Lecture Attendance

Lecture attendance is measured by iClicker. iClicker usage begins with a dry run in lecture 2, then it starts counting for your grade in lecture 3. You will get credit as long as you are answering polls with your iClicker remote. The correctness of your answers does not matter. If you miss answering more than one question on a given day, you will not get credit for that day. We will not manually adjust your attendance score. (Even if we did, the adjustment would be lost the next time we sync the the iClicker gradebook to Canvas.)

You will have a choice about how you want to have your lecture attendance graded:

Option 1: Attendance is optional. If you choose this option, your iClicker score will result in a bonus to your final grade of 0 to 1 points. (Your final grade is out of 100 points.) You start at 1 point, and for each absence 0.1 points are deducted from that potential bonus. Your bonus cannot go negative. Update May 2025: because the final course grade has been changed to be out of 92 points, the maximum bonus is amended to 1% of 92 points = .092 points.
Option 2: Attendance is mandatory. If you choose this option, your iClicker score will result in a bonus to your final grade of –1 to 2 points (out of 100). That is, if you miss too many lectures, your final grade will be penalized. But if you attend most lectures, you can receive a higher bonus than under option 1. You start at 2 points, and for each absence 0.5 points are deducted from that potential bonus. Your "bonus" cannot go below –1. Update May 2025: because the final course grade has been changed to be out of 92 points, the maximum bonus is amended to 2% of 92 points = 1.84 points, and the minimum bonus is -1% of 92 points = -.092 points.

Around the time of the Add deadline, you will be asked to choose one of the options above. You will not be able to change your decision after that. If you do not register your decision at that time, you will be enrolled in option 1 and will not be able to switch to option 2.

Dropped Absences

Two absences will be dropped from your attendance score before any deductions are made, regardless of whether you choose optional or mandatory attendance.

These drops are meant to account for all possible reasons you might be absent, including accommodations, academic considerations, emergencies, illness, sports, travel, interviews, arriving to Ithaca after the beginning of the semester, and departing Ithaca before the end of the semester.

These drops are also meant to account for all possible reasons you might be present but not have your presence recorded by iClicker, including forgetting your iClicker, technical malfunctions, being on the wrong frequency code, having dead batteries, arriving late or leaving early, going to the restroom, and falling asleep. If you add the course late, you will not be granted any additional dropped absences.

As an interesting fact, the New York State Education Department defines "chronic absenteeism" as missing 10% of school days for any reason. If all goes as planned, we'll have 28 lectures. So if someone missed three or more of our lectures, they would have missed more than 10%. In a sense, that would make them chronically absent from our course.

If you expect to experience any of the aforementioned issues, it would be wise to choose option 1 rather than option 2.

How to Acquire an iClicker

You need a physical iClicker remote. The campus bookstore has the remotes, and they are included as part of CAMP. Any of the iClicker models (iClicker, iClicker+, iClicker2) is suitable for use in this course.

The software iClicker Student App will not be supported in this course, because multiple instructors have had disastrous experiences with it. You do, however, have to briefly download it to register your remote according to the instructions linked below.

How to Register Your iClicker

To receive points for lecture attendance, you must register your iClicker following these registration instructions published by Cornell. Further:

You must use your Cornell email (netid@cornell.edu) to register your remote. We cannot award points based on personal email addresses or addresses from another institution.
You do not need to register the remote at iclicker.com.
You must set the frequency code on your remote to AA. If you bought your remote second-hand, this is an important setting to double-check.

How to Troubleshoot Your iClicker

Step 1. The most important property to check is that your iClicker light is turning green when you click the remote during an active poll. As long as that green light appears, your click is being recorded and we can resolve any remaining issues. If the green light does not appear, your clicks are not being recorded and there's nothing we can do to get you credit for them. Make sure your frequency code is AA. That should ensure that your light turns green during an active poll, not red. (Note that if you change your frequency code while a poll is not active, the light will always flash red. You will have to wait until an active poll to confirm the frequency correction.) If changing to AA does not resolve the issue, please quickly reach out to Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation (not CS 1110) as identified in the registration instructions.

Step 2. If the light is turning green but you aren't getting points in Canvas, the next most important property to check is that you registered your iClicker account correctly in the iClicker Student App. Double-check that you registered with your Cornell NetID email, which has the form "netid@cornell.edu". Please note that it's not just a matter of joining the CS 1110 course in iClicker, but that your own individual hardware remote ID must be registered with your exact Cornell email and NetID. Within one week after correcting your registration, you should see your Canvas score increase to reflect all the clicks from your remote.

Step 3. If the light is turning green and you've fixed your registration to correctly use your Cornell NetID email and you still aren't seeing your Canvas score increasing after two more lectures, please reach out to the course coordinator named at the end of this page to ask for their help.

How to Replace Your iClicker

If you acquire a new iClicker (maybe because you lost your original), you can register its new remote ID according to the registration instructions linked above, and its clicks will augment any previous clicks you have from a different remote. It may take up to one week after you register the new remote for Canvas to reflect your clicks from it.

Please note that iClickers are a required course material, as a textbook might be. And just like a textbook, there are options should use lose it:

You could try to go the rest of the semester without it. (Though just like if you lost a textbook, your grade might diminish.)
You could try to borrow a remote from another student (though not in this course, because you can't both use it during the same lecture) and share it off and on.
The Durlands Alternatives Library at Anabel Taylor Hall has in the past loaned iClickers to students.
You could purchase a cheap, used remote from an online retailer (e.g. eBay, Amazon) or locally from another student at Cornell (e.g., Cornell subreddit).
You could purchase a new remote from the campus bookstore.

Also please note that we cannot approve changes to iClicker grading (i.e., Option 1 to/from Option 2) because of lost iClickers.

For Further Help

If your issue is that your remote is flashing red during an active poll please quickly reach out to Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation (not CS 1110) as identified in the registration instructions. It is expected behavior that your remote will flash red if a poll is not active.

For anything else, please reach out to the course coordinator, Lacy Jordaens (LSL92). Tell them your name, NetID, this course number (CS 1110), your iClicker remote ID, and when you last updated your iClicker registration. Please recall that it can take up to a week after you update your registration for any changes to be reflected in Canvas.