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.