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Design a group assignment

This resource offers suggestions for designing group assignments which students will finding motivating. We’ll explore how to make the assignment meaningful, easily allocated into sub-tasks, relevant to learning outcomes and achievable.

One of the most crucial aspects of group work is the task set for the group. If students engage in their task, they will be more likely to be motivated to be an active participant in group work and develop new skills. Unfortunately, many students find their tasks to be inappropriate or too difficult for group work and thus lack motivation to work collectively on the assignment. In fact, many students view their assignments as little more than an individual assessment task applied to a group of students to reduce marking.

Develop a motivating group assignment

To develop a motivating group assignment, first you need to understand what students look for in a collaborative assessment task. Understanding students’ expectations is important because it allows you to see where your task can be aligned with their expectations. It also allows you to identify where alignment may not be possible. These differences can then be discussed with the students so they understand your reasons. Students will always work better when they understand why they are being assessed in a particular way.

There are four important factors which students look for in a group assignment.

1. A meaningful assignment

Students are not only motivated by the mark they will receive for their assignment. They are also motivated by the work they will produce.

Students often report that their most motivating group assignments are those which are “client-based”. These are assignments where the groups enact the role of consultant and work on an issue which has been identified by the client (in most instances, an organisation). Groups usually produce some form of written report (or in some disciplines a product) which is assessed by the lecturer. Occasionally, the client is also invited to assess the group’s output. Students are particularly motivated when they know that the client will be viewing and assessing the work.

Designing “client-based” group assignments are becoming increasingly popular in university settings. Many organisations are interested in participating in such projects because of the insights and perspectives generated by the project groups. Non-profit organisations, with their limited resources, are often keen to become clients and students are particularly motivated to help such organisations.

Some lecturers are even beginning to view the university as a client and are designing group assignments which address particular concerns faced by students and staff.

2. Easily allocated into sub-tasks

Student groups almost always divide up their task and allocate different sections to each member. Even if you do not want the assignment to be broken up, they probably will (or at least attempt to do so).

Students argue that this is the only strategy to use when they are members of 3 or 4 other groups. Unfortunately, most groups struggle when they attempt to divide up the task because it has not been designed to be broken up. It has been designed to be completed collectively. The rationale behind this strategy is that students learn group skills by closely working together on every aspect of the task.

While this strategy can be effective, it usually takes much longer than one semester for it to work. Furthermore, it usually requires that members work together full-time on the one task. With students working part-time, on more than one task, in more than one group, it is in many ways an unrealistic strategy. There is just not enough time for students to work together on every issue.

Knowing that students divide up their group task, many lecturers are beginning to devise group assignments with this in mind. In these assignments, each group member is required to do a piece of work. These individual pieces are then combined together to form a completed group product (there is usually an introduction and conclusion which the group write together to bring the individual sections together).

Students are motivated by these types of assignments because:

• they are less dependent on each other
• they don’t have to make joint decisions on each and every issue,
• there are fewer disagreements
• they have the opportunity to ‘shine’ as well as contribute to the group

Lecturers also benefit greatly from the task design due to:

• fewer complaints about free-riding (because each member’s work is identifiable)
• greater enthusiasm for group work
• less conflict in groups
• greater peer support

As with any innovation, there are of course critics to the approach. The main criticism is that students are not working in ‘fully fledged’ groups and, as such, fail to develop a broad range of skills. While this may be true, proponents argue that it is far better to learn some skills well than many at only a shallow level. This approach works on the rationale that students should not be expected to learn too many skills in a semester, but rather focus on a number of key skills (eg. coordination, peer support, accountability).

Proponents also argue that the notion of the fully fledged group rarely exists in industry and that their approach more accurately mirrors the “real world”. In many organisations, team members often work independently on individual pieces and bring them together to form the product (or the collection of group products). The aim of their approach is to reflect this style of team work and to teach students how to operate under such a system.

It is understandable that many group assignments must be collaborative and result in a single product. For these assignments, it is important to remember that students will try to split the task up. If the task can be logically divided, it may be advisable to help them do so – this will save the group valuable time. If the task cannot be broken apart, this should be clearly explained to students before they try to do so.

3. Relevant to learning outcomes

As mentioned earlier, many students are sceptical about collaborative assessment tasks and often view them merely as a way of reducing marking. For students to be motivated to participate in group assignments, they often need to see the tangible benefits of doing so. This is best achieved by designing group assignments which are closely aligned to the learning objectives of the subject.

When designing collaborative assignments, it is important to consider what knowledge, skills and abilities you want your students to learn through group work. While there will be a generic set applicable to most group assignments (eg. learning to communicate and cooperate with peers), there will also be a specific set which need to be geared to the assignment. For example, what type of interpersonal communication skills do you want your students to learn? Do you want them to learn to communicate face-to-face or also to learn computer mediated communication? If the latter is important, then establishing an “on-line” group task (eg. an on-line debate or discussion group) would be appropriate.

All too often, lectures design group assignments with little reference to the learning objectives and this can create confusion for students. For example, students often fail to see how requirements such as communicating “on-line” or making a group presentation are relevant to their learning outcomes. Whilst the objective may be clear to the lecturer, students often have little idea. It is therefore important that the objectives of the group assignment are  explicitly  made known to students. This is best achieved through a well structured subject outline that breaks down the group assignment into its sub-components and links each component to a key learning objective.

4. An achievable assignment

When designing an appropriate group assignment, it is also important to set a task which can realistically be achieved by students within the specified time frame. Whilst the task may be meaningful and challenging, it can become too time consuming and overwhelming for students. This is particularly the case when students are doing equally challenging group assignments in their other subjects. Students often complain that many of their difficulties arise from the multiple group assignments they are forced to do each semester and how many lecturers are either insensitive or oblivious to this fact. T

he unfortunate result is that students become disillusioned with their group assignments and tend to apply themselves less. This usually results in a decrease in learning, motivation and output quality and an increase in group related problems such as conflict and the withdrawal of effort. To help design a realistically achievable task, it may therefore be worth ‘standing back’ and viewing the group assignment from the student’s perspective.

Things to consider

• Invite the client to a class or classes throughout the semester
• Restrict students from contacting the clients whenever they choose
• Provide samples of work completed by groups in previous years.
• Discuss how groups, particularly those who have done well in previous years, have gone about completing their assignment
• If you are having difficulties finding a real client, design your group assignment around a mock client (eg. a hypothetical client or a client from a previous year)

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Over the last decade, there has been a multitude of research to support the use of student groups and student collaboration for class assignments. Early online learning environments forced teachers to become creative in assigning and collecting collaborative work; however, current systems offer more options. The most recent updates to Google Classroom expanded the possibilities for students and teachers in regards to grouping assignments. Assigning lessons to groups of students in Classroom involves only a few simple steps and opens up possibilities which were not formerly available for teachers and students.

Step 1: Create Group Documents

The first step in assigning group work in Classroom is to create an assignment document (Doc, Sheet, etc.) and make a copy for each group. Be sure to add the group name or number to the end of the file name to assist with organization. Save group assignment documents in Drive where they can be easily located. Saving documents in the Classroom folder is acceptable.

Step 2: Create Group Assignment Topic

On the Classwork tab, select the Create button and choose Topic. Give the topic an appropriate name relative to the group project.

Step 3: Choose Students

Select the Create button and choose Assignment. In the Assignment dialogue box, click the student dropdown menu, uncheck “all students” and choose the students who will be in the first group. This step will be repeated later for additional groups.

Step 4: Create Assignment

In the Assignment dialogue box, give the assignment an appropriate title which includes the group name and/or number and provide any additional instructions. Remember to select the Topic for the group project. Next, upload assignment documents for the initial group, and be sure “Students Can Edit” is chosen as the document option instead of making a copy for each student. Don’t post the assignment yet – save as a draft until all groups are created.

Step 5: Reuse Assignment for Additional Groups

Using the “Reuse Post” feature helps teachers avoid the need to retype information for each group assignment. First, click the Create button and choose Reuse Post. The Reuse Post dialogue box will appear. Select the post to be duplicated and click Reuse. Finally, edit the assignment as needed for each group. Ensure that the group members are adjusted using the student dropdown menu and that the group number is changed in the title and instructions (if needed). Also, remember to remove the assignment documents for the prior group and upload the documents needed for the new group. Save additional group assignments as drafts (don’t post yet).

Step 6: Post All Group Assignments

Once all group assignment draft are complete, the final step is to post the assignments so students can begin working. Drafts of group assignments will appear under the group topic created in Step 1. Click the triple dot menu and select Edit. The Assignment dialogue box will appear in order for the assignment to be posted. Repeat this step for each group.

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Center for Teaching Innovation

How to evaluate group work.

Students working in small groups often learn more and demonstrate better retention than students taught in other instructional formats. When instructors incorporate group assignments and activities into their courses, they must make thoughtful decisions regarding how to organize the group, how to facilitate it, and how to evaluate the completed work.

Instructor Evaluations

• Create a rubric to set evaluation standards and share with students to communicate expectations.
• Assess the performance of the group and its individual members.
• Give regular feedback so group members can gauge their progress both as a group and individually.
• Decide what criteria to base final evaluations upon. For example, you might weigh the finished product, teamwork, and individual contributions differently.
• Consider adjusting grades based on peer evaluations.

Peer Evaluations

Consider providing a rubric to foster consistent peer evaluations of participation, quality, and quantity of work.

• This may reveal participation issues that the instructor might not otherwise know about.
• Students who know that their peers will evaluate them may contribute more to the group and have a greater stake in the project.
• Completing evaluations early in the project allows groups to assess how they can improve.

General Strategies for Evaluation

• Groups need to know who may be struggling to complete assignments, and members need to know they cannot sit back and let others do all the work. You can assess individual student progress by giving spot quizzes and evaluate group progress by setting up meetings with each group to review the project status.
• Once or twice during the group task, ask group members to fill out a group and/or peer evaluation to assess team effectiveness. Consider asking “What action has each member taken that was helpful for the group? What action could each member take to make the group more effective?”
• Help students reflect on what they have learned and how they have learned it. Consider asking students to complete a short survey that focuses on their individual contributions to the group, how the group interacted together, and what the individual student learned from the project in relation to the rest of the course.
• Explain your grading system to students before they begin their work. The system should encourage teamwork, positive interdependence, and individual accountability. If you are going to consider the group’s evaluation of each member’s work, it is best to have students evaluate each other independently and confidentially.

Example Group Work Assessment Rubric

Here is an example of a group work assessment rubric. Filling out a rubric for each member of the group can help instructors assess individual contributions to the group and the individual’s role as a team player.

This rubric can also be used by group members as a tool to guide a mid-semester or mid-project discussion on how each individual is contributing to the group.

Total Points ______

Notes and Comments:

Gueldenzoph, L. E., & May, G. L. (2002). Collaborative peer evaluation: Best practices for group member assessments.  Business Communication Quarterly, 65 (1), 9-20.

Johnston, L., & Miles, L. (2004). Assessing contributions to group assignments.  Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 29 (6), 751-768.

Oakley, B., Felder, F. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I, (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams.  Journal of Student Centered Learning, 2 (1) 9-34.

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Over the ten years, there has been a variety of research to support learner groups and learner collaboration for class assignments. Early online learning environments forced educators to become creative in assigning and collecting collaborative work; however, current systems offer more options. The many recent updates to Google Classroom expanded the possibilities for learners and educators regarding grouping assignments. Assigning lessons to groups of learners in Classroom involves only a few easy steps and opens up possibilities that were not formerly available for educators and learners.

Step 1: Create Group Documents

The first step in allocating group work in Classroom is to make an assignment document and make a copy for every group. Add the group name to the end of the file name for organization purposes. Save assignment documents in Drive, so they can be located easily. Saving documents in the Classroom folder is the way to go.

Step 2: Create Group Assignment Topic

On the Classwork tab, select the Make button and choose Topic. Give the topic a name relative to the group project.

Step 3: Select Learners

Select the Make button and choose the assignment. In the Assignment dialogue box, click the learner dropdown menu, uncheck “all learners,” and choose the learners who will be in the first group. This step will be repeated later for more groups.

Step 4: Create Assignment

In the Assignment dialogue section, give the assignment an appropriate title, including the group name and/or number, and provide instructions. Select the Topic for the group project. Next, upload assignment documents for the first group, and be sure “Learners Can Edit” is chosen as the document option in lieu of making a copy for each learner. Don’t post the assignment yet; save as a draft until after all groups are made.

Step 5: Recycle Assignment for More Groups

Using the “Reuse Post,” feature helps educators avoid the need to retype info for each group assignment. First, click the Make button and select Reuse Post. The Reuse Post dialogue box will appear. Choose the post to be duplicated and click Reuse. Edit, the assignment for each group. Ensure that the group members are modified using the learner dropdown menu and that the group number is modified in the title and instructions. Remember to remove the assignment documents for the group before and upload the documents needed for the new group. Save group assignments as drafts.

Step 6: Post Your Group Assignments

Once all group assignment drafts are complete, the final step is to post the assignments so learners can begin working. Drafts of group assignments will be shown under the group topic made in Step 1. Click the triple dot menu and choose the Edit option. The Assignment dialogue box will appear for the assignment to be posted. Repeat this step for each group .

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Example Group Assignments

• Divide students into teams, designating one student as a leader. Have the students apply course concepts to solving a problem and report back to the class. Other groups or students are encouraged to comment on the final solutions of other teams. 2  
• Students complete an assignment that will be assessed by their peers. This is an effective learning assessment tool when there are no right or wrong answers and when several methods can be used to solve a problem.  
• Students complete a draft of an essay or an oral report, then have peers critique and edit.  It’s valuable to have the assessment rubric available to use as an editing guide. 1
• Students read assigned material and come up with questions reflective of their reading. They can post their questions to a designated Blackboard discussion thread, and work on answering the questions individually or in groups. The instructor monitors, redirects, settles disputes, or adds comment to lead the discussion in a new direction or positively reinforce students.  
• Use the jigsaw for complex problem solving. First, separate students into expert groups. Each group is assigned a different piece of the concept to present to the class. In the expert group, the students work on ways to present their piece to the larger class so the class understands the concept. The students teach the class the concept. Assess learning through peer review or individual quizzes. This activity ensures individual responsibility while using collaborative learning. 1
• Students describe someone they admire in their field, contact and interview this person. The assignment is structured so the student learns how to make contacts and report back on their experiences. On a more simple level, students could network with other students in their class to practice networking and learn about what other experiences students are bringing to the class.  
• Wikis help streamline group projects by allowing students to collaborate seamlessly while providing the instructor with a digital footprint of each group member who contributed to the project.
• http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/CLChapter.pdf
• https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developing-assignments/group-work/group-work-classroom-types-small-groups
• http://www.uwlax.edu/catl/studentlearning/presentations/collaborativelearningtechniqueshandout.pdf
• https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/setting-up-and-facilitating-group-work-using-cooperative-learning-groups-effectively/

Create a group assignment

You can create a collaborative assignment for teams of students who participate in your course.

Who can use this feature?

Organization owners who are admins for a classroom can create and manage group assignments for a classroom. For more information on classroom admins, see " Manage classrooms ."

In this article

Note: In January 2024, GitHub Classroom will change the way student repositories are created from starter code repositories. Currently, the process requires starter code repositories to be templates, and GitHub Classroom creates a new repository for each student based on that template. With the upcoming change, student repositories will be created by forking the starter code repository.

This change addresses a frequently requested feature from teachers: the ability to change starter code after an assignment has been accepted by students.

You can read more about this change on the GitHub blog .

This feature is in public beta and subject to change.

About group assignments

A group assignment is collaborative coursework for groups of students on GitHub Classroom. Students can work together on a group assignment in a shared repository, like a team of professional developers.

When a student accepts a group assignment, the student can create a new team or join an existing team. GitHub Classroom saves the teams for an assignment as a set. You can name the set of teams for a specific assignment when you create the assignment, and you can reuse that set of teams for a later assignment.

For each group assignment, GitHub Classroom automatically creates a single shared repository for the team to access. The repository can be empty, or you can create the repository from a template repository with starter code, documentation, tests, and other resources. The repository belongs to your organization account on GitHub, and GitHub Classroom grants access to teams that students create or join when accepting the assignment.

Each assignment has a title and an optional deadline. You can choose the visibility of repositories that GitHub Classroom creates and choose access permissions. You can also automatically grade assignments and create a dedicated space to discuss the assignment with the student.

You can decide how many teams one assignment can have, and how many members each team can have. Each team that a student creates for an assignment is a team within your organization on GitHub. The visibility of the team is secret. Teams that you create on GitHub will not appear in GitHub Classroom. For more information, see " About teams ."

You can reuse existing assignments in any other classroom you have admin access to, including classrooms in a different organization. For more information, see " Reuse an assignment ."

Prerequisites

You must create a classroom before you can create an assignment. For more information, see " Manage classrooms ."

Creating an assignment

• Sign into GitHub Classroom .
• Navigate to a classroom.
• If this your first assignment, click Create an assignment .
• Otherwise, click New assignment on the right side.

Setting up the basics for an assignment

Name your assignment, decide whether to assign a deadline, define teams, and choose the visibility of assignment repositories.

Naming an assignment

Assigning a deadline for an assignment, choosing an assignment type, defining teams for an assignment, choosing a visibility for assignment repositories.

For a group assignment, GitHub Classroom names repositories by the repository prefix and the name of the team. By default, the repository prefix is the assignment title. For example, if you name an assignment "assignment-1" and the team's name on GitHub is "student-team", the name of the assignment repository for members of the team will be assignment-1-student-team .

Under "Assignment title", type a title for the assignment. Optionally, click to edit the prefix.

Optionally, you can assign a deadline to the assignment. Under "Deadline (optional)", click in the text field, then use the date picker to assign a deadline.

Optionally, to make the deadline a cutoff date, select This is a cutoff date . If you use a cutoff date, students will lose write access to their assignment repositories after the cutoff date has passed unless they receive an extension. For more information on extending assignment deadlines, see " Extending an assignment's deadline for an individual or group ."

Under "Individual or group assignment", select the drop-down menu, then click Group assignment . You can't change the assignment type after you create the assignment. If you'd rather create an individual assignment, see " Create an individual assignment ."

If you've already created a group assignment for the classroom, you can reuse a set of teams for the new assignment. To create a new set with the teams that your students create for the assignment, type the name for the set. Optionally, type the maximum number of team members and total teams.

We recommend including details about the set of teams in the name for the set. For example, if you want to use the set of teams for one assignment, name the set after the assignment. If you want to reuse the set throughout a semester or course, name the set after the semester or course.

If you'd like to assign students to a specific team, give your students a name for the team and provide a list of members.

The repositories for an assignment can be public or private. If you use private repositories, only the student or team can see the feedback you provide.

You can also decide whether to grant students admin permissions to the repository for an assignment. Grant admin permissions if the student should be able to perform administrative tasks for the assignment repository. For more information, see " About repositories " and " Repository roles for an organization ."

Under "Repository visibility", select a visibility. Optionally, select Grant students admin access to their repository .

When you're done, click Continue to configure starter code and a development environment for the assignment.

Adding starter code and configuring a development environment

Optionally, decide whether to provide empty repositories or starter code, and preconfigure a development environment for your students.

Choosing a template repository

Choosing an integrated development environment (ide).

By default, a new assignment will create an empty repository for each team that a student creates. You can optionally choose a template repository as starter code for the assignment. For more information about template repositories, see " Creating a template repository ."

Note: The template repository must belong to your organization or be a public repository on GitHub.

Under "Add a template repository to give students starter code", select the Select a repository drop-down, then type a search query. In the list of results, click the template repository you'd like to use for starter code.

You can optionally configure an assignment to use an integrated development environment (IDE). IDEs allow your students to write code, run programs, and collaborate without installing Git and a full development toolchain on the student's computer. If you choose an IDE for an assignment, students can still check out and run code locally on a computer with the necessary software. For more information, see " Integrate GitHub Classroom with an IDE ."

You can choose to configure an assignment with GitHub Codespaces to give students access to a browser-based Visual Studio Code environment with one-click setup. For more information, see " Using GitHub Codespaces with GitHub Classroom ."

To choose an IDE for the assignment, select the Add an editor drop-down menu and click the IDE you'd like your students to use.

When you're done, click Continue to configure automatic grading and feedback for the project.

Providing feedback

Optionally, you can automatically grade assignments and create a space for discussing each submission with the team.

Testing assignments automatically

Creating a pull request for feedback.

You can use autograding to automatically check a student's work for an assignment on GitHub Classroom. You configure tests for an assignment, and the tests run immediately every time a student pushes to an assignment repository on GitHub.com. The student can view the test results, make changes, and push to see new results. For more information, see " Use autograding ."

Under "Add autograding tests", select the Add test drop-down menu, then click the grading method you want to use. For more information, see " Use autograding ."

Define the parameters of your test case, like the name, commands, inputs, outputs, timeout, and points. When you're done, click Save test case .

You can add more tests with the Add test drop-down menu, and you can edit or delete existing tests with or .

You can automatically create a pull request where you can provide feedback and answer a student's questions about an assignment. For more information about the review of changes in a pull request, see " Reviewing changes in pull requests ." For more information on leaving feedback in a pull request, see " Leave feedback with pull requests ."

To create pull requests for the discussion of feedback, select Enable feedback pull requests .

To create the assignment, click Create assignment .

Inviting students to an assignment

By default, GitHub Classroom enables an invitation URL for each assignment you create. Students can accept and submit the assignment while the invitation URL is enabled. You can share the URL with your students on your LMS, course homepage, or wherever you post assignments. Students can also navigate to the assignment on GitHub Classroom if the student has already accepted an assignment for the classroom.

Warning : Be careful where you share invitation URLs. Anyone with an invitation URL for an assignment can accept the invitation and associate a personal account on GitHub with an identifier in your roster.

You can see the teams that are working on or have submitted an assignment in the Teams tab for the assignment. To prevent acceptance or submission of an assignment by students, you can change the "Assignment Status" within the "Edit assignment" view. When an assignment is Active, students will be able to accept it using the invitation link. When it is Inactive, this link will no longer be valid.

Monitoring students' progress

The assignment overview page provides an overview of your assignment acceptances and student progress. For more information on viewing and using the assignment overview page, see " Monitor students' progress with the assignment overview page ."

After you create the assignment and your students form teams, team members can start work on the assignment using Git and GitHub's features. Students can clone the repository, push commits, manage branches, create and review pull requests, address merge conflicts, and discuss changes with issues. Both you and the team can review the commit history for the repository. For more information, see " Get started with GitHub documentation ," " Repositories documentation ," " Using Git ," and " Collaborating with pull requests ," and the free course on resolving merge conflicts from GitHub Skills.

When a team finishes an assignment, you can review the files in the repository, or you can review the history and visualizations for the repository to better understand how the team collaborated. For more information, see " Viewing activity and data for your repository ."

You can provide feedback for an assignment by commenting on individual commits or lines in a pull request. For more information, see " Commenting on a pull request " and " Creating an issue ." For more information about creating saved replies to provide feedback for common errors, see " About saved replies ."

Further reading

• " GitHub Global Campus for teachers "
• " Connect a learning management system course to a classroom "
• " Using GitHub Classroom with GitHub CLI "

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Creating a group assignment

Instructors can set up their assigned assessments to allow for group submissions. Instructors can form the groups of students  or students can create their own groups. Any single member of the group can submit on behalf of the group and a single group assessment will be graded. To avoid overwriting submissions, we recommend that only one group member submits. All students in the group will receive a copy of the graded feedback in their Crowdmark portfolio.

What are the differences between group and individual submission?

• In an individual submission , each student submits their own work and receives grades and feedback to their own portfolio. In a group submission,  one student submits on behalf of the group, and the group members each receive the same grades and feedback to their own portfolios.
• In an individual submission , each student must submit their own work. With a group submission , there is an option for students to choose to submit their work alone, or as a group. It’s important to note submissions cannot be combined or added to a group if they have been submitted individually. 
• Group submissions  allow options for instructors to create groups ahead of time in the Students page , or for students to add their own group members at time of submission. 

Create an Assigned assessment and tick the box to select Group submission.

Finish setting up the assessment by  adding questions .

If you would like students to form their own groups, you can  Distribute  the assignment to students. (A description of what students will see is included below.)

The group members can be formed or edited by the instructor before or after the assignment has been distributed by navigating to the  Students  tab and clicking on the blue  Edit Groups  button at the top right.

To  Edit Groups , simply drag the unassigned student names on the left to a group on the right. Students need to be removed from a group before they can be added to a different group. If the assignment has already been distributed, students will be notified by email when they are added to a group.

Returning to the Students list shows the newly formed groups. The group  submission log  is accessible by clicking on the link for a group under the  Status  column. The log includes the addition or removal of group members and all submission activity for each individual user. Click for more information on  verifying students’ submissions.

The student list will sort student groups alphabetically A-Z by default. When sorting the table using student names, the list will sort alphabetically using the  first name  of the first student in the group.

What Will Students See?

Once the assignment has been distributed, students will receive an email with a link to view the assignment.

Students will be able to add or edit group members before submitting.

Students can only add members who have not already been added to another group. Once a student is added to a group, the submission page is shared among the group members and any member can submit work on behalf of the group.

Students will receive an email notification that they have been added to a group by a particular user.

Students also have access to the  submission log in their portflio . The log includes the addition or removal of group members and submission activity for each individual user.

Once a group assignment has been submitted, students will  not  be able to edit the group members. Students will need to contact their instructor to make any changes to group members after submission.  Note: if students have submitted individually, moving students to a group will clear their individual submissions.

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Assignment 1: Forming a Team

Due: Monday, April 8, 2024 at 7PM

This quarter, you're going to try to replicate an experimental result from a networking research paper. We say try because you might not be able to! Whether you can or can't, both are useful scientific results: you'll write up your results and publish them on the Reproducing Networking Research blog. We focus on replicating an prior result because it introduces a degree of complexity and rigor which is hard to encounter in a one quarter open research project.

There are four major milestones to your project:

Assembling a group of 3-4 people to work together throughout the quarter

Propose a research result that you will replicate

Submit a midterm report in Week 6

Present, write up and publish your final results

When you're done with this assignment, you should have

learned the difference between repeating, reproducing, and replicating research results,

grown from a group into a team, with shared goals and expectations, and

agreed on a general topic in networking you'd like to replicate a result from.

1 Repeatability, Reproducibility, and Replicability

This quarter, you'll try to replicate a prior result from a networking research paper. How is this different from reproducing a result, or repeating a result? The three terms means distinct things. Read how the ACM defines the three terms .

In prior years, students in CS244 spent 3 weeks reproducing a result . We found that while this experience was valuable, with the increasing emphasis on reproducibility in ACM conferences achieving this, is often quite simple: download some code and running a few scripts. While this is good for the research community generally, it doesn't give you a deeper understanding of a networking result. We've therefore transitioned to replicating results – you will re-implement a system based on the description in a paper and measure what you've built.

2 Form a Team

cribbed from Erin MacDonald

The most important parts of a successful team are:

Finding a time when everyone meets, as a group, each week, for at least two hours.

Having similar expectations for the course and the amount of time you will spend on it. Each student should expect to spend about five hours outside of class per week on the project.

Find a Time to Meet

Compare your schedules to find a time block of at least two hours when you all can meet. Commit to meeting at this time each week and working together. If something comes up and someone can't make it, be sure to schedule another time for that week.

Agree on an Area of Networking Research to Explore

Look over the programs from recent SIGCOMM, NSDI, INFOCOM, CoNEXT, Mobicom, and Mobisys conferences. Look at the sessions and titles of papers. The goal isn't to yet focus on a single paper, it's to find an area you all find interesting and would like to learn more about. Your next assignment will be to pick a particular result from a partcular paper to replicate.

Write a Charter

A team charter is a document of your own design. It should be “artfully” designed, expressing some interests and passions of your team. Things to discuss:

What are your goals for the class? Please have each member discuss individually.

Talk about some triumphs and challenges on past team assignments.

Take this quiz . Discuss whether or not you agree with the classification. It will give you a starting point for discussing your interests in your project.

Include in the charter:

Who are your team members?

What is your team mascot?

How will the team celebrate triumphs?

How will the team make important decisions?

How will the team resolve conflicts and discuss problems?

Leadership: What does “leadership” mean to your team?

Who is the person that hits “submit” on your reports and milestones? The one who crosses the “t”s and dots the “i”s? You can assign different people to be in charge of different reports and milestones, but it helps to have a clear person in charge for each one.

What are the skills of the team members? What special skill does everyone bring to the team?

When will the team meet as a group each week? Please be precise.

What will be the procedure for missing or being late to this meeting? How much advance notice must be given and using what method? (We recommend that last-minute text messaging is not used to inform team members that a member will be late or miss a meeting.)

How will you design your software so people can work independently, through stable and well-defined interfaces?

What area(s) of networking research will you explore?

4 Handing In

Send an email to [email protected], with the subject “Team <NAME>”, attaching your charter as a PDF.

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Objection to assignment form.

As healthcare workers, there are times when we feel that management is asking us to do work that is unsafe for ourselves or our patients. That’s why we want to make sure everyone understands their right to object to an assignment.

Please Note: By filling out an objection-to-assignment form, you are not refusing to perform the work assignment. But you are doing so under protest.

Filling out an objection-to-assignment form makes management aware of the unsafe conditions so they have the opportunity to remedy it. If management doesn’t act, filling out the form serves to document the unsafe working conditions, and put the legal liability on management should something bad occur.

Online Form

Fill out an objection-to-assignment form

Instructions

• Choose your facility.
• Fill out the form with your name, contact information, unit where the unsafe assignment occurred, some details about the assignment and the name of the supervisor that you made aware of the situation.
• Click “submit” to email a copy to yourself and NUHW.
• You will then be asked if you want to print or email a copy of the completed objection-to-assignment form to your supervisor. If you chose “email to supervisor,” enter your supervisor’s email and it will be sent to them. If you print the completed form, you can also hand deliver a hard copy to your supervisor.
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California Supreme Court hears arguments on UC Berkeley's plans for housing at People's Park

A pr. 3—Should noise from the future residents of a housing project be considered a form of environmental pollution under California environmental regulations? And to what degree should housing developers be pushed to study alternative sites for a project?

These are the questions the California Supreme Court faced Wednesday as it heard oral arguments in a case between UC Berkeley and a group of activists countering the university's plans to build housing at People's Park.

The case goes back to 2021, when Make UC A Good Neighbor and The People's Park Historic District Advocacy Group sued UC Berkeley over the project — which would provide 1,100 student beds and 100 beds for people who are formerly homeless — arguing that the university failed to properly assess noise generated by students living there, or consider alternative sites. The university argued that it is building housing on all of the sites outlined in its Long Range Development Plan, which envisions adding 12,000 new student beds and 8 million square feet of classrooms, libraries and research labs by 2036.

Last year, an appellate court sided with the activists 3-0. Fearing the decision would indefinitely delay its master plan, including any future student housing, UC Berkeley appealed to the state Supreme Court to overturn that decision.

The university also got a major boost last year when, in response to that appellate court ruling, the state legislature passed AB 1307, amending the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to clarify that noise generated by a housing project's occupants can't be considered a significant impact on the environment.

On Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Downtown Los Angeles, UC lawyer Nicole Gordon pointed to the new law, arguing it undermined the appellate court's February decision and gave the Supreme Court reason to overturn it.

"CEQA is not meant to regulate people," Gordon said. "Yes, people cause pollution, but never before has a court said that the people themselves are the pollution."

The attorney for the People's Park activists, Thomas Lippe, argued that while AB 1307 may have rendered moot their argument around social noise regarding the People's Park project, such noise should still be taken into account by environmental reviews of the university's more broad long-range plan, which includes both residential and non-residential components.

"The legislature's purpose was to remove barriers to the actual construction of housing," Lippe argued. "It makes perfect sense for the legislature to leave a broad requirement in CEQA to... investigate the social noise impacts of increasing population."

Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, who presided over the oral arguments, asked how the court should distinguish between the residential and non-residential parts of the long-term plan, and when CEQA should apply.

"You simply would come up with a method... to analyze the effect of the noise of having more students in the city," Lippe said, adding that some colleges, like UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara, "have a party culture" and that could be a "focus of the analysis."

"Having CEQA require social noise analysis of the long-range plan simply doesn't interfere with the actual decisions to construct housing," Lippe said.

Lippe also argued that UC Berkeley should be required to consider alternative sites as part of the environmental review it conducts under CEQA.

"It is in the public interest for the court to decide... that the public has the right to be involved in that decision making and have the reasons for alternative sites not being chosen made clear in the [environmental impact review.]"

Guerrero pointed out that this could open up any future project for a court case if a community member contends that the developer hasn't considered enough alternative sites — but Lippe said that wouldn't happen, as the cost of litigation and mounting a case are too high a barrier for most community groups.

The discussion continued to come back to one thing: the university's growth.

"The true target of the opponents' challenge is really clear, that it is about undergraduate students," Gordon argued.

Regardless of the court's ruling on this case, the People's Park housing project is expected to move forward, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof has said.

The university is in significant need of more housing — it currently provides just 22% of its more than 45,000 undergraduate and graduate students with on-campus housing, the lowest percentage of any UC school. The People's Park project, plus other housing outlined in the long-range plan, would double the number of on-campus beds.

A decision is due by July 2.

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