Grading your own work
Each study project ends with a rubric. This page explains how to use it, alone, with a fellow learner or as a teacher, so that a grade says something real about the work.
Contents
- The four criteria
- Project checks
- From scores to a grade
- Self review
- Peer review
- Feedback that helps
- What a grade means
The four criteria
Score each criterion from 0 to 3.
| Score | It works | It is built the documented way | It is safe | It is explained |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Does not run, or not handed in | Core files edited, settings in the wrong place | Secrets in files, or unescaped user input | No report |
| 1 | Partly works; the main goal is not met | Works, but against the documented way in places | One safety gap | A report that a reader cannot follow |
| 2 | Meets the goal | Follows the documented way, with small lapses | No gap found | A reader can follow and repeat it |
| 3 | Meets the goal and handles edge cases | Follows the documented way throughout, and cites the pages | Safe, and the report says what was checked | Clear, short, with sources and the release |
"The documented way" is what the help pages say, for example: overrides instead of edited files in
design/standard/ (Templates and design),
.ini.append.php files instead of edits to settings/*.ini
(How INI settings work), and wash on output
(Templates and design).
Project checks
Every project page adds a short list of yes or no checks, for example "the class has an object name pattern" or "the API key is not in the repository". Each check you can answer with yes, with evidence (a screenshot, a command and its output), counts. Each project says how many checks it has.
From scores to a grade
| Total of the four criteria (0 to 12) and checks | Grade band |
|---|---|
| 11 to 12, and every check met | Excellent |
| 8 to 10, and at least three quarters of the checks met | Good |
| 6 to 7, and at least half of the checks met | Pass |
| Below 6, or a 0 in "It is safe" | Not yet: fix and hand in again |
A 0 in "It is safe" always means "not yet", whatever the other scores. A site that leaks a password does not pass.
A teacher may use other bands; these are suggestions for self study.
Self review
- Wait a day after you finish.
- Repeat the project from your own report, on a fresh study site (Resetting and rebuilding your study site). Where you get stuck, your report is not clear enough.
- Score each criterion and each check, with a sentence of evidence.
- Fix the lowest score first, then score again.
Peer review
Swap projects with another learner:
- Each reads the other's report and repeats the work on their own study site.
- Each scores the four criteria with evidence and lists the checks met.
- Each writes one thing that works well and one thing to improve.
- Meet for 20 minutes and agree on the scores. Where you cannot agree, ask a third learner.
Never ask a reviewer to sign in to your study site with your password; hand over the files and the report instead.
Feedback that helps
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| "Good job" | "The override rule matches only the one article, as the goal asked." |
| "The template is wrong" | "Line 4 prints $node.name without wash." |
| "Bad report" | "Step 3 does not say which siteaccess; I used site and saw no change." |
The trainers' lesson Giving feedback on results goes further, and Building scoring rubrics explains how rubrics like these are designed.
What a grade means
A grade from these projects says that you, a fellow learner or your teacher checked your work against a published rubric on a named release. It is evidence for your portfolio (Building a portfolio).
It is not an official certification. Official Exponential certifications are planned, for the community, partners, Exponential developers and students, but they are not available yet, and a project grade is not one of them (Certifications and certificates). Do not describe a project grade as "Exponential certified" or as issued or endorsed by 7x or the Exponential Foundation.
Related pages
- Study projects: overview
- Certifications and certificates
- Student checklists
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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