The purpose of these instructions is to clarify some things that have been problematic in the previous years. The rest of the homework instructions can be found on the page How to write a good homework answer. You should read those instructions too. When you have the time, please read the guides to how things are supposed to be done at the TML.
If there are no other instructions, you should return your answer by e-mail as described in the returning instructions. Please note that the maximum line length is 80 characters. Also note that for example Webmail and many other email clients may use shorter line length as default. Sending 80 characters per line with them will break your answer. If you are unsure you should write only 70 chracter per line.
The probably best way to make sure that the answer you have sent looked ok, is to check it from sent-mail folder with Pine or some other simple (text-based) email client. With Pine it is also very easy to make sure that your answer will look ok in the first place:
Good formatting is easy to read. For example like this:
1a. This is an answer to the question.
1b. This is an answer to next question.
2a. This is also an answer.
If you want, you can also include the questions:
1. TCP/IP
a. Explain shortly what IP address is used for.
This is an answer to the question.
b. What is port numbers needed to?
This is an answer to second question.
2. WLAN
a. Explain what is meant by hidden station problem.
This is also an answer.
We are not too strict about formatting, and usually you won't lose any points because of bad formatting. However, clearly separated answers are faster to check for assistant. For the student it is easier to go through it one more time before returning. Adding few extra empty lines never hurt anyone.
We realise that many of the foreign students do not speak English as their native language and try to be reasonable. Despite that, you should try to write as good English as you can. That will speed up the checking of your answer, give you better points (since we can understand what you mean) and simply make you seem more plausible.
In short: answer all the questions asked and justify your answer.
To spell it out more thoroughly: There are often many parts in the questions. Let's have a look of the actual assignment:
Learning goal: to understand some of the basic functions of GSM network.
Any good answer should, of course, have explanations for the terms handover and roaming. There should also be an answer to the question in the last sentence. Unfortunately about a third of the students failed to give straight answer. Some of those who actually had answered the question failed to justify their answers. In this particular assignment that was pretty bad since it was possible to answer "yes", "no" or "well, that depends" depending on one's justification.
Remember always to justify your answer unless it is specifically stated that justification is not needed. Based on your justification one should be able to see that you have actually understood what you have written.
A good, although a little short, answer could be something like this:
1.
a. Handover means changing to another base station. Roaming means using
mobile phone in another operator's network (in contrast to mobile's
home network). [Pick one of the following] They are connected because
both deal with mobility / They are not connected because handover is
about moving area to another. In contrast, roaming is just using the
phone in foreign network, not moving as such / One could argue that
they are connected, because both deal with mobility. On the other hand,
handover is about actually moving whereas roaming is just being in
foreign network.
When answering a question, you should always remember the context. In the question in our latter example, many students forgot that it was about GSM and told things about other mobile technologies.
You should always mention your sources, exept those given (you don't need to mention the course's text book or lecture notes). Even if you wouldn't mark the actual citations in your text, you should at least have list of references (books, web pages etc.) at the end of every assignment. There are some further instructions about referencing and good scientific practise.
Direct quotes are not appreciated. Quoting someone does not show you have actually understood and learned anything. It only shows that you are able to copy and paste some more or less relevant text. Generally speaking one can assume that assistants will skip the quoted parts and only read those parts the student has written. If for some reason you really really want to include a direct qoute, remember to mark it with quotation marks and mention your source. Leaving either the source or quotation marks out is plagiarism.
Do not use quotations in your answer. If you do, however, remember to mark them clearly and state your source.
Wikipedia has become quite extensive and popular source of information in recent years. However, the explanations in Wikipedia, like in any encyclopaedia, are quite general. Some of them can be misleading or even wrong. Using Wikipedia as one's only source of information has many times proven to be a bad idea.
This course is maintained by the assistants of the course,
newsgroup of the course:
opinnot.tik.media
Last updated 3.2.2005.
URL: http://www.tml.hut.fi/Studies/T-110.250/2005/Homeworks/railway_rail.html
