Glossary

(This will be extended if there is a demand for it)

• laboratory session - a timetabled period (usually 2 hours long) in which the students are meant to undertake some specific work for a specific module.

• deadline (or unextended deadline) - the end of a laboratory session at which students are meant to have completed a specific item of work.

• extension - most deadlines can be extended to their extended deadline without penalty. The students must normally ask for this extension, and failure to do so means their deadline is not extended.

• extended deadline - most deadlines have an extended deadline. This is always the start of a subsequent laboratory session, usually the immediately following one. The process of obtaining the extension extends the deadline for the student.

• excuse - there are three kinds of excuse: excuse for being absent, excuse for not obtaining the extension, and excuse for not meeting the extended deadline. This latter normally extends the extended deadline to the excuse expiry date.

• excuse expiry date - an excuse for not meeting the extended deadline, given by a laboratory supervisor, normally expires on the excuse expiry date (printed near the top of the laboratory data sheet). This is usually the date of the session immediately following the extended deadline.

• special excuse - an excuse for not meeting the extended which does not automatically expire. This can only be awarded by the appropriate laboratory manager. Such extra time is negotiated with the student, and the excuse can be manually expired by the laboratory manager.

• late - a piece of work can be flagged as late for one or more of 3 reasons: 1) the (unextended) deadline was not met and no extension was obtained; 2) the (unextended) deadline was not met, the extension was obtained but the extended deadline was missed; 3) the (unextended) deadline was not met, the extension was obtained, the student was excused for missing the extended deadline, but this excuse expired before the work was completed.

• laboratory manager - a person with overall responsibility for the smooth running of all the laboratories for courses associated with one year. The first year laboratory manager is John Latham (email: jtl@cs.man.ac.uk) and the second year laboratory manager is Alan Williams (email: alaw@cs.man.ac.uk).

• ARCADE Operator - Lynda Smith (email: lynda@cs.man.ac.uk) who, with some help, enters all the data from all the laboratory sheets into ARCADE.

• laboratory supervisor - a member of staff assigned to the laboratory sessions for a module for a number of groups, who is responsible for the smooth running of those laboratory sessions, and accurate recording of the ARCADE data associated with them.

• demonstrator - a postgraduate student (usually) assigned to assist the laboratory supervisors for a number of modules for a number of groups. Their primary function is to help students with their academic and technical problems, and mark work.

• ARCADE - the management system developed by John Latham used to help run the laboratories. ARCADE stands for Administering and Running Continuous Assessment with Deadlines and Extensions.

• labmail - a program used by students to submit their work for certain exercises for certain modules to the laboratory archive, for storage and plagiarism detection. This is usually done after the work is marked, unless there is likely to be a significant delay between the work being completed and it being marked.