Self-grading in a project-based software engineering course

The Web application design and development course offered at Rensselaer at Hartford uses a project-based approach where students construct a Web application of their own choosing. For the past two years, the instructor of this course has used a student self-grading approach where, as part of defining the requirements for the project, students also define grade specifications for project grades of ´A´, ´B´, and ´C´. We discuss the motivation and approach to self grading and reports on a survey-based study used to determine student attitude toward the self-defined project and the self-grading approaches. Results of the survey indicate that students are moderately satisfied with the self-grading approach when used in conjunction with the student-defined project.