How to provide individual grades for group project work?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I teach undergraduate programming project courses and have traditionally given the same project grade (about 45% of the semester grade) to everyone on each team, unless a team member's participation was clearly minimal, in which case I deduct points from that student's project grade, but I do not add points to other teammates'.

A student complained about their grade not reflecting the amount of work they put in, which was substantially more than their other teammates. I can sympathize with the complaint, although I pointed out to the student that I had followed the syllabus and project grading guide and that they had learned more and would get a better letter of recommendation than students who contributed less.

I would like for students' project grades to reflect their contributions, but just grading projects is time-consuming and difficult enough. What ways have teachers found to provide individual grades on team projects?