Your Project and your Portfolio are two separate parts of your course grade. Here are the details on both. They will be due at 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, May 11—this is almost a week after the registrar-scheduled exam time, which was the due date listed in the syllabus.

Your Project is the composition itself and will be graded according to the amount of substance you uniquely contributed to your project, as comparable to standard expectations of a project you’ve been working toward all semester long in a senior-level 3-credit course—this is the grading criterion. Your substance will be visible through:

• Your performance materials, e.g., the performance score and any accompanying media, software, etc. needed for other performers to realize the performance on their own,
• Your artistic statement explaining the inspiration, structure, and artistic inquiry in the piece (not a play-by-play of how you arrived at it, but what it is now) and explaining the substance you uniquely contributed to it, and
• The video of your performed project, reflecting a faithful realization of your performance materials with titles and shots that illustrate the points you make in your artistic statement (Note: if your project changed during your sessions with Ulrich, make sure you update your performance materials accordingly!) Edit your video, add supplementary material, or provide full-length and shortened “highlights” videos as you feel necessary to make your point clear and convincing to any viewer.

Your Portfolio is your entire website featuring your project, making it available for others to perform, and documenting your work in progress, preliminary études, and research leading up to it (everything done over the course of the semester, including Moorman profiles). It will be graded according to:

• 50% Organization: making it clear what this site is for (as described above), supported by: categories, tags, brief but descriptive titles (appropriate for public audience), “Read more” tags (or similar previews without huge posts on the main page), etc. for each post, and a menu that makes it easy to find the video of the project, the score and materials, artistic statement on the project (may be combined with either of the preceding), and development/supporting materials.
• 50% A well-edited video with titles (and appropriate credits to Ulrich Maiss, Texas A&M University, the Department of Performance Studies, all composers, performers, and any other contributors, and any other rights holders involved (with full citations and license (e.g., “Creative Commons—Derivates Allowed,” “Public Domain,” or “Used with permission”)).

The Project grade concerns the artwork itself, so include any materials you need in order to demonstrate substance. The Portfolio grade concerns organization and polished presentation of your materials.

Tip: Get your website and video done with days to spare, and submit it for free reviews at http://peek.usertesting.com/ . This is invaluable feedback. Three strangers look at your website and think out loud (and record it) as they look over your site and figure out what it is for, how it is organized, and what value someone might find in it. It’s often frustrating feedback to hear, because you know what you meant when you made it that way, but it’s invaluable feedback to hear, because if your intentions don’t get across to your readers, no one else will tell you—you’ll just get passed over. Finish early and give it a shot, and use it for your final tweaks!