Judging/Rubric

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iGEM Judging Rubric

Judging is a complex task and can seem mysterious to iGEMers at times. We're aiming to help teams understand how they are evaluated and provide more information ahead of time. While the individual decisions judges make about teams must remain confidential until after the Jamboree, the systems they use do not.

The main mechanism through which iGEM teams are evaluated is called the rubric. The rubric is composed of three main sections:

1. Medals Section
2. Project Section
3. Special Awards Section

Each section is called a category. Within each category, there are 2 - 8 questions that we call aspects (shown below). Each aspect has 6 language choices that covers a range of how the judge evaluating should feel about the quality of the work. Unlike the aspects, these language choices will not be shown. We want iGEMers to know how they are being evaluated, but we don't want to "teach to the test."

The language choices correspond to roughly:

1. Amazing!
2. Great
3. Good
4. Present
5. Bad
6. Absent

Each section of the rubric has a separate function and correlates with different awards. The Medals section obviously refers to a team's work convincing the judges they have achieved specific medal criteria. These criteria can be found on the Medals Page and won't be reiterated here.

The Project section is composed of two sub-sections: the main project category and the track-specific category. The main project category has eight aspects while the track-specific category only has two. Combined, these ten aspects determine the scores for the teams who will win their tracks and will also determine the finalist teams. This category is arguably the most important part of the evaluation for an iGEM team.

The final section of the judging rubric determines special awards. Each award has its own category in the rubric with either four or five aspects. This part of the evaluation integrates with the Pages for Awards system. To be eligible for an award, teams need to complete the corresponding page on the wiki and fill out a 150 word description on the judging form (click on your team name, and the link to your judging form is at the top of your team information page) .

This rubric is the result of more than four years of development, hundreds of hours of discussion, dozens and dozens of meetings, and thousands of emails between some of the most experienced advisers in iGEM. We are continuously improving and tweaking the rubric, but the system we have is extremely effective at selecting for the winning teams that best represent the values of iGEM.

#	Categories	Aspects

Number	Category	Aspects
1	Project	How impressive is this project?
2	Project	How creative is the team's project?
3	Project	Did the project work?
4	Project	How much did the team accomplish (addressed a real world problem, produced functional BioBricks, carried out Human Practices, created a wiki, presentation, poster, etc.)?
5	Project	Is the project likely to have an impact?
6	Project	How well were engineering principles (for example: modularity, protoyping, debugging, standardized measurements, etc.) used?
7	Project	How thoughtful and thorough was the team's consideration of human practices?
8	Project	How much of the work did the team do themselves and how much was done by others?
9	Track Specific - Standard Tracks	Did the team design a project based on synthetic biology and standard parts?
10	Track Specific - Standard Tracks	Are the parts well documented in the Registry?
9	Track Specific - Special Tracks	Did the team design a project based on synthetic biology?
10	Track Specific - Special Tracks	Are the project components (hardware, software, art & design, etc.) thoroughly documented on their wiki?
	Special Prizes
1	Wiki	Do I understand what the team accomplished?
2	Wiki	Is the wiki attractive and easy to navigate?
3	Wiki	Does the team clearly document their project and support their results with convincing evidence?
4	Wiki	How well does the team describe what they did and what was done by others on the Attributions page?
5	Wiki	Will the wiki be a compelling record of the team's project for future teams?
1	Presentation	Was the presentation thorough, clear, and easy to understand?
2	Presentation	How visually appealing was the presentation?
3	Presentation	Did you find the presentation engaging?
4	Presentation	How competent were the team members at answering questions?
1	Poster	Does the poster flow well?
2	Poster	How well is the project described on their poster?
3	Poster	Did you find the poster visually appealing?
4	Poster	How competent were the team members at answering questions?
1	Integrated Human Practices	Was their work well integrated throughout with their project?
2	Integrated Human Practices	Does it serve as an inspiring example to others?
3	Integrated Human Practices	Is it documented in a way that others can build upon?
4	Integrated Human Practices	Was it thoughtfully implemented? Did they explain the context, rationale, and prior work?
5	Integrated Human Practices	Did it incorporate different stakeholder views?
6	Integrated Human Practices	Did they convince you that their HP activities helped create a project that is responsible and good for the world?
1	Education & Public Engagement	How well did their work promote mutual learning and engagement?
2	Education & Public Engagement	Does it serve as an inspiring example to others?
3	Education & Public Engagement	Is it documented in a way that others can build upon?
4	Education & Public Engagement	Was it thoughtfully implemented? Did they explain the context, rationale, and prior work?
5	Education & Public Engagement	Did they both understand and respect the rights, beliefs, and/or cultures of the communities they engaged?
6	Education & Public Engagement	Did the team convince you that their activities would enable more people to shape, contribute to, and/or participate in synthetic biology?
1	Model	How impressive is the modeling?
2	Model	Did the model help the team understand a part, device, or system?
3	Model	Did the team use measurements of a part, device, or system to develop the model?
4	Model	Does the modeling approach provide a good example for others?
1	Measurement	Is the measurement potentially repeatable?
2	Measurement	Is the protocol well described?
3	Measurement	Is it useful to other projects?
4	Measurement	Did the team appropriately use controls to validate the measurement process and calibrate units?
1	Entrepreneurship	Customer Discovery - Has the team interviewed a representative number of potential customers for the technology and clearly communicated what they learned?
2	Entrepreneurship	Based on their interviews, does the team have a clear hypothesis describing their customers' needs?
3	Entrepreneurship	Does the team present a convincing case that their product meets the customers' needs?
4	Entrepreneurship	Has the team demonstrated a minimum viable (MVP) product? And does the team have customers to commit (LOI, etc.) to purchasing it / using it?
5	Entrepreneurship	Does the team have a viable and understood business model/value proposition to take their company to market?
1	Software Tool	How well is the software using and supporting existing synthetic biology standards and platforms?
2	Software Tool	Was this software validated by experimental work?
3	Software Tool	Is it useful to other projects?
4	Software Tool	Does the team demonstrate that their software can be embedded in new workflows?
5	Software Tool	How user-friendly is the software?
1	Hardware	Does the hardware address a need or problem in synthetic biology?
2	Hardware	Did the team conduct user testing and learn from user feedback?
3	Hardware	Did the team demonstrate utility and functionality in their hardware proof of concept?
4	Hardware	Is the documentation of the hardware system sufficient to enable reproduction by other teams?
1	Plant Synthetic Biology	How successful was the team in engineering a plant or algal cell?
2	Plant Synthetic Biology	Does their work address a need or problem in plant synthetic biology?
3	Plant Synthetic Biology	How well did the team use the special attributes of the plant chassis?
4	Plant Synthetic Biology	Are the parts/tools/protocols for plants made during this project useful to other teams?
1	New Basic Part	How does the documentation compare to BBa_K863006 and BBa_K863001?
2	New Basic Part	How new/innovative is it?
3	New Basic Part	Did the team show the part works as expected?
4	New Basic Part	Is it useful to the community?
5	New Basic Part	How well characterized (experimentally measured) is this Basic Part when tested in a device?
1	New Composite Part	How does the documentation compare to BBa_K404122 and BBa_K863005?
2	New Composite Part	How new/innovative is it?
3	New Composite Part	Did the team show the part works as expected?
4	New Composite Part	Is it useful to the community?
5	New Composite Part	How well characterized (experimentally measured) is this Composite Part?
1	Part Collection	Is this collection a coherent group of parts meant to be used as a collection, or just a list of all the parts the team made?
2	Part Collection	How does the documentation compare to the BBa_K747000-095 collection?
3	Part Collection	Is the collection fully documented on the Registry so any user could use the parts correctly?
4	Part Collection	Did the team finish building a functional system using this collection?
5	Part Collection	Is it useful to the community?