In recent years, educational innovation has been inspired by practices designed initially for industry, from Agile to the most recent InnerSource. Educators are increasingly reimagining how students can learn through collaboration, iteration, and transparency. However, as universities experiment with such open, collaborative models, the question of how to fairly evaluate both individual and collective contributions becomes more complex.

One powerful yet underexplored approach to evaluation in higher education is the adoption of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), a goal-setting and performance framework widely used in industry to align teams, measure progress, and drive accountability. When thoughtfully adapted to academia, OKRs can complement methods and practices like Agile and InnerSource, enabling student-centred, transparent, and continuous evaluation across disciplines.

Why OKRs Make Sense in Education

OKRs encourage alignment between individual goals, team objectives, and institutional learning outcomes. In a traditional educational model, evaluation is often backwards-looking — grades reflect outcomes rather than growth. OKRs, in contrast, are forward-looking and iterative, focusing on measurable progress and learning impact.

Incorporating OKRs into university courses, particularly those leveraging InnerSource practices or project-based learning, offers several key advantages:

1. Clarity and Purpose.
2. OKRs help students understand why they are doing something, not just what they are doing. This builds intrinsic motivation and a sense of ownership over learning outcomes.
3. Continuous Feedback Loop.
4. Like Agile sprints or InnerSource peer reviews, OKRs emphasise iteration. Regular check-ins (e.g., every 2–3 weeks) enable professors and teams to realign objectives and assess progress dynamically rather than relying on static midterms or finals.
5. Balance Between Autonomy and Accountability.
6. Students define their own objectives within the scope of the course’s goals. Professors act as mentors, guiding the alignment between personal learning trajectories and team deliverables. This balance promotes self-management and collaboration — two critical professional competencies.
7. Measurable Soft Skills Development.
8. Traditional grading struggles to capture growth in communication, teamwork, or leadership. OKRs, especially when integrated into InnerSource-style collaborative environments, make these “soft” skills visible and measurable through concrete key results (e.g., “Lead two peer review sessions and provide feedback on at least three pull requests”).

Implementing OKRs in Academic Contexts

1. Individual OKRs: Driving Personal Growth

Each student defines personal learning objectives aligned with the course’s overall goals. For instance, in a Software Engineering course using InnerSource repositories:

• Objective: Improve collaborative coding and code review skills.
• Key Results:
  • Submit at least three pull requests reviewed and approved by peers.
  • Lead one peer review discussion with constructive feedback.
  • Resolve at least two issues raised by teammates.

These key results can be automatically tracked through version control analytics or peer-review metrics, creating transparent, data-driven evidence of contribution.

2. Team or Group OKRs: Structuring Collaborative Work

In disciplines involving projects (Engineering, Design, Business, etc.), teams can define shared OKRs that reflect both product outcomes and process maturity.

• Objective: Deliver a functional prototype that meets stakeholder requirements.
• Key Results:
  • Complete all core features by Sprint 4.
  • Conduct usability testing with at least 10 participants.
  • Document and present results to the class and external mentors.

Here, the emphasis shifts from individual grading to collective accountability, mirroring professional project environments. Each team’s OKRs can be reviewed in structured checkpoints, ensuring transparency and consistent evaluation standards.

3. Cross-Disciplinary OKRs: Enabling Interconnected Learning

Just as InnerSource envisions a unified educational “mega-project,” OKRs can operate at higher levels linking objectives across multiple courses or faculties. For instance, a capstone project combining Computer Science, Business, and Design could establish overarching OKRs that align individual contributions with interdisciplinary outcomes.

• Objective: Create a market-ready digital product prototype integrating technical, business, and design perspectives.
• Key Results:
  • Deploy a functional MVP using InnerSource collaboration.
  • Develop a viable business model validated through market testing.
  • Present interdisciplinary findings at the university’s innovation fair.

Such alignment fosters systems thinking and helps students appreciate how diverse disciplines contribute to holistic innovation.

Evaluating Students with OKRs

Evaluation using OKRs shifts from grading what students deliver to assessing how they progress toward meaningful objectives. The approach combines quantitative and qualitative metrics:

• Quantitative:
  • Repository activity (commits, reviews, issues resolved).
  • Objective completion rates.
  • Peer review participation.
• Qualitative:
  • Reflection reports discussing learning outcomes.
  • Peer and mentor feedback on collaboration and leadership.
  • Demonstrated alignment with course-level goals.
  • We can evaluate communication, collaboration, teamwork, and organisational skills.

Professors can evaluate students in three complementary dimensions:

1. Individual learning growth (via personal OKRs).
2. Team performance and contribution (via group OKRs).
3. Interdisciplinary integration (for cross-course projects).

This approach enables a 360-degree evaluation system—one that values both autonomy and collaboration, as well as process and outcomes.

Challenges and Considerations

Adapting OKRs for education comes with challenges similar to implementing InnerSource:

• Training and Calibration: Students and professors need orientation on setting realistic, measurable OKRs.
• Consistency: Overly vague or ambitious OKRs may lead to frustration or uneven evaluation.
• Tooling: Integrating OKR tracking with existing platforms (LMS, GitHub, or Project Management tools) ensures data consistency.
• Equity: Clear guidelines are needed to balance recognition of individual effort within team outcomes.

However, these challenges can be mitigated through structured onboarding, template OKRs, and regular coaching sessions, which echo the phased approach already proven effective in InnerSource adoption.

The Synergy Between InnerSource and OKRs

While InnerSource provides the collaborative infrastructure, OKRs provide the evaluative compass. Together, they create a powerful feedback loop:

InnerSource Focus	OKR Contribution
Collaborative learning and contribution	Clear objectives and measurable results
Peer review and mentorship	Structured accountability and recognition
Iterative improvement cycles	Regular goal-setting and progress check-ins
Transparent repositories	Transparent evaluation metrics

This synergy bridges the gap between learning and assessment, transforming evaluation into an ongoing, participatory process rather than a one-time event.

My Thoughts: From Evaluation to Empowerment

The adoption of OKRs in higher education represents a shift from grading performance to cultivating purpose-driven learning. When integrated with InnerSource-inspired collaboration, OKRs can transform large-scale courses into dynamic ecosystems of continuous growth, peer learning, and innovation.

Students are no longer passive recipients of assessment but active co-creators of their educational journey, capable of setting goals, measuring impact, and reflecting on progress, skills essential for thriving in the modern, agile, and interdisciplinary workplace.

As universities navigate the evolving landscape of education, combining InnerSource practices with OKR-based evaluation offers a promising pathway toward scalable, fair, and future-ready learning.

Acknowledgements: I would like to sincerely thank Sara Santos for her careful review and insightful feedback, which helped refine and strengthen this work.