Guidelines for taking the practical course and evaluation criteria
An experiment takes two afternoons and is done by a group of students (usually consisting of two students).
Who is doing which experiment on which day can always be found beforehand on the internet or on the black board in the observatory lobby.
- A) All group members must be present on each of the afternoons. The time limit per afternoon is four hours. Schedule:
- 1st week: oral examination of the necessary knowledge and experimental work
- 2nd week: finishing experimental work (if necessary) and discussion of results with the supervisor
- 3rd week: handing in the protocol to the respective supervisor and starting the next experiment
If these criteria are not fulfilled, you did not pass the experiment ("failed attempt").
In case of absence due to illness or some other justifiable reason, the knowledge of the missing student will be checked afterwards.
- B) Each experiment must be prepared and executed by all participants. You need to have sufficient knowledge on each of the afternoons, otherwise this counts as a "partly failed attempt".
- C) The protocol must be written as described below (see "Protocol Guidlines"). One protocol per team and experiment is sufficient. All group members must certify by signing the protocol that they know and agree with the protocol. In case of doubt, any team member may hand in his own version of the protocol. In this case, handing in the protocol will be accepted in the 4th week as well (cf. A). As soon as the protocol has been handed in, it cannot be changed. For reasons of equal treatment, the protocols will be evaluated not before the end of the term. If an essential part (including the questions and excercises) is missing, the protocol will be considered insufficient ("failed attempt"). The same is true if the protocol contains several blatant errors in terms of understanding and results or if the protocol has been copied from another group from the same or a previous semester. Illegible or sloppy protocols are also considered insufficient ("failed attempt").
You can only pass the practical course after having executed all experiments with no "failed attempt", otherwise you will not receive a certificate!
(Cases A, B mainly concern individuals, case C the whole team). The practical course can be repeated (as a whole) the next semester. You need to come to the briefing again.
You must hand in the last protocol one week after the last afternoon the latest. Certificates will be available from the secretariat 1-2 weeks after that, together with the corrected protocols.
The protocol is an essential part of the practical course. It should not just be an enumeration of results, but also briefly summarize the whole experiment in a way that would allow a fellow physicist to understand what we did and how and why we have done the experiment.
As a part of the practical course, the protocol should show the supervisor that the students have understood the experiment.
Don't just copy from the literature (however, you may cite if necessary). Explain clearly and in your own words the most important points of the experiment. Always elaborate on the logical framework of the experiment.
If your protocol contains more than 10 pages, check whether you have copied too much from the instructions or from the literature, and see whether it is possible to trim the text. In case you have less than 4 pages, check whether you have explained enough. (all page numbers without measurement protocol)
Before handing in, check the protocol for intelligibility and the following parts:
- a) what's the point of the experiment?
- b) introduction to the theory behind the experiment
- c) description and explanation of the execution of the experiment
- d) original measurement protocol
- e) sketch of the experimental setup (if applicable)
- f) citation and mentioning of all non-trivial equations used in the text
- g) numeric results with sensible number of digits, including intermediary results
- h) discussion of errors; if applicable: error calculation
- i) thorough interpretation of results
In some cases is may be a good idea to deviate from this scheme.
Please make sure in time that you have sufficient information for doing and analyzing the experiments. If in doubt, speak to your supervisor.