[game_edu] Evaluating individual students on semester long project classes

[Robert R. Kessler]

We have been teaching semester long video game development project classes for years (two semesters in our capstone class and also in our master's program).  We have tried a whole bunch of different techniques to try and evaluate the performance of individual students within the team.  For anyone that has taught these classes, there are always a handful of students on each team that work their tails off and contribute most of the code or art assets to the project.  Many students put in the time that is required of the class (we use the rough formula of 3 hours per week per credit hour of the class) and get their tasks done, but because of other commitments never do any more.  Lastly there are the handful that just don't get much done.  The question is how do you set up an evaluation system that fairly evaluates these students and gives them the appropriate grades.  For example, when you have the middle tier students who do their work, but nothing extra, do they deserve A's?  They have done everything that you asked of them?  Then what do you do for the over achievers?

The techniques that we've tried are (note, we typically have an area lead appointed over engineering, arts, and design, and then a team lead)

1) Have each area leader report whether each student did their work and how well they did it (we've tried evaluating them as: C - if they did their job, B - if they did it and did an excellent job, A - if they did B work and then went above and beyond and did more - as in worked on extra items from the sprint backlog).  For the area leads, they are evaluated by the team lead and then the team lead is evaluated by the area-leads.

2) Have each student create a gamer blog and include in it each week, what they were assigned to do.  Then make an entry at the end of the week with what they accomplished and to show evidence.  We the teaching staff then go in and evaluate it weekly.

Neither of these have been quite satisfactory.

Note from an experience point of view, it is certainly true that in business some folks work harder than others.  Management usually knows who those people are, mostly because they are all in the same environment all week long, whereas we are stuck with only really interacting with the students during class time.  Management can give raises, bonuses, whatever.  But the limited contact time is one key problem.

So, is there a technique that you have used that you feel works really well for evaluating individual student performance when working on a long term project?

Thanks.
Bob.