COMP2720 • 2008 • Portfolio
Due week 13 (Saturday 1 November, 6 pm)

Objectives

The objectives of the portfolio are to create a Web site which contains the pieces of work you have programmed and created in all your labs and home works (but not assignments!), as well as extra programs or media files (pictures, sounds, etc.) you have created using the tools and techniques presented in COMP2720. Your portfolio should demonstrate your ability to process new media files and present them online in an appropriate way.

With this portfolio you can focus on either your technical or your artistic abilities of the topics covered in COMP2720.

Developing your portfolio

Similar to the labs and assignments, you should develop your portfolio Web site in your account on an ANU computer, or your personal computer. The best is if you create a sub-folder called portfolio in your comp2720 folder, and then copy all the files for your portfolio into this folder. You can then use the Open file.. menu from a Web browser to load your portfolio Web site and check if all looks OK and that all links work.

We will ask you in lab 5 in week 9 how much you have done so far for your portfolio, and give you feedback and answer questions you might have about the portfolio.

Submission

You will have to publish your portfolio Web site (and it will be assessed by us) on the student course-work Web-server http://liskov.anu.edu.au.

The main portfolio Web page must be in a folder named comp2720 in the public_html folder within your home directory. When assessing your portfolio we will access the URL:

http://liskov.anu.edu.au/~u1234567/comp2720/

(with u1234567 being replaced by your standard ANU Uni ID). We will copy all the files accessible at this URL onto our computer for marking.

This is one good example of the last year portfolio website, and here is another good last year portfolio. You will need a file index.html (index.php will not work!) in your public_html/comp2720/ folder which corresponds to your main portfolio Web page.

The two portfolios are provided only for illustration. We will be very mindful if you attempt to "re-use" some of their contents in your own work

To upload files onto the server, execute the following steps.

Your portfolio Web site must be published by Friday 31 October 6 pm.

Extensions

Students will only be granted an extension on the submission deadline in exceptional circumstances. Work and sporting commitments are normally NOT sufficient grounds. If you think you have grounds for an extension, you should notify the course coordinator as soon as possible and provide written evidence in support of your case (e.g. medical certificate). The course coordinator will then decide whether to grant an extension and inform you as soon as practical.

Late Penalties

On Friday 31 October, shortly after 6 pm we will run a program that will copy all your files from your public_html/comp2720 (including sub-folders) onto one of our computers, where we will mark all submitted portfolios (if you think that we will actually do it next Monday — dream on, and learn about cron jobs).

If you put more material up later we will consider it, however you will get a late penalty (see details below).

You have to make sure your COMP2720 portfolio Web site is accessible as otherwise we will not be able to mark it! The simplest way to check this is to access the URL of your portfolio Web site using a Web browser and check if you can access all files you have uploaded (i.e. check that all links in your portfolio work).

Late submissions: We will again access the portfolios on Monday 29 October, 6 pm with a late penalty -2 out of 18 applied. For students who have submitted after Wednesday 31 October (6 pm) a late penalty of -4 out of 18 will apply.

Plagiarism

You should read the chapter in the Department of Computer Science Student Handbook that discusses assessment (Chapter 6, pages 17-25), particularly the sections headed Misconduct in examinations (which also applies to assignments and other forms of assessment) and Guidelines for assignments.

We will compare all submissions manually and electronically, with any that are suspiciously similar being investigated by the course coordinator. If such similarities cannot be satisfactorily explained, appropriate action (see the penalties mentioned in the handbook) will be taken.

Tasks

1. Your portfolio Web site should contain all your workings from the 6 labs and 2 home works (but not the assignments!), in total at least 8 pieces of work. You will get up to 4 marks for any extra work you put onto your portfolio Web site!

2. Each piece of work should contain the programs you have written in a lab or home work, the original media files (pictures, sounds, etc.) you have used, the media files you have produced (manipulated pictures, sounds, etc.), and the diaries you have written in the labs and home works. The format of the diaries should be simple text, not RTF or DOC, or anything else.

3. The structure of your Web site, it's design and layout should follow accepted guidelines. For example read through the links on Web design and usability by Jacob Nielsen from the COMP1710 Web site.

4. While the structure, layout and design of your portfolio Web site is up to you, we expect you to clearly display on the top of the main page your name, Uni ID, and focus of your portfolio (technical or artistic, see below for more details). See the above last year samples.

5. Your Web site should use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). See the COMP1710 CSS lecture material, or the CSS Zen Garden. One of the styles should present your Web site optimised for printing (for example dark fonts and bright background, with high contrast), and another for displaying on a normal computer screen. You can add other CSS styles if you like. Two simple example styles can be found here.
   • print.css
   • screen.css
   See Yesteryear G. Student's portfolio Web site (use View Page Source) for more information on how you can change the styles.

6. Within your portfolio Web site you have to focus on one of two different aspects of COMP2720.
   • Artistic
     With this focus, we will NOT assess the quality of your programs, but look at the media files (both originals and manipulated) you have included into your portfolio, how well they are suitable for a given manipulation task, and descriptions of the steps you have taken when doing these manipulations (see below for more details).

   • Technical
     With this focus, we will assess the quality of the programs you have included into your portfolio, as well as their technical descriptions. We will NOT assess the media files chosen, if they are suitable or not (for example a full moon picture containing the sun). We will assess your programming style (programming structure, modularisation, variable names, comments, etc.), as well as the description of these programs (see below for more details).

   We will assess your portfolio Web site according to your chosen focus. Please read the Marking section below before you decide which focus you are choosing. You have to clearly display which focus you have chosen for your portfolio at the top of your main portfolio Web page.

Marking

Up to six (6) marks will be awarded for the general appearance of your portfolio Web site.

• Up to two (2) marks for the completeness of your portfolio (2 marks if all 8 pieces (6 labs and 2 home works) are available in the portfolio, 1 mark only if one or two pieces is/are missing, 0 (zero) marks if your portfolio contains less than 6 pieces of work).

• One (1) mark for a good structure and organisation of your portfolio (according to design and usability guidelines).

• One (1) mark for a good presentation and layout of your portfolio (again, according to design and usability guidelines).

• Up to two (2) marks for correctly including of at least two CSS files (0 mark if you don't use CSS, 1 mark if you simply use the two CSS files provided above, 2 marks if you improve these styles or add at least one more style). Make sure you describe (for example comment, or add a description on the portfolio Web page) of your styles.

• For an artistic focus the following marks will be awarded.
  • Up to two (2) marks for suitably chosen media files for the different tasks in the labs and home works.

  • Up to two (2) marks for the description (for example in the lab diaries) of (a) why you choose these media files for a given task, (b) the steps you have taken when you manipulated these media files, and (c) the reasoning behind these steps, and (d) the final result (if it corresponds to your expectations).

  • Up to two (2) marks for the final manipulated media files (if they do look or sound like according to the task and your descriptions).

  • Up to two (2) marks for exceptional media files (including descriptions) produced on top of what was expected in the labs and home works.

• For a technical focus the following marks will be awarded.
  • Up to two (2) marks for the programming structure (functions, modularisation, etc.) of your JES/Python media programs.

  • Up to two (2) marks for the readability and understandability (variable names, comments, etc.) of your JES/Python media programs.

  • Up to two (2) marks for the descriptions (for example in the lab diaries) of these programs. For each function, Python comments should be given describing what the function is doing, what each input parameter is, and a description of what the function returns (if it does return something).

  • Up to two (2) marks for exceptional additional programs included in your portfolio (i.e. programs produced on top of what was expected in the labs and home works).

Finally, you can get up to four (4) more marks if you do include additional material into your portfolio. Examples include, but are not limited, to:

• You have programmed you own picture or sound modification programs in JES/Python (besides the ones in the labs or home works).

• If you read through the Movies chapter (12) in the text book (a chapter we have to skip due to time limitations), and you have created and included into the portfolio your own movie programs (including descriptions of what you did, and the JES/Python programs you used to create these movies).

• You have done media programming using another Python library (e.g. PIL).

Important

• If you get an error message 403 Forbidden when you try to access your portfolio Web page, type in the following commands in your home directory on DCS account:

       cd ~
       chmod ugo+rx public_html
       chmod ugo+rx public_html/comp2720
       cd public_html/comp2720
       chmod -R ugo+xr * 
       

  This will set the correct access rights for your Web folder and its content.