Assessing the Impact of Specifications Grading on a Data Visualization Course.

In this Research-to-practice paper, we share our experience with implementing Specifications Grading in two separate offerings of a Data Visualization course. The course is taught in a Computer Science department every semester. Based on the analysis of the student assignments, final project, and the final grade received by the students, the students in the offerings with Specifications Grading performed better or as well as without it. We found that Specifications Grading led to students taking control of their own learning and restored rigor to the course. Student feedback for Specifications Grading was mostly positive, and multiple students encouraged the instructor to keep using it in future offerings of the course.