Marking Scheme:

1. 1. 30% Class Presentation (30 minute presentation/ 15 min question period)
      Marking scheme
      30 marks
      Presentation of a paper assigned by one of the lecturing professors. (20 marks evaluated by course coordinator, 10 marks evaluated by peer-review/colleagues)
      
      10 marks (coordinators) 5 marks (students)
      - presentation of background material necessary to understand the hypothesis
      - presentation of introduction, results, methods
      
      10 marks (coordinators) 5 marks (students)
      - critical analysis of discussion
      - presentation of controversies inherent in the research
      - ability to promote discussion and questions from student colleagues
      
      
   2. 10% Respondent
      Marking scheme
      10 marks
      - each student will act as a 'respondent' for one student presentation. The respondent will be required to be familiar with the article prior to the presentation and open the question period following the student presentation.
      - the grade will reflect how well the respondent initiates discussion and/or offers alternative explanations or critique of the paper being discussed
      
      
   3. 10% Class participation
      Marking scheme
      10 marks
      - participation in class discussions and presentations
      - students will be asked to hand in one question per paper under discussion at the beginning of each class. The lecturer and coordinator will evaluate the depth of the question and assign a mark of 0, 0.5 or 1 mark.
      - students may miss one class without penalty.
      - students will be asked to grade the presentations and provide their colleagues with feedback using a marking scheme provided at each class.
      -the class participation mark will be an combination of the evaluation of the depth of written questions (5 marks) and the evaluation marks assigned by the course coordinators for oral participation (5 marks)
      
      
   4. 30% Scholarly reviews of papers
      Marking scheme
      30 marks
      Students will be asked to write scholarly reviews of two recently published papers in the Journal of Neuroscience that employ a Systems Biology approach. Complete instructions are found here. These reviews will then be subjected to peer-review by the coordinators and two colleagues. 50% of the grade will be determined by your colleagues as part of this review process (15 marks). The remaining 50% of the grade for the grant proposal will be determined by the course coordinators (15 marks).
      
      
   5. 10% Peer Review
      Marking scheme
      10 marks
      Students will be assigned two review articles written by one of their colleagues for peer-review. Each student will write a 1-2 pg critical assessment of their colleague's article determining whether the article provides "sufficiently novel insights" and "a cogent and concise explanation of those insights" as required for publication by the Journal of Neuroscience. These written peer-reviews will be graded by course coordinators (5 marks/review: Total 10 marks) and returned to your colleagues.
      
      
   6. 10% Final Co-author Writing of a Scholarly Review Submitted to the Journal of Neuroscience for Publication as a Journal Club Article
      Marking scheme
      10 marks
      Students will be divided into two groups and will re-write as co-authors a final scholarly article combining the best features of each of their individual efforts. These articles will be graded by the course coordinators (10 marks) and submitted by each group to the Journal of Neuroscience for publication.

   Please note: Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students who are found to have plagiarized their scholarly articles or reviews will receive the grade of F (0 marks for the course). We will discuss in detail what plagiarism means during the first writing workshops. Students are required to read the University of Ottawa's guidelines on plagiarism (pdf).

Class links:

• Schedule
• Presentation papers
• Marking Scheme
• Class List
• Deadlines
• Unofficial Grades
• Home Page