Extended Essay (EE) Overview

The Extended Essay (EE) is the independent research component of the IB Diploma Programme core. You pick a question that interests you, investigate it through computer science principles, and write a 4,000-word academic essay. The EE is externally assessed and, in combination with Theory of Knowledge, can contribute up to 3 points to your IB diploma total.

These pages reflect the 2027 curriculum (first assessment May 2027). If you are sitting an earlier session, your assessment criteria, mark allocation and reflection requirements are different – ask your supervisor.

What you submit

There are two artefacts, not three. The reflection sessions are activities, not files – the supervisor’s notes from each one live on the RPF, alongside your 500-word statement.

Artefact	What it is	Used for
The essay	4,000 words max, PDF	Criteria A–D
The RPF	Reflection and Progress Form, contains the supervisor’s comments on the three reflection sessions and your 500-word reflective statement	Criterion E (the 500-word statement only)

Both must be in the same language – if the essay is in English, the RPF must also be in English (Criterion E gives 0 marks if they differ).

A few terms worth getting straight:

EE != IA. The EE is a research paper. The Internal Assessment is a software product. You may write code or run simulations as part of your EE, but those serve the research question – they are not the deliverable. You cannot reuse data or output from your IA.
Pathway: Most CS EE students take the subject-focused pathway (Computer Science only). The interdisciplinary pathway is possible if your topic genuinely needs two DP subjects, but choose it only if you have a strong reason.

Time and supervision

~40 hours of student work is expected.
3–5 hours of supervision in total, which includes the three mandatory reflection sessions (initial, interim, viva voce).
One full draft can be reviewed by your supervisor with written or oral feedback. They cannot edit your work.
The final version submitted must be clean – no comments left in the file from anyone.

What makes a CS EE distinctive?

A computer science EE is a technical investigation grounded in computational principles. Strong essays:

Apply relevant theory (algorithm complexity, data structures, security, ML evaluation, etc.) to a focused, answerable question.
Use research methods that are appropriate to CS: simulations, algorithm benchmarking, dataset analysis, structured literature review.
Define measurable evaluation criteria in advance – accuracy, precision, recall, throughput, execution time, memory footprint, key sizes, and so on.
Move past description to analysis: explain why results occurred, examine trade-offs, compare with existing literature.
Discuss broader implications and reflect on methodological choices.

Essays based purely on secondary data or a structured literature review are equally valid – as long as the analysis is rigorous. Descriptive overviews and journalistic summaries are not.

The five assessment criteria

The EE is marked out of 30 across five criteria. Each strand below has its own page in this section.

Criterion	Name	Marks	Strands	Where it is assessed
A	Framework for the essay	6	3	The essay
B	Knowledge and understanding	6	3	The essay
C	Analysis and line of argument	6	2	The essay
D	Discussion and evaluation	8	2	The essay
E	Reflection	4	1	500-word reflective statement on the RPF

Examiners use positive marking with a best-fit model: pick the descriptor that most accurately describes your work as a whole. Marks are awarded as whole numbers. The 8-mark Criterion D is the highest-weighted criterion – and the one where students most often lose marks.

How the criteria connect

Your research question (Criterion A) is the foundation every later section is built on:

A -> B Your background section demonstrates the CS knowledge and terminology your question requires.
A -> C Your analysis interprets results in light of the question, not in isolation.
A -> D Your discussion explains the significance of those results and acknowledges the limits of your method.
A -> E Your reflective statement evaluates how your thinking changed – not what you did week by week.

If the research question is vague, every later section suffers. Spend the time on it.

Academic integrity

The essay, code, and reflective statement must all be your own work.
All sources – including code, datasets, graphs, and images – must be cited consistently.
AI tools may be used in limited ways: locating academic sources you then read in full, generating synthetic test data (which must be defended for representativeness), and helping with testing infrastructure. They must not be used to generate or structure your written content, and they must not be used to summarise sources you have not read yourself. Any AI use must be acknowledged.
The same work cannot be submitted for two components. Your EE must not duplicate content from your IA – or from any other Diploma Programme component.