SGC Website Grading Rubric

Style Rubric
Content Rubric

Total grade for the website is typically 25% Style Rubric, 75% Content Rubric. (For Professional Academic Webpage, it is 50%/50%).

Late Penalties: Online projects must be uploaded by the date listed. We will typically check to see if they have been uploaded the week after they are due: if they are not present at this time, you will have a -15 point penalty off of the Style portion and be sent a warning to get it uploaded within the week. If not present by the second week (i.e., within 1 week of the warning email), you will bet a 0 on the project.

STYLE RUBRIC:

All SGC Websites include the Style Rubric portion (typically 25% of the grade, unless otherwise noted). Additions of up to +5 points for exceptional design.

Plus (100 pts):
  • All of the following items are present:
    • Filename follows SGC convetions
    • Site is in HTML code, lacks any extraneous HMTL "gunk": please check this list for the proper codes for different special characters, symbols, etc.
    • Page uses the same CSS format as the other pages in your website
    • If you used a CSS format created by someone else, you list the appropriate indicia (such as the Creative Commons license) on the bottom on the page
    • Hotlinks from page (to main SGC site, to Scholars site, and to University main page; other projects may have additional required links) are all operational
    • Hotlink from your Professional Academic Website (obviously not a requirement for the Professional Academic Webpage itself)
    • Text has sufficient contrast from background (i.e., not dark on dark; not red on green or vice versa; not light on light) to be easily legible
    • Images are properly-sized (600 pixel width or smaller)
    • Images are legally used and properly acknowledged
    • Text corrected from template where appropriate (title, date, etc.)
    • Music, video, or other interactive media (if any) does not automatically start when page is opened
  • English grammar, technical grammar (taxonomic, geological, chemical, astronomical, etc.), and spelling of words is all correct

Check Plus (90 pts):
  • Mistakes in any one of the style elements OR one to two errors in English grammar, technical grammar, or spelling

Check (80 pts):
  • Mistakes in any two to three of the style elements OR three to four errors in English grammar, technical grammar, or spelling OR one style element and one to two grammar or spelling mistakes

Check Minus (70 pts):
  • Mistakes in four or five of the style elements OR five or more in English grammar, technical grammar, or spelling OR two to three of the style elements and three to four of the grammar or spelling mistakes

Minus (60 pts):
  • Mistakes in style elements, English grammar, technical grammar, or spelling exceeding any of the above values

Zero (0 pts):
  • Assignment not in HTML or not completed

CONTENT RUBRIC:

Consult the assignment for the specific content required elements (such as the specific questions to address; annotated bibliography; etc.). Additions of up to +5 points for exceptional insight.

Plus (100 pts):
  • All content requirements (e.g., required questions; annotated bibliography; requested information; etc.) provided in full. Great explanation and logical, well-defended points presented. Thorough analysis and interpretation.

Check Plus (90 pts):
  • All content requirements (e.g., required questions; annotated bibliography; requested information; etc.) provided, but one or two are incompletely developed. Good explanation and points presented. Analysis and interpretation could be better.

Check (80 pts):
  • One content requirements missing, or three or four content requirements incompletely developed. Some of the explanations and points presented are weak. Analysis and interpretation could be better.

Check Minus (70 pts):
  • Two or three content requirements missing, or five or more content requirements incompletely developed. Some of the explanations and points presented are weak. Analysis and interpretation could be better.
Minus (60 pts):
  • Four or more content requirements missing. Most of the explanations and points presented are weak. Analysis and interpretation logically and/or factually flawed.
Zero (0 pts):
  • Assignment not completed (not mounted or grossly insufficient).
NOTES
  • Image size: In general, keep them 600 pixels wide or smaller. That is 8 1/3 inches wide at standard screen resolution (72 dpi), so there is no reason to make them bigger. In general, try and save the version of the image that you mount on the website at 600 pixels or smaller: this will mean that you will have to resize (resample) images taken by most digital cameras. (If there is some compelling reason to have a larger image, please contact Merck or Holtz).

  • Legal use of images:
    • Images that you generate yourself (i.e., photographs you take, images you draw) are yours to use freely.
    • Images that are in the public domain (for example, from non-classified government sites) are also fine, although you should acknowledge your sources.
      • The acknowledgement might be in the form of a caption or (if you want to be a bit more sophisticated) a "rollover" caption.
    • Other images are almost certainly NOT free for your use, and you should not include them on your site. Instead, use a text hot link to that image.
    • Avoid "deep links" (i.e., having the image show up on your site, even though it isn't on your server), as this remains a legally ambiguous situation. (A case can be made for the use of educationally-related materials on an educational website under the "fair use" clause; however, many private companies are very protective of the use of their images.)
    • Most importantly, JUST BECAUSE A PICTURE IS ON THE WEB DOES NOT MAKE IT "PUBLIC DOMAIN"!

  • SGC website naming conventions:
    • Your main homepage must have the format "youremailname.html" (where "youremailname" is your umd.edu email name).
    • In all cases, you must not use spaces in the name of your webpages and image files: either run the name together to form a single word ("anexample.jpg") or use underscore marks instead of spaces ("an_alternative_example.html").

  • Some common grammatical conventions that SGC students encounter:
    • Names of journals, books, movies, TV shows, and ships (including fictional spaceships), are in italics.
    • Names of journal articles, short stories, and episodes of TV shows are in "quotation marks" when referenced in the body text.

  • Taxonomic grammar:
    • Latin names of species are two word italicized names. The first word (which is also the genus name) is capitalized; the second word (or trivial nomen) is lowercase. Examples include: Homo sapiens, Tyrannosaurus rex, Cooperoceras texanum. If you abbreviate the species name, you must use the capitalized first letter of the genus name, a period, a space, and the full trivial nomen, all in italics: so H. sapiens, T. rex, and C. texanum. (NOTE: "T-Rex" or "T-rex" are just wrong!)
    • Latin names of genera are single word italicized capitalized names: e.g., Homo, Tyrannosaurus, Cooperoceras.
    • Other Latin names are capitalized but not in italics: e.g., Hominidae, Primates, Tyrannosauroidea, Dinosauria, Cephalopoda, Mollusca. However, the vernacular (i.e., English) equivalents to these are ordinary nouns rather than proper names, so treat them as such: hominid, primate, tyrannosauroid, dinosaur, cephalopod, mollusk.

  • Geologic grammar:
    • Both the formal name of a geologic time unit and the rank itself are capitalized. Thus, it is "Jurassic Period", "Early Cambrian Epoch", and "Paleozoic Era", not "Jurassic period", "early Cambrian epoch", and "Paleozoic era".
    • Similarly, both the formal name and the word "formation" (or "group", "member", etc.), or the lithology, must be capitalized when refering to formal stratigraphic units. Thus, it is the "Purslane Formation", "Tonto Group", and "Oriskany Sandstone", not the "Purslane formation", "Tonto group", and "Oriskany sandstone".
    • The prefixes in geologic time conform to the capitalization rules of metric prefixes more generally, so the lowercase "k" is 103 (kilo-, thousands), capital "M" is 106 (mega-, millions), and capital "G" is 109 (giga-, billions). In refering to dates in the geologic past, use "a" (for "annum", year): thus, 18 ka would be 18,000 years before present; 65.5 Ma would be 65,500,000 years ago; and 4.56 Ga would be 4,560,000,000 years ago. For durations, use "yr" (years) rather than "a". So 18 kyr would be any 18,000 year period in Earth history, rather than specifically the last 18,000 years. For example, the Mesozoic Era (which began at 251 Ma and ended 65.5 Ma) had a duration of 185.5 Myr.

  • Chemical grammar:
    • Numbers for isotopes of an element are in superscript prior the element abbreviation: e.g., 14C, 238U.
    • Numbers for ionic charges are superscripts after the element or ion abbreviation: e.g., H+, SO42-.
    • Numbers for element abundance in a chemical formula are in subscript after the appropriate element: e.g., CO2, H2SO4.

Last modified: 23 December 2011