| Component | Evaluation rubric |
| |
| Content | 30 points |
| Introduction |
- 0: not provided
- 2: overly brief or long-winded, failing to adequately introduce the purpose of the project
- 4: summary of reasonable length, but too trivial, or overly complex to be clearly understood by someone not expert in the area of the particular project
- 6: well written, offering a general, high-level description of the project and its purpose that is accessible to non-experts
|
| Background |
- 0: not provided
- 2: limited description of purpose and rationale; inadequate discussion of related papers/projects
- 4: reasonable description of purpose and rationale, but includes significant background that is irrelevant to the project
- 6: adequate explanation of purpose and rationale for undertaking an FGPA design of the system, limited summary of relevant background from other paper/projects
- 8: clearly explains purpose and rationale for undertaking an FGPA design of the system, as well as previous solutions found in related papers/projects
|
| High-level description of the design strategy and accompanying module diagram(s) |
- 0: not provided
- 2: description missing important details and/or diagram lacks meaningful labels
- 4: description lacks a few details or raises some unanswered questions, but otherwise fairly clear; diagram reasonably labeled
- 6: description is clear and reasonably complete; diagram(s) appropriately labeled
- 8: sufficiently clear and detailed to allow another ECSE-487 student to reproduce a similar implementation
|
| Description of challenge(s) and solution(s) |
- 0: not addressed
- 2: refers to one or more difficulties or challenges faced but does not describe these adequately
- 4: clearly explains one difficulty or challenge posed by the design problem or encountered during the implementation, but does not elaborate or justify solution
- 6: clearly explains at least two of the difficulties or challenges posed by the design problem or encountered during the implementation, and a well-justified solution for one of these
- 8: for at least two of the difficulties or challenges posed by the design problem or encountered during the implementation, these are clearly explained, and the solutions taken are accompanied by adequate justification
|
| Design | 20 points |
engineering discipline |
- 0: no engineering discipline demonstrated in the design
- 1: minimal engineering discipline demonstrated through description of system design
- 3: design demonstrates modest engineering skills
- 5: design clearly demonstrates engineering competence
|
| effort from specification to design |
- 0: no effort demonstrated, e.g., if design was provided directly from a reference document
- 1: connection between problem specification and design not clear
- 3: design meets requirements of specification and reasonably justified but consists largely of a copy-paste from a previous hardware decomposition for a similar system
- 5: design demonstrates investment of significant thought and well-justified decisions
|
| elegance and efficiency |
- 0: design demonstrates no elegance nor efficiency
- 1: clean design but important and obvious improvements such as use of pipelining were overlooked
- 3: reasonable design, but non-critical improvements, such as use of LPM(s) should have been considered
- 5: appears to be an efficient design, and demonstrates judicious use of available computer architecture resources and techniques
|
| VHDL code |
- 0: VHDL code not provided
- 1: uncommented or fails to compile
- 3: VHDL code compiles but could benefit from significantly more commenting or better modularization
- 5: VHDL code is well modularized and commented
|
| Results & Analysis | 40 points |
| Timing diagrams |
- 0: no timing diagrams
- 3: timing diagrams provided but lacking adequate annotation
- 7: clearly annotated timing diagrams provided but demonstrate limited effort to select only important signals or important conditions related to testing
- 10: judicious selection of signals in timing diagrams, demonstrate correct operation of the system as a whole and verify performance of at least two individual components
|
| Functionality |
- 0: system does not function correctly
- 3: limited functionality implemented and demonstrated correctly
- 7: system supports most of core functionality needed to satisfy objectives defined in abstract
- 10: system supports functionality set out in project abstract
|
| Test strategy |
- 0: no description of testing
- 3: limited testbench or lacking documentation of test cases
- 7: reasonable testbench and documentation but missing some key test cases
- 10: thorough testbench to verify correctness and performance; edge cases and possible error cases (where relevant) documented
|
| Clarity of analysis |
- 0: no results or analysis shown
- 3: limited results provided without meaningful analysis
- 7: timing results and resource utilization provided, along with reasonable analysis
- 10: thorough results and analysis, including discussion of whether these meet the criteria for success defined in project abstract
|
| Presentation | 10 points |
| Graphics |
- 0: no graphics apart from (possible) timing diagrams
- 1: graphics provided but do not contribute to the clarity of content
- 3: suitable quantity of graphics in the main body of the paper and these add value to the content
|
| Spelling and grammar |
- 0: prose is difficult to read, with most paragraphs containing numerous errors that should have been caught by a basic spell-check
- 1: a significant number of spelling and grammar errors
- 3: no (or almost no) apparent errors in spelling or grammar
|
| Organization |
- 0: sections do not respect standard layout for IEEE technical paper
- 2: individual paragraphs do not focus on a single theme and transitions between them do not flow
- 4: well structured, clearly organized paragraphs, with smooth flow between them
|
