The three configurations described by Tsoi et al. all emerged in the context of lecture courses, whereas the fourth ELORC configuration emerged in the context of laboratory and writing courses. Lecture courses generally have a large number of LOs to cover all of the content knowledge students must learn, especially at the introductory level. In contrast to lecture courses, laboratory and writing courses tend to be more focused on practical application of knowledge and development of technical skills. In these types of courses, there are often fewer course LOs, and they are often bundled in ways that require students to meet the same LO(s) multiple times and potentially at varying levels of complexity to earn higher grades. In the context of a laboratory course, LOs align with students both applying knowledge they have learned and developing practical technical skills to obtain and analyze data. In the context of a writing course, LOs focus on students practicing the processes of brainstorming, outlining, drafting, editing, and polishing various pieces of writing. An example of a course with this configuration is McKnelly et al.'s Writing for Chemists course . In this course, there are four large writing assignments that all assess the following same course LO, "Students will be able to create professional papers, proposals, reports, and other forms of scientific writing." These four assignments also assess different amounts of additional LOs. Students must earn a low pass on three of the assignments to earn a C, a low pass on all four assignments to earn a B, and a high pass on three and a low pass on one to earn an A. (Passing threshold levels will be discussed in the next section.) Although Nilson's original introduction of specifications grading specifically called for designing assignments and grade bundles that are aligned with course LOs, this alignment is not always clearly demonstrated in publications describing specifications grading systems. Some instructors described grade bundles (and thus implied configurations) based on assignments but did not clearly describe how these assignments were aligned with course LOs. Tsoi et al. proposed the configurations with the assumption that individual assignments are mapped to individual course LOs. However, in some of the courses described in the specifications grading literature, one assignment may correspond to one LO, one assignment may correspond to multiple LOs, or multiple assignments correspond to the same LO. These discrepancies are reflected in Yik et al.'s analysis of specifications grading in chemistry courses in which the grade bundles observed for some courses reflect a focus on specific assignments rather than specific LOs . Without clear descriptions of alignment between assignment and LOs in some publications included in our review, it was not always possible to determine what type of LO-focused configuration was being employed.