A single category-agnostic rubric for assessing creativity across all MCSI exercises
This paper proposes a single, category-agnostic creativity rubric for all MCSI exercises, drawn from Kim et al.'s (2024) framework where creativity equals novelty plus usefulness. A 0-4 scale applies to three criteria: Originality (novel approach or structure), Extends Beyond Minimum (extra tools, methods, features), and Value (justified interpretation and usefulness). The rubric replaces the need for per-exercise creativity definitions, with evidence_location hints telling instructors where to look for each criterion across 20+ categories including YARA, hunt queries, forensics, reports, and pipelines.
Creativity is flagged as optional assessment. It does not affect pass/fail, which means instructors can acknowledge creative work without penalizing students who meet requirements through conventional approaches. The same three criteria apply regardless of whether the deliverable is a YARA rule, a forensics report, or a pipeline configuration. Only the "where to look" changes per category.
The document includes JSON spec examples showing how the rubric integrates into exercise definitions and how it applies to the Volatility forensics exercise specifically. The result is one rubric structure replacing hundreds of individual creativity assessments, with a shared scale that works for any deliverable type in the MCSI catalog.