Grading by Experience Points: An Example from Computer Ethics
Edward F. Gehringer
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina State University
Abstract: In most of education, courses are graded based on percentages—a certain percentage is
required for each letter grade. Students often see this as a negative, in which they can only lose
points, not gain points, and put their class average at risk with each new assignment. This
contrasts with the world of online gaming, where they gain “experience points” from each new
activity, and their score monotonically increases toward a desired goal. In the last two or three
years, several instructors have moved to grading by experience points (XP). In Fall 2012, the
author switched to grading by experience points in his Ethics in Computing class. Students earn
points for a variety of activities, mainly performing ethical analyses of various issues related to
computing, and participating in debates on ethics-related topics. While the course is still in
progress at this writing, indications are that the grading system is serving as a motivator of student
involvement, with students eagerly signing up for analyses and investing considerable effort in
preparing for debates. The grading system appears to have mitigated the problem of student
engagement in this largely non-technical required course.
Literature Review
In his recent book, The Multiplayer
Classroom: Designing Coursework as a
Game, Lee Sheldon (2011) relates the
experiences of several instructors, including
himself, who have turned their classes into
games by awarding credit for activities that
that help students achieve learning objectives.
The concept has been used at levels from
middle school to college, and from
community colleges to Research I
universities. Many of the courses relate to
education or educational technology, but they
vary from United States history to business
writing. McCallum (2010) has also used XP
to grade courses. Similar concepts include
the Game-Enhanced Learning framework
(Charles, Bustard, & Black, 2011) and GameBased Learning (Pan, Mishra, Yuan,
Stackpole, & Schwartz, 2012).
Approach
Figure 1. Grading scheme based on experience points
This semester, we are employing this
technique in CSC 379, Ethics in Computing, which is a required one-credit course for Computer Science majors at
our university. The course has often been plagued by low attendance. We wanted an approach that would make
students delve into the very relevant and often very interesting issues of law, public policy, and personal morality.
The instructor is also the originator of the Ethics in Computing Web site, http;//ethics.csc.ncsu.edu (Gehringer,
2001), which has not been updated since the last time he taught the course in 2008, but remains Google’s top hit for
“Ethics in Computing.” There is a need to update the coverage of all ≈ 120 topics discussed on this site. The site
has been developed by student contributions, with the topics being updated on a rolling basis every two years or so.
But now, with so much time passing between revisions, it is desirable to update the topics in a single semester. In
addition, we want to transition the site from one that mainly links to news articles and analyses to one that offers
ethical analyses of each issues it covers.
Experience points seemed like a logical choice. Students could gain experience points for each topic that they wrote
on (scaled by their score for that contribution). Specific numbers of experience points a for each letter grade (for
example, 2600 points for an A, 2300 for a B), and, if students need to earn extra points to reach their desired grade,
they would merely need to perform additional activities, like analyzing more issues, or reviewing analyses done by
other students. In effect, all work is treated as if it is “extra credit,” having a particular point value. Students could
write a maximum of six analyses during the semester, but doing only three analyses will put them on track to earn an
A, provided they do “A work” (receive ≥ 93% of the 400 possible experience points for the analysis). Students are
encouraged to work in pairs on the analysis. Each member of the pair receives as many points as a sole author
would for the same work.
An important part of the student’s task is reviewing
other students’ work. Students use the peer-review
system Expertiza to fill out a review rubric on the
ethical analysis submitted by another pair of
students. Each review is worth 50 points, which
gives students an incentive to do several reviews.
Thus far, each analysis has received about 5
reviews on average, which gives students a good
basis to revise their work. After they revise and
submit it, the course staff assigns a final grade.
While students earn most of their points for writing
and reviewing ethical analyses, they earn points for
other activities too. Twice during the semester,
they participate in a debate on a topic like,
“Resolved: That organizations should configure
computer systems so that only IT staff can install
software,” or, “Resolved: That computer science
programs should teach students how to produce and
defend against malware.” There are also quizzes
over each week’s reading assignment.
The semester is still in progress, but after the
semester, we will have data on the number and
Figure 2. A sample review
length of analyses produced by this class, compared
to previous classes; on the number and length of
reviews, and how the average score on ethical analyses changed over the course of the semester. We will also
discuss student feedback on the grading process.
References
Charles, T., Bustard, D., & Black, M. (2011). Experiences of Promoting Student Engagement Through GameEnhanced Learning. In M. Ma, A. Oikonomou, & L. C. Jain (Eds.), Serious Games and Edutainment
Applications (pp. 425–445). Springer London. Retrieved from
http://www.springerlink.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/content/p9766l8222538502/abstract/
Gehringer, E. F. (2001). Building an Ethics in Computing Website using peer review. 2001 ASEE Annual
Conference and Exposition, Session (Vol. 1461). Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.87.48&rep=rep1&type=pdf
McCallum, S. (2010). Game Design for Computer Science Education. Norsk informatikkonferanse (NIK). Retrieved
from http://www.tapironline.no/last-ned/338
Pan, Y., Mishra, S., Yuan, B., Stackpole, B., & Schwartz, D. (2012). Game-based Forensics Course For First Year
Students. Retrieved from http://sigite2012.sigite.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/session01-paper03.pdf
Sheldon, L. (2011). The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game. Course Technology Press.
Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/citation.cfm?id=2031502