Overview
echoes
echoes is a credit-bearing student-led, student-run project exploring how developing and playing games can cultivate shared understanding and foster meaningful connections. Each semester, students will engage with members of our broader community and study their work & motivations. Students will then collaborate in cross-functional teams to develop games that convey the impact these individuals have had on them. Note that a semester's work will always follow some theme, and themes may cover multiple semesters.
echoes leverages the Vertically Integrated Projects’ model, meaning students can:
- enroll for 1-3 credits
- take it at a 200, 400, or 600 (graduate) course level
- participate in the project over multiple semesters, rising to more mature roles and more advanced course levels
Over the course of the semester, students explore:
- The connections between community, art, design, and technology.
- How design, development, and sharing of games can enhance interpersonal connections.
- The project management and technical infrastructure for revolving cross-functional teams.
Vertically Integrated Projects
Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) engage undergraduate students in long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary project teams led by faculty. VIP courses are project-based, team-based courses that directly support faculty research and scholarship. VIPs under the GCCIS course numbers (GCIS-210/410/610) have a particular focus on computation and computing applications.
Each VIP team has large-scale and multi-faceted objectives in research, design, entrepreneurship, and/or community outreach & service, advised by VIP faculty. New VIP students learn from and replace those who graduate by engaging in peer-to-peer learning and mentorship, which sustains each VIP team beyond any one student.
VIP teams are:
- Multidisciplinary - drawing students from different disciplines on campus;
- Vertically-integrated - maintaining a mix of sophomores through PhD students each semester;
- Long-term - each student may participate in a project for up to three years.
Grading & Assessment
Much like a real-world team, individual members work on different aspects of the project. Team members range from early undergraduates through graduate students, from first-time participants to students who have been involved for four or more semesters. The number of credits for which a student is enrolled is considered in grading. Although each student contributes in different ways, you must demonstrate achievements in three major areas:
50% | Contributions & Accomplishments | Project Contributions (90%) |
Presentation (10%) | ||
30% | Teamwork & Interactions | Peer Evals (20%) |
Process Reflection Surveys (20%) | ||
Participation (60%) | ||
20% | Records & Reflections | Plan of Work (25%) |
Mid-semester & Final Self-Assessments (50%) | ||
Weekly Check-ins (25%) |
Contributions & Accomplishments | 50% |
Project Contributions (90%) | |
Presentation (10%) | |
Teamwork & Interactions | 30% |
Peer Evals (20%) | |
Process Reflection Surveys (20%) | |
Participation (60%) | |
Records & Reflections | 20% |
Plan of Work (25%) | |
Mid-semester & Final Self-Assessments (50%) | |
Weekly Check-ins (25%) | |
Grades reflect your current understanding and skills at a specific moment, not a fixed measure of your potential. If your performance isn’t where you’d like it to be, view it as an opportunity for growth rather than a setback. Let’s work together to identify areas for improvement and develop a plan to help you reach your goals.
Feedback is intended to guide your learning journey. Take time to reflect on the comments provided and consider how they can inform your future work. Remember, feedback is an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve.
When receiving feedback, start by thinking about:
- What am I proud of in this work?
- Where can I improve?
- What steps will I take to continue my growth in this area?
Because grading in this course is subjective, only whole letter grades will be used. Everything is graded holistically according to the following rubric:
Engaged Excellence (As) | Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the required responsibilities, executed with exceptional organization and engagement. Any areas needing improvement are minimal. I approached the task with curiosity and openness, seeking to deeply understand and thoughtfully execute my work. I am proud of my progress and recognize the small areas where I can still improve. | 90-100% |
Growing Proficiency (Bs) | Executed all required responsibilities with a clear understanding but may need refinement in organization or quality. Shows a strong foundation with potential for growth. I’ve made solid progress in thoughtfully executing my responsibilities. I acknowledge areas where I can refine my work and am motivated to continue growing. | 85% |
Developing Competence (Cs) | Executed most of the required responsibilities but may miss some elements or have noticeable areas needing improvement. The effort is apparent, with room for further development. I’ve made a meaningful effort to engage with the team & fulfill my responsibilities, even if some areas still need work. I see this as a learning opportunity and am committed to improving further. | 75% |
Emerging Understanding (Ds) | Work is in progress, with missing content and areas for significant improvement. Shows the early stages of skill development, with clear potential for growth. While there are gaps, I recognize where I need to focus my efforts and am ready to learn from this experience. | 50% |
Opportunity for Growth (Fs) | Assignments are incomplete, missing substantial content, or not submitted; this is a valuable opportunity to reflect, revisit the material, and strive for better understanding and completion. This is an opportunity to step back and reassess my approach. I understand the importance of my role and am committed to taking the necessary steps to improve and grow. | 0% |
Engaged Excellence (As) | 90-100% |
Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the required responsibilities, executed with exceptional organization and engagement. Any areas needing improvement are minimal. I approached the task with curiosity and openness, seeking to deeply understand and thoughtfully execute my work. I am proud of my progress and recognize the small areas where I can still improve. | |
Growing Proficiency (Bs) | 85% |
Executed all required responsibilities with a clear understanding but may need refinement in organization or quality. Shows a strong foundation with potential for growth. I’ve made solid progress in thoughtfully executing my responsibilities. I acknowledge areas where I can refine my work and am motivated to continue growing. | |
Developing Competence (Cs) | 75% |
Executed most of the required responsibilities but may miss some elements or have noticeable areas needing improvement. The effort is apparent, with room for further development. I’ve made a meaningful effort to engage with the team & fulfill my responsibilities, even if some areas still need work. I see this as a learning opportunity and am committed to improving further. | |
Emerging Understanding (Ds) | 50% |
Work is in progress, with missing content and areas for significant improvement. Shows the early stages of skill development, with clear potential for growth. While there are gaps, I recognize where I need to focus my efforts and am ready to learn from this experience. | |
Opportunity for Growth (Fs) | 0% |
Assignments are incomplete, missing substantial content, or not submitted; this is a valuable opportunity to reflect, revisit the material, and strive for better understanding and completion. This is an opportunity to step back and reassess my approach. I understand the importance of my role and am committed to taking the necessary steps to improve and grow. | |
Course Numbers & Expectations
There are three VIP courses within GCCIS. After applying & being accepted to the project, students are enrolled in one of the following courses for 1-3 credit hours, depending on the experience level and role on the project:
- GCIS-210: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) for Computing
- Some background in one of the areas needed for the project, but limited prior team project experience.
- GCIS-410: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) for Computing II
- Clear background in one of the areas needed for the project, as well as at least 2 semesters’ worth of team project experience.
- Should be prepared to lead small sub-project efforts and mentor GCIS-210 students.
- GCIS-610: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) for Computing - Graduate
- Significant background in one of the areas needed for the project, as well as at least 2 semesters' worth of team project experience on Agile self-directed teams.
- Should be prepared to lead efforts within your domain, mentor other students, and proactively work to improve the processes and infrastructure for future students.
Assume that one credit hour will require ~3-4 hours of effort per week. The goal of the variable credits is so that students can potentially stretch their work on a project over many semesters. Slowly becoming mentors and leads. “Part-time” students are just as welcome and valuable as those taking on 3 credits worth of work.
For NMID and GDD undergraduates, GCIS-210 will count as a free elective; GCIS-410 and GCIS-610 as advanced electives. For MS GDD students, GCIS-610 can be used as an advanced elective. Students in all other majors should consult with their advisor and/or program coordinator about how this project can apply to their graduation requirements.
Resources
The project will leverage methods and technologies in a variety of areas, including (but not limited to):
- Agile game production (Scrum, GitHub source control and projects, Google Docs)
- Web design and development (Svelte, Tailwind, NodeJS, Vercel)
- Design, development, and asset production for web-deployed games (Unity & WebGL)
You will need regular, reliable access to all of the following:
- The semester’s myCourses shell
- The internal echoes & community Discord servers
- Google Drive
- GitHub Organization, repos, and project boards
- A working web and/or GDD development environment
- The IGM labs should have everything you need.
- If you want to set up your machine, work with your team leads to verify the correct tools/versions.
Contributions & Accomplishments (50%)
Project Contributions (90%)
The bulk of your course grade will be based on a holistic assessment of the completeness, relevance, and quality of your personal contributions to the project. This will be graded based on observations of your work products (via meeting notes, documentation contributions, feature development, etc.) as well as your own self-assessment & the evaluations from your team lead and peers.
Presentation (10%)
A core expectation of students involved with any VIP is the ability to articulate & disseminate their work. To that end, ALL students will be expected to share information about some aspect of their work at some point in the semester. The level of detail & scope expected will vary by level and role.
- GCIS-210: A short, casual presentation within your echoes' subteam & verified by your team lead.
- GCIS-410: A short, casual presentation to the entire echoes team (during an All Hands or via a recording).
- GCIS-610: While not all graduate students will be in leadership positions, you are expected to take on complex tasks and be able to share your approach and results with a broader audience. This can take the form of papers, posters, talks, workshops, blog posts, etc. The exact format is up to you, your lead, and the echoes' faculty, but at least one external presentation of your work is required sometime during the semester.
Undergraduate students are welcome and encouraged to present their work more formally. If this is of interest to you, please discuss with your team lead, producer, and/or faculty lead.
Teamwork & Interactions (30%)
Peer Evaluations (20%)
You'll submit individual peer evaluations at least twice during the semester. Individual evaluations are like individual retrospectives. The goal is NOT to rank, criticize, compete, etc. The goal is personal growth. Self-evaluation (and critique) is an important part of this.
Via these evaluations, you'll also give detailed, anonymous feedback to your peers. Please be honest with all feedback. Learning to give and receive constructive feedback is an essential professional skill, and this class is an opportunity to practice it.
While we reserve the right to adjust an individual's grade on a team assignment in the event of clear imbalances in participation, we will never do this based solely on peer evaluations. (I.e., issues have to be supported by our observations & other project artifacts.)
Don’t overthink your written responses (it's not meant to take hours), but please do take the time to reflect and write more than quick bulleted lists. There's no need for paragraphs of details, but we do expect:
- Well-written, clear, organized summaries of your thoughts.
- Constructive, actionable language.
- Rationale with examples from the past milestone to support your conclusions.
Process Reflection Surveys (20%)
While teams will have internal retrospectives regularly, keeping echoes running smoothly requires occasional process reflection at a high level as well. All students will complete periodic surveys reflecting on how well the current production process supports VIP & Agile values. While required, these will be graded as simple "Completed" elements.
Participation (60%)
At the start of the semester, your team lead will establish procedures for:
- Routine stand-up meetings (sync and/or async)
- Regular team meetings
- Task assignment, tracking, and verification
Participation will be graded holistically based on our observations of your engagement in the project (in person & via meeting notes, task logs, etc.) as well as your own self-assessment & the evaluations from your team lead and peers.
Records & Reflections (20%)
In addition to project-specific documentation that you maintain with your team, you will be expected to document & track your progress over the course of the semester via 4 main deliverables:
Plan of Work (25%)
In the first two weeks of the semester, you'll work with your faculty advisor & team leads to write a plan of work (POW) for yourself for the semester. This is NOT a detailed list of tasks. Instead, it is a description of your role & responsibilities on the project as well as your personal learning objectives. You will also define the criteria that you will use to assess your performance & progress towards your learning objectives.
For team leads, the POW will also include goals you have set out for your teams and your responsibilities in helping the team achieve these goals.
Mid-semester & Final Self-Assessments (50%)
Approximately week 7 & at the end of the semester, you'll revisit your plan of work and submit a written self-assessment of your progress towards achieving the goals you set out for yourself. At this time, you'll also complete self-assessments related to the other two grading criteria for the course:
- Teamwork & interaction
- Personal accomplishments and contributions to your team’s goals
Weekly Check-ins (25%)
While this is a highly interactive course and we'll be speaking 1on1 with teams frequently, it's difficult for us to routinely talk with everyone individually. Still, just as any manager would want to have regular individual updates from their team about their progress and concerns, we want you all to have a way to consistently update us on your progress. To that end, you'll submit weekly updates to me about your progress, plans, and any concerns or problems via a quick survey once a week.
These will be graded based on the % of weeks the survey is submitted, rounded up to the closest 5% increment.
Student Support
Your personal well-being is crucial to your success. The academic demands in this course and your other classes can be understandably difficult. Feeling anxious about your academic ability is normal, especially when unexpected life events emerge.
If you’re facing academic or personal challenges, please reach out. We are here to support you, and numerous resources on campus, such as the Counseling Center and Academic Success Center, are available to assist you. Your success is essential, and we want you to get the additional assistance needed before the challenges become too much.
We also encourage you to take advantage of the many other support services on campus that stand ready to assist you. The RIT Academic Success Center has several resources for students in terms of assistance with math, science, and writing skills. Other avenues of support include:
- Ombuds Office
- Disability Services Office
- Student Health Center
- Counseling Center
- Center for Women and Gender
- Q Center
If you feel you are in need of counseling services, you can call Counseling & Psychological Services (CaPS) at 475-2261 during business hours (M-Th, 8 to 5) or go directly to CaPS on the second floor of the August Center (AUG). Additional contact information is available at the link.
Tigers Care is a campus-wide effort to enhance, promote, and sustain a culture of caring and support at RIT.
Additional Information
Assignment Feedback
It takes time to grade assignments and provide useful feedback – much more time than students may expect. Large assignments may take up to 3 weeks to be fully graded.
Challenging Grades
If you wish to challenge the grade on an individual assignment, you must do this within a week of the return of an assignment. Remember that in challenging a grade, the instructor reserves the right to revisit the grading on the entire assignment and may adjust the grade appropriately.
Keep in mind that a grade problem can sometimes just be an error on the part of the instructor, so you don’t need to think of it as an adversarial process!
At the end of the semester, any questions about the final grading of the course should be raised immediately. If, after discussing the grade with your instructor, you still wish to challenge the grade, you need to follow the guidelines provided in RIT Policy D17.0 Final Grade Disputes.
Communications Guidelines
All official communications should occur between your RIT email address and the faculty’s RIT email address. Please check your RIT email on a daily basis for important notifications. Furthermore, faculty will not be able to respond to requests that do not originate from an RIT email address.
If you have general questions about the course or an assignment that are not covered in these course documents, please post your questions to a public channel in Discord so all students can benefit from the answer. If you can answer a question posed by another student, I encourage you to reply to your classmate. If you have a question about your particular assignment, grade, etc, please contact me privately!
Office Hours
Office hours are an opportunity to ask individual questions that you may not have had time to ask in class. I hold 4 office hours per week. These office hours are open for student assistance, and no appointment is needed. If I am assisting a student, kindly wait for your turn.
These are held on a first-come-first-served drop-in basis with no appointment necessary. Sometimes office hours become increasingly busy the closer it is to a deadline or the end of the semester. If students are waiting, discussions will be limited to ~10 minutes/student. Plan your use of office hours accordingly.
If you are unavailable during my office hours, contact me for an individual appointment. Appointments are dependent on my current schedule for the semester and vary day-to-day. I'm highly unlikely to be able accommodate day-of requests for appointments.
Name & Pronouns
Many people go by a name in daily life that is different from their legal name. In this course, we seek to address everyone in the manner that best respects their identity. You are invited (publicly or privately) to share the name and pronouns you wish us to use and when/how we should use them. Additionally, you can:
- Set a "nickname" in myCourses by clicking on your name in the top right corner and selecting "Profile"
- Change your "preferred name" in other RIT systems by going to https://start.rit.edu/ --> Directory Information --> Name Preferences Page
Note that changing your Preferred Name will change your display name on some mail that goes to home addresses as well as RIT Email, RIT Directories, myCourses, Zoom, Early Alert, SIS, and other campus systems with data feeds from SIS. Only change your Preferred Name in SIS if you would like to change it for ALL of these RIT uses.
If you would like your name changed in legal documents (transcripts, etc.), complete this form and return it to the Registrar's Office.
Incomplete Policy
Incomplete (“I”) grades are reserved for cases in which the student is making credible course progress, and then something occurs in the student’s life that prevents the completion of the course. Incomplete grades are not a mechanism to delay a failing grade, nor are they a means to stave off probation or suspension. For an instructor to grant an incomplete, credible documentation must be provided at the instructor’s or school’s request. Chances are, unless you are deployed in the military or have major extenuating circumstances, I will not grant an incomplete.
Academic Integrity
As an institution of higher learning, RIT expects students to behave honestly and ethically at all times, especially when submitting work for evaluation in conjunction with any course or degree requirement. RIT encourages all students to become familiar with RIT's Academic Integrity Policy, Honor Code, and Student Conduct Policy.
As described in RIT's academic integrity policy, a breach of student academic integrity falls into three basic areas: cheating, duplicate submission, and plagiarism. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of specific actions but a reasonable description to guide one’s actions.
- Cheating: Cheating is any form of fraudulent or deceptive academic act, including falsification of data, possessing, providing, or using unapproved materials, sources, or tools for a project, exam, or body of work submitted for faculty evaluation. This includes the use of ANY AI-generated code without the express permission of your instructor.
- Duplicate Submission: Duplicate submission is the submitting of the same or similar work for credit in more than one course without prior approval of the instructors for those same courses. This includes submission of your own past work from a past course or a previous attempt at this course!
- Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the representation of others’ ideas as one’s own without giving proper attribution to the original author or authors. Plagiarism occurs when a student copies direct phrases from a text (e.g., books, journals, and the internet) and does not provide quotation marks or paraphrases/summarizes those ideas without giving credit to the author or authors. In all cases, if such information is not properly and accurately documented with appropriate credit given, then the student has committed plagiarism.
Generative AI Tools
TLDR: You may not use AI tools for code generation. You may use them to get explanations or clarifications on code you do not understand, or to help you debug. Treat them like the professor, not like someone that will do the work for you. The ultimate goal should be improving your understanding.
Full Policy: AI / Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, Bard, and related tools such as Copilot are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in our field. These tools allow developers to create and troubleshoot code in ways never before possible. I would like to outline my stance on using these tools for echoes here.
In an industry setting, I am all in favor of utilizing these tools to improve programmer quality of life and productivity. In fact, I believe that not utilizing these tools will give professional programmers a distinct disadvantage when compared to those who do. That being said, I am strongly against their use in a class context, even a VIP. Relying on tools like Copilot to simply generate large portions of assignments and projects is highly likely to leave you less knowledgeable of the subject matter. Additionally, to interface with these models in the future, you need to have enough knowledge about the subject to be able to intelligently describe what you want and to be able to vet the output.
The best way I can describe how you should interact with these tools down the line is to treat them like a senior colleague. They can help you solve problems and explain ideas to you, but if you don't know what to ask them, they can't assist you. Describing an end solution that you want them to generate without having a fundamental knowledge of what it is they will be generating will almost always leave you with something that does not meet the actual requirements.
I encourage you to investigate these tools on your own time and make use of them for personal projects. They will no doubt be invaluable in your careers moving forward, but utilizing them for code generation in this class will be detrimental to your own success moving forward.
Ultimately, use the following question to guide your usage of these tools: “How am I improving my own understanding by doing this?”
Related RIT Policies
Diversity, Inclusion, and Respect
RIT has put forth Policy P05.0 Diversity Statement for all community members. If you have suggestions on how the course can better uphold these principles, please reach out to me.
Title IX
Title IX violations are taken very seriously at RIT. RIT is committed to investigating complaints of sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct, and to ensure that appropriate action is taken to stop the behavior, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects. Please view the Title IX Rights & Resources at RIT.
Academic Accommodations
The Disability Services Office is dedicated to facilitating equitable access to the full RIT experience for students with disabilities. We value disability as diversity and work in collaboration with campus partners to foster a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive campus community. Any RIT student with a permanent or temporary disability can register and request accommodations with the Disability Services Office. Accommodations are determined on a case-by-case basis via a student-centered process, taking into account what is most appropriate and reasonable for an individual student. Visit www.rit.edu/dso to learn more.
After you receive academic adjustment approval, it is imperative that you contact me as early as possible so that we can work out whatever arrangement is necessary.
Use of Copyrighted Material
Certain materials used in this course are protected by copyright and may not be copied or distributed by students. You can find more information here about copyright policy (C03.2). When sharing copyrighted content on the internet with your classmates, please make sure that you link to a legal source. Repeated access to illegal sources may cause you or your classmates to receive warnings through the Copyright Alert System, as well as possible downgrades in internet service.
Emergencies
In the event of a University-wide emergency, course requirements, classes, deadlines, and grading schemes are subject to changes that may include alternative delivery methods, alternative methods of interaction with the instructor, class materials, and/or classmates, a revised attendance policy, and a revised calendar and/or grading scheme.