Scott Jackson

This professor has taught: INST126, INST228, INST314, INST462

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Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/09/2024	I would not recommend taking this professor. He is a very nice person but his grading system is extremely odd where he does a "points" system. It was nice that you were able to gain points back in the next assignments but since he grades so late and the majority of his assignments are based on the prior, we do not get feedback in time to know what to improve on in the next assignment. Also, I found it unfair that you could get negative points on an assignment because that means if you quite literally did not put in the effort and did not submit the assignment, you might get a higher grade than someone who actually tried but they just had a lot of "anti-patterns". He has many opportunities to improve your grade but it is extremely difficult to tell how you are doing in the class. The semester literally ended and we still don't have the majority of our grades. With the final due a few days before grades are finalized, I wonder how he will manage to grade the final project AS WELL AS our previous assignments in time. Save yourself the stress and do not take him if you don't want your gpa to plummet.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2024	Scott is a very nice person, a very good lecturer, and a good person. I found his class very interesting as this was the first coding class I had ever taken. But one drawback. The grading system is terrible. He does not grade your assignments for all semester but will at the very end. He knows this too which is good so he made sure everyone will pass who did their coding assignments. I would suggest him as a professor just be aware of this before taking the class.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/05/2024	I do not recommend taking this professor. Do not take this professor. He doesn’t grade assignments til last minute. I was fine as of yesterday and my grade dropped a whole 10%. Grading system is very odd and I am afraid for my grade in this class. This class should’ve been easy but his grading system made it very difficult and we’d get negative points which wasn’t helpful.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/04/2024	He's a good professor but the grading system is horrendous, I have no idea how i'm doing in the class and the semester ends in a few days. Only 2 main assignments have been graded so far and I'm seriously wondering how he's gonna grade the final project in time. He also doesn't allow late submissions so if you miss one deadline your grade could look like it's tanked but you can make up the points in the following assignments.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/14/2024	I honestly have no idea how I am doing in this class and its already November. Scott's grading system is very unusual as he doesn't use canvas/ELMs to update grades, he instead uses a "point" system but it seems like he gives a lot of opportunities to improve prior scores, so I do appreciate that. There are no exams in this class and he does not require attendance in his lectures, which are pretty boring btw. He does record helpful tutorials on almost every coding assignment which I find help me more than attending his lectures. Overall, hes a really nice guy and replies to emails/questions really quickly its just the class is structured kind of odd so I have no clue where I stand...
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/12/2024	Scott is a genuinely good person who cares about his students and is passionate about teaching this subject. The issues i do have though is the lack of grading... we are already in November and i believe we have one grade in so far, with the lack of grading comes the lack of feedback, i have zero clue how i am doing. He is helpful though and is there if you need help with during his office hours. For lectures i tend to zone out and not learn, i feel the class isnt engaging enough to be motivated to want to learn the skill.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a C- Anonymous 11/07/2024	Much of the material learned was complicated, and a lot of the people in the class had a lot of advanced prior coding knowledge and were able to complete assignments without much worry. Professor is nice and willing to work with students, but grades haven't been updated as of after November.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a C Anonymous 10/03/2024	Lectures didn't help with anything, grades weren't updated so I couldn't tell what I was doing wrong or right, and assignments weren't clear.
Scott Jackson Anonymous 10/03/2024	Grading system was unclear, and the lectures and discussions didn't help much with assignments.
Scott Jackson INST462 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/19/2024	First: expected grade not A+ because I could mess some things up (busy semester)! This is my first 400-level INST class and I'm taking MATH401 (Justin's Notes) this semester, too! I had Dr. Jackson for INST314 Statistics for Information Science, and I loved it! He is so passionate about what he teaches that he has a hard time fitting all of the content into a 15 week course. Fortunately, he is vigilant of this and provides ample time to complete assignments as long as you start them when they're released. Additionally, he moves deadlines back when necessary and before anyone can get a chance to complain. This is all part of a grading philosophy that he has, described below. What's important is that he gives more than enough time on graded assignments. I have accommodations provided by the ADS. While they aren't needed, it is good conduct to let him know. He has an unusual method of grading. I know a few counties in Maryland are/were testing a new way of grading in public school called "Standards-Based Grading." If you know what that is, this is what he does. All graded assignments are a set of objectives rather than a rubric. The grading is binary: either the objective was met or it was not (the policy is usually "point awareded if effort shown"). The top-down approach he takes to the class means that there is a "point pool" that contains all assignments for the semester. Rather than screwy math to figure out your grade prospects in his courses, you just need to check the remaining assignments and compare that to a letter-grade table on the syllabus. INST314 and INST462 require R, the statistical computing language. He has a few weeks of onboarding before he gets started with the appilcations. During this time he uses lecture to introduce both contemporary and historical theory and context. The discussions are for monitoring the onboarding progress and ensure a practical R tutorial. Hope I helped!
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/30/2024	Very nice professor, willing to work with students and help them. Assignments can be a little bit unclear, but he leaves them very open to what you want to do. He never really published grades, which made it hard to know how you were doing in the class. I think overall an easy grader
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/30/2024	I'll be honest, I took him in the spring and it was only his second semester teaching. He was a nice guy but would always delay grading. The whole class had no grades until the day final grades were do. But his grading system is fair, lets say you miss one or multiple coding assignment, you have the opportunity to get a grade for them still if you show that you can implement the code in the next assignment. He grades off a fundamentals list, so technically you can submit the final project and make sure to include everything in the list and get an A (that's lowkey what I did) but I don't recommend it, since you literally have no other assignments to back you up if you do that.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/25/2024	Professor Jackson is a very supportive and patient instructor. He goes out of his way to reassure students and provide clear guidance in programming, which I found incredibly helpful. His explanations are always thorough, and he takes the time to ensure everyone understands the material. However, there is a significant downside: he never returns graded assignments, no matter how many times we ask. Despite his frequent apologies, none of us received any feedback on our assignments throughout the entire semester. This lack of feedback started from the very first week and persisted until the end of the term, which was quite frustrating. If he could improve on this aspect, he would be an outstanding professor. Overall, if you can manage without timely feedback on your work, you'll benefit a lot from his teaching.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2024	Goated professor!! Scott is really chill and super supportive, it’s easy to tell he cares about his students’ understanding of the material. The workload wasn’t crazy, we had about 12 assignments throughout the whole semester (including the projects) and coding projects build off of each other. He had a system where your grades were based on how many points you score based on the course concepts, so if you didn’t score a lot of points for one project it didn’t matter because you could gain those points back with following projects. The only issue I had is that we would get literally no feedback on your projects unless you asked, which was fine in the end because Scott would tell you exactly what you need to work on when you go to him. I agree with the other comment saying to use his office hours when you need to!! He’s very happy to help!
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2024	Such a great professor, course is super easy to follow. prof is such a great help and he pushes back assignment so it can be turned in. He definately make coding fun
Scott Jackson INST126 Anonymous 05/19/2024	I DO NOT recommend taking this professor. This was his first year teaching this course which is understandable but he provided zero feedback throughout the entire semester. We did not get anything graded and had no grades put in as of the last day of classes. He kept on promising that he would grade things but never ended up doing so. So it was very difficult to know how you're doing in the class. If you do take him, I recommend going to his office hours because they were helpful. He's very nice when you talk to him one on one but the whole course was very disorganized. It consisted of 3 word count projects and consolidation projects. The lectures are recorded.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2024	Don't take him. Terrible lecturer and still hasn't posted a single grade for my class when its literally finals week. He can not be a real professor. Please avoid him.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/15/2024	Do not take this professor. He is overall a nice guy but if you have anxiety about your grade do not take him at all. He does not release your grades until the final week (exam week) and gives you little wiggle room to raise your grade. Again, he is a very nice guy but just the overall structure of this class was too much to handle on top of other classes because you don't know if your failing or passing the class until it's too late.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/14/2024	Very nice and approachable
Scott Jackson INST126 Anonymous 05/08/2024	Horrible grading. It is the end of the semester and I still have no grade in this course. Absolutely no feedback. His lectures are useless. He barely explains anything and he is boring. He just codes and reads aloud everything he types. Would not recommend him.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/08/2024	Doesn't update grades during semester its the last week of school and I haven't had one assignment graded. If you want to learn python he does a pretty decent job in class and there are GSS oppurtunties to get better understanding outside of class(though I have never attended a session). He seems like one of the teachers that will give you a good grade based on effort. Other than the lack of knowledge where i stand on this class, the professor is understanding and workload isn't crazy.
Scott Jackson INST126 Anonymous 05/03/2024	Scott is a horrible lecturer and I learned mostly from the TAs in this class. Also, the grading is terrible! It is the end of the semester and I have not received one grade. His class is very disorganized. I would not recommend Scott.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/02/2024	Nice dude but slightly boring. His classes didn't seem too structured there was a lot of TBD on the syllabus and he didn't come to class on mondays since he had another class to teach. But his gradings was good, follow the rubric and you'll get an A.
Scott Jackson INST126 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/25/2023	I really liked Scott! He wasn't the best lecturer - so GO TO HIS OFFICE HOURS! I cannot express enough how crucial it is to Scott's office hours. He's super flexible and approachable as well. Just make sure you at least somewhat understand the course material, and you'll do fine.
Scott Jackson INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	Had 5 assignments all semester none in the last 3 months. I think he had too many classes and kinda went a wall and gave no assignments past week 6. It probably will not be like this for the next semesters but it was very easy.