threat);
(c) comply with the rules and obligations laid down by the project coordination (click and read them here), in particular, the dynamic commitments (click and read them here);
(d) help the individuals involved in the project as much as possible;
(e) above all, commit yourself to you.

Assessment of your work in the course

You are offered two ways in which your work in the course could be assessed. You may choose:

(a) to take only the final exam, or
(b) to take the final exam and collaborate, optionally, in the project described above (in accordance with the planned timetable).

Your work will be assessed according to the way you opt for, since attendance at the classes is not mandatory. None of these two ways involves any kind of discrimination with respect to the other in relation to the maximum grade that you can achieve, 'sobresaliente (10)'. (The distinction 'matrícula de honor' is not a grade but a mention; please read, below, the corresponding section).

Only the final exam

In making this choice, the final exam score will constitute the 100 percent of your final grade in the course, with no option for grading with distinction ('matrícula de honor').

As mentioned above, you have access to past real exams with some solutions. You can therefore turn what you have learned into action and practise your skills on a real basis (click here).

The final exam plus the project

Very important: The result that you have achieved in the project will be added to the final exam grade only if the latter is at least 4 out of a maximum of 10 points. Your collaboration during the academic year 2018-2019 will be taken into account only along with the May-June and June-July 2019 final exams grades.

After crossing reference similar projects by other university professors, a student involvement in our project may represent up to 45 percent of their final grade. Thus, the following partial qualifications would form part of such final grade. For the current academic year:

(a) Individual work (IW) (i.e., as a "one-person team"):
- (1) for having done a mandatory minimum of 4 major contributions, at least one per each header topic, up to 30 % of the grade (that is to say, if you would make exactly one major contribution per topic, it would correspond to 7,5 % of the grade per topic);
- (2) for having substantially contributed to an article in such a way that it be quality marked by the English Wikipedia community, up to 7,5 % more.

In this project, we understand as major contributions, those whose bodies (that is, not counting indexes or titles of sections or image captions or footnotes or references or bibliography or annexes or adornments or other additions) have a minimum approximate size of 7500 bytes (as in English, the average word length is approximately 4 bytes, this results in about 1500 words).

(For instance, the body of this section, 'Welcome to the course and to its learning plan strengthened by the English Wikipedia', including this sentence, is 1730 words long).

(b) Collaborative work (CW) within a two or three-person team:
- (1) for having done a mandatory minimum of 4 major contributions, at least one per each header topic, up to 30 % of the grade (that is to say, if they would make exactly one major contribution per topic, then each team member could earn up to 5 % of the grade per topic (although these members could distribute the total percentage gained as a team according to its own team self-evaluation);
- (2) for having achieved that their contribution as a team has been quality marked by the English Wikipedia community, up to 7,5 % more (up to 1,25 % per each member or the inner percentage distribution they could make);
- (3) for having worked as a team, 1,25 % more for each member (or the inner percentage distribution they could make).

Having read the project descriptive page, you sure remember that there are four requirements to do a team work:

(a) Self-selection of the team, i.e. it is up to you to decide with whom you want to carry out the activity.
(b) The maximum number of people in the same team is 3.
(c) The work of the team must comply with the project work schedule.
(d) To ensure that the work of the team will be taken into account, the work of each of its members must comply with the project work schedule.

In no case forget the dynamic commitments that you are undertaking while participating in the project.

(c) Final exam (FE), up to 55 percent.

Once again, and as mentioned above, tell you that you have access to past real exams with some solutions; accordingly, you can turn what you have learned into action and practise your skills on a real basis (click here).

The final grade of the course

Given the above, the final grade would consist of:

If you collaborate in the project, individually and within a team:
${\begin{aligned}FE+IW+CW&=\left(\leqslant 10\right)+IW+CW\\&=\left(\leqslant 10\right)+\left(\left(\leqslant 3\right)+\left(\leqslant 0,75\right)\right)+CW\\&=\left(\leqslant 10\right)+\left(\left(\leqslant 3\right)+\left(\leqslant 0,75\right)\right)+\left(\left(\leqslant {\overline {0,5}}\right)+\left(\leqslant {\overline {0,125}}\right)+\left(\leqslant {\overline {0,125}}\right)\right)\end{aligned}}$
where ${\overline {\mathit {n}}}$ denotes the "fuzziness" of the number ${\mathit {n}}$ , due to the possible inner percentage distribution of some grades.
For example, if you gain, say, 3 points because of your collaboration in the project, it would be enough for you to obtain 7 points on the final exam to earn a 10 as the final grade.
If you decide to limit yourself to individual collaboration:
$\left\{{\begin{aligned}CW&=0\\FE+IW&=\left(\leqslant 10\right)+IW\\&=\left(\leqslant 10\right)+\left(\left(\leqslant 3\right)+\left(\leqslant 0,75\right)\right)\end{aligned}}\right.$
If you decide not to collaborate within the project:
$\left\{{\begin{aligned}IW&=0\\CW&=0\\FE&\leqslant 10\end{aligned}}\right.$

Grading with distinction ('Matrícula de Honor')

One of the rewards for a hard and well-done work is to grade with distinction ('matrícula de honor'). You can be given this mention if you:

(a) have attended classes (large group and seminars/laboratories) regularly and play an active and substantial part in them,
(b) have obtained a final grade equal to or greater than 8 points (out of a maximum of 10), and
(c) have collaborated with the learning project 'Discrete and numerical mathematics' on the English Wikipedia, according to the conditions that appear in it for the current academic year.

Nevertheless, as the Department of Mathematics of the University of Extremadura has given me the teaching assignment of this course, that mention granting is always at my discretion. In any case, the number of students eligible for this mention is limited by statute to less than 5 percent the number of students enrolled in the course in the corresponding academic year unless the number of students enrolled is less than twenty, in which case, the distinction could be given to only one student — see art. 9.3 in UEX assessment regulations (Normativa de evaluación de los resultados de aprendizaje y de las competencias adquiridas por el alumnado en las titulaciones oficiales de la Universidad de Extremadura) (in Spanish) —.

Once the introduction of the course has been made, it only remains to reiterate my welcome and encourage you to participate fully in the collaborative project with Wikipedia. I am sure it will help you gain confidence and trust in yourself, understand teamwork as well as assuming a commitment.
Finally, let me remind you that on January 29 we will have our first class meeting, which we will dedicate to Propositional Logic.
May you receive a cordial greeting,
Jmleonrojas (talk) 21:59, 7 Dec 2018 (UTC).
P.S.: Merry Christmas, happy year 2019 and much good luck with upcoming exams.