Structural Analysis and Systems 1

ENCN231, EMTH210

ENCI334

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Rajesh Dhakal

Lecturer

Reagan Chandramohan

Assessment

•  About 80% of your learning in this course will occur as you work on the assignments! Hence, you are strongly encouraged to start working on the assignments early and ask plenty of questions without fear of judgment.
•    You may work on the assignments in pairs and submit one solution for which both you and your partner will receive the same score. If you choose to work in pairs, it is expected that both you and your partner work together on all parts of all problems, and do not just divvy up the work among yourselves.
•    While you are permitted to discuss the problems with other students, you are not permitted to copy their work. The answers you submit should reflect your own organisation of the calculations and interpretation of the results. Please indicate on the first page of your solution, the names of the students outside your group whom you collaborated with. Failure to do so could be interpreted as academic dishonesty.
•    Since this is a professional engineering course, it is expected that your submitted solutions be neat and well organised. Marks will not be awarded for incoherent, untidy, or illegible submissions.
o Sketches and free body diagrams must be included where appropriate. They must be neatly drawn either digitally or using a pencil and ruler.
o Graphs must be plotted using a computer. They must contain axis labels, units, ticks, grid lines, and a legend where appropriate.
•    Assignment problems will be marked on a scale of 0 to 3 based on the following criteria:
o Completeness: Have reasonable attempts been made to solve all parts of the problem?
o Concept: Does the solution reflect an understanding of the underlying concepts?
o Execution: Have all the formulations and calculations been presented in a neat and orderly fashion?

The marking scale is defined as follows:

o 0 (Poor): No solution or less than 20% in completeness, concept, and execution
o 1 (Average): Between 20% and 50% in completeness, concept, and execution
o 2 (Good): Between 50% and 90% in completeness, concept, and execution
o 3 (Excellent): Above 90% in completeness, concept, and execution

Mastery Quizzes

 Two mastery quizzes will be conducted to test your mastery over the most basic and important concepts covered in the two parts of this course. Your scores in these mastery quizzes will be the only criteria used to determine whether you pass or fail the course.

 The mastery quizzes will contain multiple-choice questions. You will also be given enough time to answer the questions to ensure you are not under undue time pressure.

 You must score 80% or above in a mastery quiz to pass it. Passing both mastery quizzes will demonstrate your mastery over the most basic and important concepts covered in the course, and therefore ensure you receive at least a C- grade.

 If you fail a mastery quiz, you will be given one more opportunity to resit it. Failure to pass a mastery quiz in even the second attempt will result in a fail grade for the course.

 Tentative mastery quiz schedule:

o Mastery Quiz I will be held in conjunction with the mid-semester test in Week 7. Students who fail it will have the opportunity to resit it in Week 8.
o Mastery Quiz II will be held in Week 12. Students who fail it will have the opportunity to resit it in conjunction with the final exam during the Semester 1 exam period.

Test and exam

 The mid-semester test and final exam will contain questions that test your understanding of the more detailed and nuanced concepts covered in this course.

 The mid-semester test will be held in Week 7. The final exam will be held during the Semester 1 exam period.

 Your scores from the test and the exam will combined with your assignment scores to determine your course grade ranging from C- to A+, as long as you have passed both quizzes.

Textbooks / Resources

All course material will be made available electronically via Learn. You could use the
following text books for extra reading on the topics covered:

•    Mechanics of Materials: Fifth/Sixth Edition by Beer, Johnston, DeWolf, Mazurek. McGraw Hill.
•    Structures: Theory and Practice by MS Williams and JD Todd. MacMillan Press.
•    Structural Engineering - Vol 2 Indeterminate Structures: by Richard N. White, Peter Gergely and Robert G. Sexsmith. John Wiley and Sons (1976).

•    Chopra, A. K. (2012). Dynamics of Structures: Theory and Applications to Earthquake Engineering (4th  ed.). Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. (Paper copies available for 3-hour loan from the Engineering Library)
•    Clough, R. W., and Penzien, J. (2003). Dynamics of Structures (3rd  ed.). Computers & Structures, Inc., Berkeley, CA.
(Free digital copy available online)"

Indicative Fees

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.