EDGE

Department Standards

Standards for the programmes at the Department of Game Design

Department of Game Design
Uppsala University

May 15, 2023

Purpose
This document is meant to communicate department standards of examina-
tion and practicalities, which are to be employed throughout the programmes
in Game Design. Our work should always follow the guidelines provided by
Uppsala University first, our faculty second and these recommendations third,
should they be in conflict.

1.1 Temporal & Spatial Standards

Lectures should run for no more than 45 minutes without a break.

Courses given as on-site courses requires you to be on location for exams and compulsory presence elements.

1.2 Communication Standards

E-mail

Critical information is always communicated through the course web portal or via e-mail addressed to the student e-mail.

Always use your student e-mail in communication with staff.

Distance Teaching and Meetings

• • Teaching over distance at the Department is generally done through Zoom. The exception of the Transformative Game Design Courses, which feature recorded lectures and other materials and asynchronous assignments. For synchronous playtest sessions, please follow the following guidelines:
  • When attending distance courses or having digital meetings, you are
    expected to be able to contribute by being heard and seen, requir-
    ing a camera (for pedagogic and identification purposes). The fol-
    lowing is expected for the following situations:
    • Lecture with more than 15 attendants
      • Camera maybe turned off, unless you are interacting with others, talking or otherwise contributing to the pedagogical environment.
  • Presentation, workshop, meeting, seminar:
    • • Camera is turned on.
  • Lecture with less than 15 attendants
    • • Camera is turned on.

Teachers must not examine students who do not appear identifiable in examinations.

If you are suffering from a medical condition which makes attending the education with the use of a camera difficult, contact the Student Health to obtain a recommendations letter.

1.3 Examination Standards

The Department uses the grades

• • • Fail,
    • Pass and
    • Pass with Distinction.

Grades for courses should all be stated as one of these and no other distinctions. Some courses utilize only the grades Pass and Fail.

Communicating Assessment

The graded assessments in a course as well as the grading criteria are communicated on the first day of the course, as well as the rules for mandatory presence.

Re-examination

Re-examination is offered at least once for all courses, if possible. Not all assignments are of a nature where providing re-examination is possible without exhausting department resources, for example for
group work. After one year, Re-examination on a single assignment is no longer possible and the student must instead re-take the course in its entirety.

Group Work

Conditions for group work is communicated on the first day of the course, as well as the repercussions of failing to adhere to the conditions provided. In general, the department utilizes a two-strike system where a group member is warned if there is reason to exclude them from a group (i.e behaviour that is deemed destructive). If the group member persists in not adhering to the group work conditions, the group member is excluded, which might mean that the individual fails the related assignment. All group members are consulted when such a situation arises.

Clarity

Each discrete practical or theoretical element in a course should clearly be identifiable as either an exercise or an element of the examination. An exercise is any assignment or work that is not being graded.

Occurrence

Examinations, or Assessments are defined by an Opening date, a Due Date and a Closing Date. After the due date, hand-ins are considered Late. After the Closing Date, no further hand-ins or revisions are accepted.

The Assessments occur:

• • During the course
  • Depending on availability, at end of the current semester.
  • After the Second Attempt, Students may retake the course the next time it runs.

Each Assessment Attempt has a distinct Opening, Due and Closing Date.

Opening Date is when the assignment opens, i.e when you can first hand in a written assignment.

Due Date indicates when the assignment is due, i.e the last opportunity to hand in the assignment and not be considered late. Being late might impact grading if doing things in a timely manner is part of the grading criteria. Assignments handed before the Due date are to be graded no more than 25 calendar days after the Due Date. Assignments handed in prior to the deadline have until the Closing Date to supplement assignments which fail to reach the Pass Criteria. 

Closing Date indicates when the assignment closes for this Assessment Attempt. Assignments handed in between the Due and Closing Date are graded no more than 25 calendar days after the Closing Date. The Closing Date is 45 days after the Due Date.

Examiners may ask that you Apply in advance to be part of an Assessment Attempt, in order to be able to plan for the amount of grading that has to be done.

Completing old courses

A student has one year to complete a course at the Department. After that, the student may apply to be re-registered to the course,
but will have to redo the course in its entirety, meaning that if for example, you completed assignment 1 in a 7.5c course comprised of three assignments, you will have to do assignment 1 again if a year has passed.

This is, unless the student has completed a Module in the course which has been graded and reported in LADOK. Completed Modules do not have to be done anew.

Number of attempts

Students may, as a rule, attempt to achieve the grade Pass up to a minimum of five times. The Department offers two attempts each academic year.

Handing in assignments

Assignments are handed in via the relevant portal course website. All staff have received strict instructions to never accept assignments via e-mail. The reason for this is security and longevity (if the relevant teacher’s e-mail is compromised or the teacher quits, digging up your old assignment is a lot more complicated than to restore old data from the central organization). Individual teachers may of course offer to read and provide feedback on assignments in progress, but graded hand-ins are to be sent in via the relevant course website.

1.4 Issues and Conflicts

There are several ways to communicate experienced issues or resolving conflicts, one through the department functions and one by turning to the student union. You can find the Student Working Conditions online via the course website.

Student Union

Students can always turn to the student union either directly, through their subject division or through their representatives to resolve issues. The student union will represent the student body throughout any such process and usually communicates with either the Director of Studies or the Head of Department, depending on the issue.

Department

If and when something about the education, or student rights is out of line, the Department recommends the relevant Course Responsible as a first point of contact. If that communication is not feasible or does not work or if the issue is greater in scope than a course, students are recommended to either communicate with the Director of Studies or turn to one of the elected Student Representatives to either bring the issue up with the Department Board or the Director of Studies. https://speldesign.uu.se/students/student-representation/

1.5 Customized Conditions

• Neurodevelopmental disorders, stress and anxiety usually call for individual solutions in order to provide as equal a learning environment as we can. We usually employ individual solutions in agreements with the concerned course responsible lecturers. These principles are guidelines for such solutions. The department utilizes the following general principles for providing an equal opportunity learning environment:
• The Course Responsible should be informed of any conditions relevant to arranging special conditions for studies and exams, at the first day of the course.
• The Department does not take responsibility for seeking out individuals in need of aid. Students are responsible for establishing contact to form agreements with the department regarding the arrangement of special conditions for studies and exams.
• The most common special condition we provide is to extend deadlines. In order for us to do this, the Director of Studies, student health service and the
  Course Responsible need to be informed of the need for special conditions in advance.
• Conditional admissions are as a principle considered, in order to facilitate extended deadlines. Conditional admissions are as a principle not considered if the student is more than a semester behind, in which case we generally recommend a break from studies or that the pace of studies is changed so that the student may catch up.
• If you find yourself in an arduous life situation (Loss of family, grave illness, serious accidents), please do communicate with your Course Responsible or the Study Adviser and we can generally reach a compromise and consider providing a customized condition for your immediate situation. 

2.1 Plagiarism

If you are considering plagiarizing, it is usually because you are stressed. Do consider that the potential outcomes of cheating can lead to disruption of studies due to being expelled for a limited time. That might mean that you will have no chance of completing critical courses, which leads to you having to stay studying for additional months.

Instead, please communicate with the Examiner or Course Responsible, if time is an issue, they can most likely provide you with the options for handing in late and in certain cases, give you an extended deadline.

2.2 Harassment and Discrimination

The department works continuously to prevent and fight harassment and discrimination. If the department leadership so much as gets notice of discrimination, or harassment, they have to start an investigation. As a department, we are vigilant opponents to all kinds of harassment and discrimination as it is an impairment to the learning environment. If you are made aware of discrimination or harassment from anyone with ties to your place of study, please contact one of these individuals:

The Head of Department
The Student Health
The Student Union
The University Website’s working conditions and equal opportunities document: https://www2.uu.se/en/students/your-rights/

2.3 References

The department utilizes the APA or Harvard reference system. APA is generally considered to be friendlier in terms of referencing games. You can read more about the APA referencing standard here:

https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide

2.4 Responsibility to Keep Records

You are required to keep all records (i.e. tests, assignments, tutorials and other work for which marks have been allocated) in safekeeping until the eventual completion of the course. Failure to do so would prevent the possible discussion of mistakes and misconceptions of marks achieved.