Rule book and Project Evaluation

Rulebook Revisions and Previous Versions of the Rule book

National History Day regularly reviews and revises the Contest Rule Book by working with a task force of coordinators, teachers, and judges. If you have suggestions, please contact Kim, who tracks feedback until the program is ready to revise. Typically, a revision occurs every five years.

When a revision is published, NHD summarizes significant changes to share with stakeholders. Please ensure that any materials your Affiliate program has created are updated to reflect these changes.

• Summary of Significant Changes to the 2020-21 Rulebook Revision

Category-Specific Guidelines

While teachers should be familiar with the entire rule book, students may find the entirety of the rule book intimidating. The following documents are intended to work with the rule book, not replace it, and focus on projects in a specific category.

A Flexible Framework at the School-Level

Within the parameters of the rule book, the NHD program is flexible at the school level. A teacher may adapt some of the rules or create other requirements. A student should follow their teacher's adaptations or requirements for school-level competitions. This may include:

• Topic Choice: Teachers may decide not to allow duplicate topics, limit topics to a certain time period, or have a list of "forbidden" topics, etc.

• Group Size: NHD permits groups of up to five, but teachers may choose to limit groups to less than five. Teachers should not allow groups of more than five.

• Partner Choice: Teachers decide if they want students to work with partners in their class or open it up to other classes.

• Category Choice: Teachers can decide whether students can choose from all five categories or fewer choices.

The Game Plan worksheet is a great tool for teachers to begin planning how they will shape the rule book requirements to meet the needs of their students. 

In the program's long history, National History Day has used various forms of scoring sheets, evaluations, and rubrics to facilitate the judging process at competitions. In 2020-21, NHD made a major shift to rubric-based evaluation. This assessment format aligns with classrooms and gives judges more clarity in evaluating projects. 

Judges will select a descriptor for each criteria on the form, identify any rule infractions, and provide written feedback. While the checkmarks are crucial in helping to focus their judging, students are hungry for the judges' written feedback and feel that this is the most important part of the form. Please see the judges and training sections of the NHD Coordinator guide for more resources (including judge instructions) to train judges on these tools.

During a contest, there are different expectations for judges on completing rubrics depending on the round of competition. 

• First Round: During the first round, each judge completes a rubric for each project they view. For example, they will complete eight rubrics if they view eight projects. Judges work independently to complete their rubric and write their own comments. While rubrics do not need to be identical across judges for a project, judges should discuss ratings and feedback to ensure that the rubrics are similar across judges. In zFairs, each judge will have a separate account to view and evaluate projects.

• Final Round: During the final round (depending on the size of a contest), each judging team completes one form per entry. Judges will collaborate to complete the form, with some teams preferring to contribute a little to each form, others preferring to nominate one judge as a notetaker, and others deciding to divide the forms. Final-round forms only include written feedback and are often more brief than first-round. The zFairs online judging portal enables the captain only to enter comments on the final-round form.

Please review training materials for the most recent version of the NHD Contest Rule Book, last updated for contest year 2020-21, and evaluation rubrics, last updated for contest year 2021-22.