MSBAi Project Milestone Template
Purpose: Recommended 8-week project arc for MSBAi 4-credit courses. Program-wide commitments (one major team project per course; AIAS levels declared per assignment; peer evaluation at 5% of course grade; individual oral component at 20-25%) hold across all courses — see assessment_strategy.md §0. The specific milestone arc, weights within ranges, rubric design, and process-evidence choices below are recommended defaults — faculty adapt to course content and pedagogical style.
Assessment weights and oral defense requirements: See design/assessment_strategy.md. Weekly time commitment: See design/weekly_time_estimate.md.
Overview
Every 8-week, 4-credit MSBAi course includes one major team project (teams of 3). The project is introduced in Week 1 and scaffolded through milestones across all 8 weeks. Weekly assignments and studio sessions build the skills needed for each milestone.
Standard Milestone Arc
| Week | Milestone | Description | Deliverable | Stakes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Project Launch | Faculty introduces project brief. Teams formed. Students review dataset/case and scope the problem. | Team registration + initial scoping notes (1 page) | Formative — completion only |
| 2 | Demo / Initial Pitch | Teams present their problem framing, proposed approach, and data plan. Faculty + peers give structured feedback. Live in studio preferred; recorded video as a fallback for students unable to attend the session. | 5-min live pitch in studio (preferred) or recorded video | Low stakes — 5% of project grade |
| 3 | Proposal Draft + Peer Review | Written proposal: research question, methodology, data sources, division of labor. Teams review 1-2 other teams’ proposals in studio and deliver structured feedback. | 2-3 page proposal + peer-review forms completed for assigned peer teams | Formative — peer-review participation graded |
| 4 | Proposal Final + Feedback Closure + Peer Pulse | Revised proposal incorporating peer and instructor feedback. Feedback-closure memo (½ page) required: what feedback was received, what was incorporated or rejected and why, what the team learned from it. Faculty reviews and approves direction before execution begins. Teammate peer pulse: anonymous formative pulse on contribution / reliability / communication / collaboration — completion graded, ratings not. | Final proposal + feedback-closure memo + completed peer pulse | Milestone grade — 10-15% of project grade (proposal + closure scored together); pulse = 1% of course grade for individual completion |
| 5 | Execution: Analysis Draft | Teams run initial analysis. Partial results, preliminary insights, identification of gaps. Faculty reviews Week 4 pulse output this week and reaches out to flagged teams. | Progress update in studio (not graded) | Formative — studio check-in |
| 6 | Execution: Peer Review of Draft | Draft deliverable submitted for structured peer review. Studio session used for feedback discussion. | Draft deliverable + peer-review forms for assigned teams | Peer-review participation graded |
| 7 | Execution: Revision + Feedback Closure | Teams revise based on peer + instructor feedback. Feedback-closure note added to the revision documenting how feedback shaped the deliverable. Final polishing. Individual oral component preparation begins (if end-of-course format). | Revised draft + feedback-closure note (graded as part of Week 8 final) | Formative; closure carries into Week 8 grade |
| 8 | Final Deliverable + Individual Oral Component | Final project submitted. Team presentation delivered live in studio (preferred) — the weekly studio slot is the natural venue and gives faculty and peers the opportunity to ask questions. Async recorded option available with mandatory Q&A follow-up (see assessment_strategy.md §6). Individual oral component: distributed milestone check-ins already completed, or end-of-course individual Q&A in studio. | Final deliverable + live team presentation (preferred) + individual oral component | Summative — see weights below |
Week 8 Assessment Weights
| Component | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Final project deliverable (incl. team presentation) | 15-20% of course grade | Team presentation is the delivery format for the deliverable — not a separate grade line |
| Individual oral component | 20-25% of course grade | Spoken explanation of project work; may be distributed across milestones or end-of-course; async video or live — faculty’s choice |
| Peer evaluation of teammates — Week 8 summative | 4% of course grade | Anonymous; dimensions: contribution / reliability / communication / collaboration. Mean of ratings received. (Combined with the 1% Week 4 pulse completion grade = 5% peer-eval total per course.) |
For documented free-riding revealed across Week 4 + Week 8 + studio observation, instructors may invoke the Free-Rider Exception Policy to adjust the individual’s share of the team project grade beyond the 5% peer-eval line.
Faculty Adaptation Notes
- Guest speakers and case studies may be integrated into the live or studio session in any week. Faculty decide when and how often — no fixed schedule required.
- Live delivery in studio is the preferred mode for Week 2 demo, Week 3 peer review, Week 8 team presentation, and end-of-course individual orals. The weekly 90-minute Studio is the natural venue. Async with Q&A follow-up is an acceptable fallback when scheduling constraints require it (see assessment_strategy.md §6).
- Proposal depth: Adjust to course level. Quantitative courses (FIN 550, BADM 576) require data schema and model selection rationale. Communication courses (BDI 513) require narrative arc and visualization plan.
- Studio use: Weeks 5-7 studio sessions should be project-work sessions, not new content delivery. Use for live walkthroughs of analysis approaches, debugging, peer feedback, and live milestone discussions.
- Feedback-closure expectation: Whenever students receive peer or instructor feedback on a draft, the next deliverable includes a brief documentation of how that feedback was incorporated (or considered-and-rejected, with reasoning). This is a default expectation, not paperwork — see assessment_strategy.md §7 “Low-Stakes Iteration with Feedback Closure”.
- No assignment in Week 8 — the final deliverable and oral defense replace the weekly assignment. Faculty should communicate this clearly in the syllabus.
Project Brief Requirements
Every course project brief must specify:
- Problem statement — What business or analytical question does the project address?
- Dataset or case — What data or scenario do teams work with?
- Required methods — Which techniques from the course should be applied?
- Deliverable format — Report, dashboard, model, presentation, or combination
- AIAS level (program-wide commitment) — What AI usage is permitted at each milestone stage? Required on every assessment per assessment_strategy.md §0.
- Rubric — Dimensions, weights, and exemplars provided in Week 1. Recommended: include a Learning Trajectory dimension (Black Box Rubric, assessment_strategy.md §3.5) grading how the team’s thinking evolved across milestones. Faculty may use the suggested rubric row, adapt it, or substitute their own process-evidence rubric dimension.
- Process-evidence artifacts (recommended) — Consider specifying a few process-evidence artifacts the team submits alongside the final deliverable to support the Learning Trajectory dimension. Suggested options: AI Attribution Log entries (cumulative, per-milestone), milestone draft history, Git commit history, debugging notes, milestone retrospectives. Select artifacts that already exist as byproducts of project work, not busywork. Two to three is typically sufficient.
AI Attribution Requirements
AI attribution is cumulative and per-milestone, not just a final deliverable requirement. At each graded milestone, teams append a brief AI log entry. The full log is submitted with the Week 8 final deliverable and serves as one of the Black Box Windows supporting the Learning Trajectory rubric dimension (see Project Brief Requirements item 7).
Per-milestone AI attribution (lightweight):
| Milestone | What to document |
|---|---|
| Wk 2 Demo | What AI tools (if any) used for problem framing or slide prep. What you changed from AI suggestions. |
| Wk 4 Proposal | How AI assisted with methodology, data planning, or writing. Which suggestions you accepted vs. rejected and why. |
| Wk 6 Peer Review | Any AI-assisted analysis in the draft. Specify which outputs are AI-generated vs. human-generated. |
| Wk 8 Final | Full AI Attribution Log (Appendix A of assessment_strategy.md). Plus a 1-paragraph reflection: what AI helped most, what required significant modification, what you would do differently. |
Design principle (Vander, 2026): At each milestone, the team’s human judgment must be visible. AI output is material for thinking — the log documents what the team did with it, not just that they used it. Faculty should be able to read the log and identify where student reasoning shaped or overrode AI suggestions.
Source: 3/25 Gautam call (initial milestone arc); 4/22 workload planning (formalized structure). Owner: Vishal Sachdev.