Bonus Assignments
Voluntary bonus assignments and points
In addition to mandatory term test(s) and final exams, some (actually the best) students can receive extra bonus points during the semester which count already toward the semester limit of >=10 points. Generally, these bonus points are awarded only for extraordinary achievements by the students, and their allocation is at sole decision of the teacher. For instance:
- During the first weeks of the semester, bonus homework assignments will be announced. These will be, usually, some relatively hard mathematical problems concerning graph theory. Interested students are expected to think about these problems, and come up with some new ideas towards solution of the selected problem. The good (and the best) solutions will then be awarded a bonus which may reach from 5 up to 80 points. Often even partial solutions or just nice related side ideas may be awarded.
- Another (non-exclusive) possibility to receive some bonus points is to find a (significant) mistake somewhere in the course materials or tests, and come up with a detailed analysis of the issue and some suggestions of a solution.
Deadline for all bonus homework assignments: 6.12. 2011
If you submit your solution by 20.11. 2011, then you automatically receive +50% of bonus points.
General remarks concerning bonus assignments
If you have any specific questions, do not hesitate to ask your tutor, or me directly.
What do we expect in a properly written solution? Mainly a mathematically well-structured and sound text, explicit formulations of all the claims you make for the solution, and full formal proofs of these claims (or citations to external sources, see below). You should also define all terms which are not common in our course. And, of course, we expect a self-contained PDF file, no other format is allowed!
Notice that bonus point rewards for your solutions are given at sole decision of the teacher, and the points shall reflect also relative quality of your solution in comparison to other submitted solutions. So even if your solution is not complete, just better than the others, you may be rewarded. The general rule is that only the part that presents your own original added value in the solution will score. Particularly, every suspected copywork will be disregarded immediately.
The last remark concerns external sources and citations. Of course, we expect you not to solve everything from scratch, but to look first for related theory and results in the literature. However, you always must fully cite all the sources you use, inluding say discussions with your teachers or fellow students. Your solutions should then give a valuable original contribution on top of the other (cited!) sources.