Managing Project Teams in an Online Class of 1000+ Students

TL;DR

This paper describes a decade-long approach to managing, evaluating, and providing feedback to over 200 project teams of 1000+ students in an online CS course, addressing challenges of large-scale, geographically distributed education.

Contribution

It presents a scalable, refined methodology for team management and assessment in large online courses, enhancing accessibility and effectiveness of CS education.

Findings

Effective team management strategies for large online classes

Iterative refinement improves feedback quality

Scalable approach supports 1000+ students in online settings

Abstract

Team projects in Computer Science (CS) help students build collaboration skills, apply theory, and prepare for real-world software development. Online classes present unique opportunities to transform the accessibility of CS education at scale. Still, the geographical distribution of students and staff adds complexity to forming effective teams, providing consistent feedback, and facilitating peer interactions. We discuss our approach of managing, evaluating, and providing constructive feedback to over 200 project teams, comprising 1000+ graduate students distributed globally, two professors, and 25+ teaching assistants. We deployed and iteratively refined this approach over 10 years while offering the Data and Visual Analytics course (CSE 6242) at Georgia Institute of Technology. Our approach and insights can help others striving to make CS education accessible, especially in online and large-scale settings.