Program Policies and Regulations

The Master of Data Science Policies and Regulations are part of the campus-wide UBC Policies and Regulations document. Below is a summary of those Policies and Regulations that students frequently ask about and that are specific to the Master of Data Science program.

Attendance

Attendance in lectures and lab sessions is typically not mandatory1 but highly recommended. You will get the most out of the program if you show up in person.

1. To maintain fairness to all group members, some project based courses will implement mandatory attendance to some or all classes. This information will be provided at the start of the relevant block.

If you are feeling unwell, are experiencing any flu-like symptoms, or have reason to believe you may have Covid-19, please do not come to any in-person meetings including lectures, labs, office hours, or quizzes.

Lecture recordings

We do not livestream or require instructors to record their lectures. If you miss a class you can catch up by reviewing lecture notes as well as by talking to peers and asking them to share their notes. When past lecture recordings are available, instructors may grant access to students who were absent for approved reasons only (e.g. illness, jury duty, etc.).

Academic Concession Policy

If you anticipate missing an assignment or quiz for a justified reason, you may request an academic concession before the deadline. According to the UBC Senate policy on academic concession, valid grounds for academic concessions include illness, conflicting responsibilities, or compassionate grounds. Compassionate grounds, as defined by the policy, include situations such as “a traumatic event experienced by the student, a family member, or a close friend; an act of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct experienced by the student, a family member, or a close friend; a death in the family or of a close friend.”

Requirements for Submitting an Academic Concession Request

To request an academic concession, students must fill out the academic concession form and include the following details:

  • Reason for the Request:
    • Clearly state the reason for requesting the academic concession in the form. This reason must align with the UBC Senate’s grounds for academic concessions (e.g., illness, conflicting responsibilities, or compassionate grounds).
    • Attach supporting documentation (if available) to validate the reason for the request. If you cannot provide documentation at the time of the request, indicate when you expect to submit it.
  • Extension Details:
    • Indicate in the form which specific assignment(s) or deadline(s) you are requesting an extension or exemption for.
    • Specify in the form an approximate of how long an extension you are requesting.

Submission Process

Once the form is completed, send it via Slack to the course coordinator. Incomplete or unsigned forms may delay the processing of your request. Ensure that all necessary fields in the form, including the date, your name, student number, and signature, are filled out. Please note that you must submit the academic concession form before the deadline of the assignment or quiz for which you are requesting the concession. Submitting a request does not guarantee approval.

After receiving your completed form, the course coordinator, Lab Instructor, and/or MDS Co-Directors will review your request. You may be asked to provide additional documentation or clarification if needed. Decisions will be communicated as soon as possible. Failure to provide valid documentation when required may result in a denial of your request.

Grades and Academic Standing

General grading scheme

UBC uses a percentage grade system from 0 to 100%. The following table shows an unofficial conversion from percentage grades to letter grades (source: 2nd table of this page):

Percentage (%) Letter Grade
90-100 A+
85-89 A
80-84 A-
76-79 B+
72-75 B
68-71 B-
64-67 C+
60-63 C
0-59 F (Fail)

Group project

Near the end of a group project, everyone is required to complete a team work reflection. This deliverable is an individual report intended to give you an avenue to present your viewpoint as to how the project went, how the group worked together, and your role in the group. Each group member must complete this form to report on the contributions of yourself and the other group members. This is a private, individual report, meaning that none of your group members will see this report.

When needed, we will also use the team work reflection, data from remote version control repositories, and/or interviews with team members to assess group performance and adjust the final grades of individuals using the project contribution multiplier.

Failed courses and C/C+ grades

To pass an MDS course a student must score 60% or above. To graduate from MDS, a student must pass all courses, with no more than 3 credits in the 60%-67% range (C or C+). All MDS courses are worth 1 UBC credit except for Capstone, which is worth 6 credits. Thus, to graduate from MDS a student can get no more than 3 C/C+ grades in Blocks 1-6 and must also score at least 68% in Capstone.

Final course grades

With a few exceptions (which will be communicated to students at the start of a course), each course grade is calculated using the lab and quiz grades, weighted 50% and 50% respectively. However, if a student fails all the quizzes in a course (each below 60%) then the final course grade will be the lower of their calculated course grade and 67%. This means that to graduate a student cannot fail all the quizzes in more than 3 courses.

Late Submissions

A late submission is defined as any work submitted after the deadline. For a late submission, the student will receive a 75% scaling of their grade for the first occurrence, 50% scaling of their grade for the second to fifth occurrences, and will receive a grade of 0 for subsequent occurrences. Late submissions are cumulative throughout the program.

Re-grading

If you have a question about the way your work was graded, please contact the relevant person based on the table below:

Assessment type Who to contact
Lab grade Submit a regrade request on Gradescope
Manually graded quiz question The person (usually a TA) who graded that question
Autograded quiz question Lab Instructor

When we receive a regrade request we may re-grade the entire submission; thus, your lab/quiz grade may go up or down as a result of re-grading.

Grading concerns: time limit

If you perceive a problem with a grade, you have one week to raise a concern from the time that your grade was released. After that, your grade is final.

Reasonable grading concerns

If a grade is challenged in a way that is deemed unreasonable, the student will receive a warning. This decision will be made by the instructor (not TA). If a student receives three warnings, the student will lose the privilege to challenge grades for the remainder of the program. This policy applies to both labs and quizzes.

To submit an effective regrade request, you only need to follow two steps:

  1. Read the solution and the feedback from the grader. Often, this will be sufficient to understand why you lost points.
  2. Include a rationale explaining why you think the marking of your submission is unreasonable and should be regraded.
    • This needs to be specific, either include references to the correct solution and explain how your answer is equivalent, or explain why your submission is correct although it is not equivalent to what is in the solution.

Examples of reasonable regrading requests:

  • “The solution wrote that the number of bins in a histogram impacts its appearance. I wrote ‘binwidth’ instead of ‘number of bins’, but these are effectively the same since the wider each bin, the fewer bins there are along the axis.”
  • “I think my code generates the same output as the correct answer. The only difference in code is specify(response = y explanatory = x) and specify(y ~ x).”

Examples of unreasonable regrading requests:

  • Demands, such as “I want 80%”, “Please give full credit”, or “This question should have partial marks”.
  • Submitting regrading requests without any specifics, particularly multiple ones on the same assignment.
    • “I think my solution might deserve more marks” (no rationale as to why additional marks should be given)
    • “I wrote ‘X’ which is the same as ‘Y’ in the solution” (no explanation for how ‘X’ is the same as ‘Y’; although this might seem obvious to you, the grader will not know what you were thinking when you wrote it.)
  • Suggesting that a vague term you wrote meant the same as the solution. We can only give points for what you write, so you need to be explicit in your writing.
    • “When I wrote ‘a smooth line’ in my answer, I really meant ‘kernel density estimate’ as in the solution”
  • Minor complaints (e.g. half a mark on an assignment).
  • Repeatedly contesting the same issue once a decision has been reached.

Rationale for regrading policy

Grades are not perfect; some randomness in grading is normal, meaning that you’ll generally get more than you deserve in some cases and less than you deserve in other cases. Thus, it is possible to cheat the system by consistently complaining when your grade is too low but not when it is too high. Unfortunately, this takes time away from the course staff which could have been spent on making the course better for everyone. Thus, in our view, students who overzealously contest grades are penalizing their classmates for personal gain.

Sometimes serious grading errors are made, for example when a grader did not see your answer to a question or completely deviated from standard grading practices for some unknown reason. Such situations can be quite frustrating for students, and we want you to feel that the courses are fair. In these cases, it makes sense for the student to bring the error to our attention.

Balancing these two sides is difficult and we have tried to make our regrading policy as explicit as possible to distinguish reasonable and unreasonable grading concerns.

Quiz Policies

Unless otherwise specified, MDS quizzes are closed book, with the allowance of a single-sided, one-page, letter-sized cheatsheet that is uploaded as a PNG to PrairieLearn before the quiz. Ensure that your cheatsheet complies with all stated requirements.

Please remember to reserve your quiz spot in a timely manner, as availability is limited and may fill up quickly. You will also have to reserve a review session in order to review the results of your quiz.

During the quiz window, students are not allowed to disclose, discuss, or share any part of the quiz with any other individual, except as directly permitted or required by the course instructors. This includes discussions in person, online, or through any electronic means. Violation of this policy will result in academic penalties, which may include failure of the quiz or failure of the course.

For more information, refer to the complete quiz policy on the quiz policy page.

Use of AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) is also strictly prohibited and can lead to serious consequences.

The following are also NOT permitted:

  • taking a quiz from a remote location
  • re-entering the quiz room (unless approved by the instructor; please talk to the instructor before the quiz if you anticipate needing to leave the room during the quiz)

Failing to observe the above expectations may result in a zero grade for the quiz in question.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, which is intellectual theft, occurs where an individual submits or presents the oral or written work of another person as his or her own and can include:

  • multiple students submitting the same response
  • copying from sources without citing them
  • copying verbatim (word-for-word) from source and citing, but failing to make it explicit that this is a quotation (quotations should be used only rarely, if at all)
  • sending/emailing/sharing part of your answers, including code, to anyone else, including classmates (unless you are working together in an official group assignment)
  • redistribute or use redistributed assignments and solutions.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated in the MDS program and may result in dismissal from the program. Students are responsible for ensuring that any work submitted does not constitute plagiarism. Students who are in any doubt as to what constitutes plagiarism should consult their Instructor before handing in any assignments.

For more information see the UBC Academic Misconduct policies.

Code Plagiarism

Students must correctly cite any code that has been authored by someone else or by the student themselves for other assignments. Cases of code plagiarism may include, but are not limited to:

  • the reproduction (copying and pasting) of code with none or minimal reformatting (e.g., changing the name of the variables)
  • the translation of an algorithm or a script from a language to another
  • the generation of code by automatic code-generations software

An “adequate acknowledgement” requires a detailed identification of the (parts of the) code reused and a full citation of the original source code that has been reused.

Use of Generative AI (GenAI)

Students are responsible for completing all assessments independently, demonstrating their understanding and mastery of the course material. Generative AI (GenAI) tools can be useful for tasks such as gathering information, brainstorming ideas, reviewing concepts, finding analogies, revising written work, or creating study questions. However, their use should be limited, and all submitted work must reflect the student’s own efforts and comprehension. Ultimately, your goal is to master the material, so ensure that using these tools supports your learning rather than hinders it.

If you choose to use GenAI tools in your work, you must:

  • Cite the GenAI tool you used, including the name of the tool and how it was applied.
  • Provide an annotation with your citation explaining the extent to which the GenAI tool contributed to your work and a brief description of its usage.

Important: The use of GenAI to bypass learning or misrepresent your effort is considered academic dishonesty. It also deprives you of the opportunity to fully engage with the material and grow as a learner and individual. If an instructor suspects that a submission relies excessively on AI without proper citation, you may be required to explain your work in more detail. If your explanation is unsatisfactory, your submission will receive a penalty which is scaled according to the severity of the violation and may result in a score of zero on the entire assignment.

In group work scenarios, all group members must be aware of and agree to the use of GenAI tools. The group is collectively responsible for ensuring that the final work adheres to these guidelines.

Check out UBC’s approach to generative artificial intelligence tools in teaching and learning.

Leaves of Absence (medical or personal)

Students in good academic standing may request long-term academic leave from the program for medical or personal reasons and return, within a year, to complete the MDS program. These requests must be discussed and submitted in writing to the MDS Leadership Team well in advance. Leaves can only start at the beginning of a term, which for MDS, is January 1st. It is also possible that the MDS course offerings and orders change from year-to-year. Hence, students who are on leave from the program may have to take their outstanding courses in in a different order than expected. Please be aware that fees and other costs (loss of student loans and bursaries) may apply depending on individual situations.

Program Withdrawal

Students may withdraw from the MDS program for medical or personal reasons. Depending on the timing of the withdrawal, full or partial tuition fee refunds may or may not be given. A request to withdraw from the program must be submitted in writing to the MDS Leadership Team.

The MDS Leadership Team may request a student to withdraw from the program. This is only done after extensive discussions between the instructional team, the leadership team and the affected student. Reasons for this may be related to the health and well-being of the student in question or his/her peers, not meeting program requirements, unsatisfactory conduct or other significant reasons.

Full-Time Commitment

The MDS program is approved by the UBC Senate as a full-time program. Hence, students must take the program on a full-time basis as part of their cohort and cannot complete the program on a part-time basis.

UBC’s Policies and Resources to Support Student Success

UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles but recognizes that sometimes crises arise and so there are additional resources to access including those for survivors of sexual violence. UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with disabilities and for religious, spiritual and cultural observances. UBC values academic honesty and students ae expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic standards in all of their actions. Details of the policies and how to access support are available here.

Section / Option Transfers

  • Transfer between sections are not permitted.
  • Transfer between options are generally not permitted. In exceptional circumstances (e.g., an external job offer requiring a different area of specialization), a transfer request may be considered if: a) a written rationale is submitted prior to the end of Block 2, b) the student is in a good academic standing, and c) the student had initially been accepted to both options. Final decisions will be at the discretion of the Option Directors, following discussion with the instructional and leadership teams.

Policy Updates

We reserve the right to make changes to this policy during the program as required. Announcements for relevant changes will be made to the students via the appropriate Slack channels.