Grading

The final grade in the course is based on a portfolio, with the intention to facilitate learning and to provide feedback to students throughout the semester, and enable learning in the context of realistic development conditions through a semester project.

Official Course Description

Portfolio Contents

The portfolio contains the following elements:

• The system specification in its final version, which students create together in designated development teams. These deliveries are handed in once per team on behalf of all team members.

• Code for the implemented system

• A recorded screencast that demonstrates the implemented system

• Each student provides feedback to earlier versions of system specification of other teams. This feedback, as given to other teams, is part of the portfolio.

• Each student works individually on a reflective essay, which is part of the portfolio.

The language for all material is English.

Compulsory Deliveries

The following items are a compulsory prerequisite to hand in the portfolio:

• The Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs) for each learning unit. It is highly recommended to participate in the RATs as they are given throughout the semester, in their individual and team form. If a student cannot participate due to illness or other valid reasons, the RATs can be done later.

• Participation in the team activities with corresponding weekly deliveries is compulsory.

• Each student must deliver short, weekly reflections.

• The delivery of the system specification in their first two versions is compulsory.

The language for all material is English.

Specific Criteria

For all deliveries, we will define tables for the criteria, also called rubrics. These criteria give you an orientation about how to reach the learning goals of the course. The speficic tables explain how the performance levels and general criteria map to the specific task or learning outcome they cover. The example blow show a rubrics that applies for diagrams in general.

 

	Excellent	Good	Sufficient	Not rateable
Layout	Layout follows a strategy that helps to understand the diagram.	Layout is structured.	Layout is structured.	Layout is unstructured and random.
Syntax	Correct syntax.	Correct Syntax.	Overall good syntax, with a few minor errors.	Major syntactical flaws.
Level of Detail	Consistent and intentional level of detail.	Adequate detailing.	Some inconsistencies, too much focus on some details on the expense of others.

The rows show a number of individual criteria groups, as for instance Layout. The individual columns then show what characterizes a layout on different performance levels excellent, good, sufficient. It also describes when a layout is not rateable.

We work together in the course to elaborate criteria to better understand what signifies for instance an excellent score for an item and how it is different from a good one.

Portfolio Grading

The portfolio is evaluated as a whole according to NTNUs grading scheme.

The final grade is assigned based on the individual scores of the team deliveries (the system specification) together with the other contents in the portfolio. Many of the items are commented by rubrics, which have scores like excellent, good, sufficient and not rateable. The portfolio is graded as a whole. This means that there is not a simple mathematical formula to map the different rubric scores to a final result. Instead, grading is always approached top-down, starting with the definitions in the table above, with the scores of the rubrics aiding to find evidence for the different grades.

Still, you can expect the following:

• Grade A requires mostly excellent items, and especially an outstanding reflective essay that demonstrates independent thinking.
• Grade B requires mostly excellent items, some good, with a good or very good reflective essay.
• Grade C requires mostly good items, some excellent, with a good reflective essay.
• The grading is focused on substance. For instance, a single "sufficient" item does not necessarily spoil an A.
• Teamwork vs. individual effort is also be taken into account. Team work has a tendency towards an average, but it is still possible to achieve a very good grade individually.

Before you get too nervous. From looking at the results of previous years:

• Most students achieve a good result in the course.
• Achieving an A is not simple, but possible.

I think the grading is well aligned with the assessment, so you don't have to worry too much about the grading and can focus on learning. Simply working on all required items will guide you towards a good result.

• Participate in the weekly activities and study the material
• Apply the learned concepts in the semester project
• Spend the necessary effort for the reflective essay and you will achieve a very good or even excellent result.