DRAFT — under teacher review.

Evaluation Criteria Must Come From Your SRS

The Hamilton and Alexandra College · Year 12 · 2026

One of the most commonly skipped steps in C4-2 is linking evaluation criteria back to the SRS. Students often write criteria that sound plausible but weren't in the requirements they set at the start of the project. The rubric penalises this — criteria that float free of the SRS cannot provide genuine evidence that your solution met its goals.

The rule

Every evaluation criterion must trace back to a numbered requirement in your SRS.

If you can't point to a requirement ID (FR1, NFR2, etc.) for a criterion, the criterion should not be in your evaluation matrix.

A concrete counter-example

Floating criteria (wrong)

Criterion	SRS link
The interface looks modern	— none —
The app is easy to use	— none —
The colour scheme is attractive	— none —

These criteria were invented after the fact. They aren't measuring whether the solution met its stated requirements — they're measuring whatever the student decided to judge it on at evaluation time. The rubric at 7–10 specifically requires criteria derived from the SRS.

SRS-anchored criteria (right)

Criterion	SRS Requirement	Factor type
A first-time user shall complete a booking in under 4 minutes without assistance	NFR2 — Usability	Effectiveness
The event list shall load in under 2 seconds on school Wi-Fi	NFR1 — Performance	Efficiency
All travel plans entered by the user shall be saved and retrievable across sessions	FR3 — Data persistence	Effectiveness

Each criterion is measurable, has a scoring scale, and traces to a specific SRS requirement ID. When you score it, you're producing genuine evidence.

How to derive criteria from your SRS

For each requirement in your SRS, ask:

What does "met" look like? — turn the requirement into a measurable criterion.
What type is it? — efficiency (resource use) or effectiveness (fitness for purpose)?
How will you score it? — define a 1–5 scale with thresholds.

Example:

SRS Requirement: NFR2 — The interface shall be learnable by a first-time user within one session.

→ Criterion: "80% of test users can complete the primary task on their first attempt without assistance." → Type: Effectiveness — Usability → Scoring: 1: <40% | 2: 40–59% | 3: 60–74% | 4: 75–89% | 5: ≥90%

Why VCAA cares

At 5–6: criteria must exist and be applied — even floating criteria partially satisfy this.

At 7–8: criteria must be used to explain decisions. Floating criteria make this hollow — you can't explain a decision in terms of requirements you never set.

At 9–10: criteria must be used to justify decisions with explicit SRS links. Without requirement IDs in your matrix, this band is unreachable.

Checklist before submitting your evaluation matrix

Every criterion has a SRS requirement ID next to it
No criterion appears that isn't in the SRS
Efficiency and effectiveness criteria are in separate tables
Each criterion has a defined scoring scale (not just pass/fail)