Part of this informal algorithm is the notion that programming assignments become boolean multipliers in the computation of the final grade. If you do them, you get the resulting final grade. If you don't do them, your final grade suffers immensely. Though group efforts will be important, tests will still be administered to determine your mastery of material. Hopefully the tests will stress material practiced on assignments.
Tests have the benefit that they provide individual grades.
You may assume that the following represents a suggested weighting of material. Thursday October 2nd and Thursday November 6th are reserved for planning purposes. You should also be familiar with Moravian's Policy for Acceptable Use of Computing Resources, as described in the Student Handbook. Because we are going to emphasize group efforts, you need to be especially clear regarding what you do on an individual basis. First, each member of a group or team is to contribute to the effort on an assignment and each is responsible for understanding it.