Incremental self-assessment rubrics for capstone design courses

© American Society for Engineering Education, 2015. Design educators today face at least three major challenges: large classes, students with little practical knowledge, and teaching staff with little design experience or understanding of engineering practice. This paper provides suggestions on how these challenges can be overcome and, in particular, how self-assessment rubrics can help eliminate much of the traditional design course assessment workload for teachers. This paper provides suggestions for preparing incremental self-assessment rubrics for a capstone design course. While both self- and peer-assessment can provide significant assessment time-saving for tutors, self-assessment also promotes student learning, according to recent education research. Appropriately designed rubrics can also provide students with guidance on levels of attainment required for design tasks and students also learn to assess design quality.