Holistic assessment criteria: applying SOLO to programming projects

How you define your assessment criteria should influence the way the students approach the assignment. Does this mean that if we use a holistic criterion-based assessment strategy that students will look more holistically at the topic rather than focussing on the pieces for which they think they can gain satisfactory marks? A holistic set of assessment criteria for programming assignment work based on the SOLO taxonomy is presented, and reflections on the use of this approach over three years are discussed.