Lab review and report

Lab content

Please find information about specific lab assignments under Uppgifter/Assignments.

Lab work

Labs should be done in teams of 3 students. Working on a lab and completing it consists of the following steps:

Prepare by attending lectures and joining interactive activities, watching video material and reading the literature
Complete all tasks specified in the lab instruction
Write a short lab report and submit it through Canvas
Book an oral review date (reviews are conducted physically on campus)
Prepare the oral review including selecting material, making slides and rehearse the presentation
Pass the oral review
Follow up on your review - make sure your result is reported in Canvas within 3 days. If your grade is missing, please contact directly the TA responsible.

Bonus dates

You are eligible for bonus points if you both pass a lab review and submit an accompanying lab report at the latest on the corresponding (depending which lab you report) bonus date . The dates can be found in the course overview.

Note: if you do not obtain your bonus (or lab passing grade) in Canvas within 3 days after the review, please contact the TA to sort this out. Do not wait to sort this out until the end of the course.

Short written lab report

The report must be submitted for every lab assignment (as a pdf file) prior to the lab demonstration. To obtain bonus points, it should be submitted by the bonus deadline (besides the requirement for a lab review by the bonus deadline). One report per group is expected. You have two options:

a) assign all group members to one of predefined existing groups (group01 etc.) under "Project Groups" (in the "People" tab), submit your report and make sure that it is visible under Grades for each group member (no other groups than those predefined under "Project Groups" can be used for the lab report submission),

b) or each member of the group individually submits the same report.

This short report should not exceed the number of A4 pages declared for each lab (mostly 6, so you must be selective) and is expected to include the following content

clear header with the lab title, list of authors and date
major aims of the entire lab assignment
a short note on any extra assumptions made and tools used in the assignment
carefully selected main results/findings supported with figures or tables along with short commentary (please do not attach the code)
reflections on the assignment, your work and on what you have learnt, open questions and conclusions.

For the first three labs, there are templates for the report. Please find them in the respective lab report assignments under Uppgifter/Assignments.

Lab sign-up

In order to reserve a time slot during available lab sessions to either seek support or to get your assignment reviewed by a teaching assistant (TA), please visit a lab review booking spreadsheet here Links to an external site.. Just mark your group (names of all group members) in the selected slot. There are multiple parallel 15-min slots each corresponding to one TA. Classrooms are also provided in the document.

Since one lab session can include 30-40 groups, please try to get your work reviewed as early as possible without necessarily waiting for the bonus date. Sign up by for a lab support or evaluation session using the web-based tool provided. Please remove your reservation as soon as you decide you will not do the review as planned. At any time, a group can only have 1 booked time per lab, thus 4 reservations in total.

As mentioned, you can also book extra slots if you need some support, you have to explicitly mention to a TA that you are requesting for help, and not demonstrating your lab solutions for the evaluation. Thus, you can not mix reviews with requests for help.

Oral lab review (in a classroom)

Before presenting your work for evaluation, it is desirable that you have submitted your short lab report.

For booking a lab review, see "Lab sign-up" above.

At reviews, only members of the group who are present and who are active can get a pass (P) on the lab review and may be eligible for a lab bonus. If lab members are unable to present the lab at the same time, they can present at separate times, and need to make the TA aware of the fact that the same group will be presenting at separate occasions. If you do not pass the lab review, the TA will inform you on the points you need to improve and you can then book a new lab review time slot.

Please bear in mind that each time epoch is 15-min long. Out of 15 min your time to demonstrate and interact with TAs should not exceed 12 min to allow smooth transition for TAs from one group to another.

In the lab review you have 12 minutes to convince the instructor (teaching assistant, TA) that you should pass the lab assignment. Be careful about planning the review so that you use the time well. You are in charge of the lab review, but the TA may control who talks (each participant must have knowledge of all parts of the review) and ask for extra clarification if necessary. To allow these extra TA's questions prepare your presentation for max 10 minutes. If you have points that are unclear about the lab, bring that up during one of the available lab sessions (support) and not during the review/evaluation. Please avoid relying on your simulations in the review process and focus on key results/findings and conclusions. You are strongly encouraged to prepare a few slides (either on your laptop or a printout). Here is the example of how presentation slides can look. You are expected to have your short lab report available as the TA in charge may want to browse it through. This report can serve as a backbone for your lab demonstration. TAs will have no time whatsoever to review your code or look at your simulations during the review.

Please ensure that in your presentation of the lab assignment you

focus on main points, findings
explain briefly what the lab is about and what the main points/questions are
discuss prior assumptions and constraints, if any
demonstrate key findings/results in terms of calculations, figures, tables etc.
formulate precise conclusions based on these main points
critically reflect on your work, mention any remaining open questions, discuss what you have learnt
thus, even though you should have done all items listed in the lab manual, we do not expect you to show us all these results. Instead all these results are the basis upon you draw your main conclusions, which you show at the review. (We may however ask you for any specific result, so do bring your lab manual and all lab notes to the review session.)

After passing a lab review and submitting a written lab report in Canvas

Follow up on your review in Canvas. We expect that TAs reviewing your work will report the result (and potential bonus points) in Canvas within 3 days. Please make sure your result is reported in Canvas within that time window following the actual review. Otherwise please contact directly the TA responsible for a missing grade (please make sure you have her/his contact details).