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Hi Like Linsey, we are testing out WEBPA at the moment with a view to roll it out next semester as a standalone system (not connected to a VLE). The replies have been most useful I do have additional questions 1. How do people us the free text comments. They don't currently appear to the students as feedback within WEBPA. So have people tried revealing that information to students or are they using it to moderate the marks and identify discrepancies in the way students are reporting the way they are working as a group. I can imagine it might be useful in terms of verifying that all students agreed that one member didn’t attend any meetings. 2. We are using LDAP to control student and staff access to WEBPA. I am trying to verify if student and staff accounts when using WEBPA in this way will need to have email data stored in WEBPA. I realise this will limit the ability to email out from WEBPA, but other than that will it serve any other purpose for us. Cheers Jim -----Original Message----- From: WebPA [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lynette Johns-Boast Sent: 25 April 2013 09:17 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Using WebPA in degree classification modules Hi Linsey For the past six years I have been using peer assessment (the last three years using a branched version of WebPA) to generate 75% of marks for an industry-based capstone software engineering design course where 3rd and 4th year students are required to work for two semesters in small teams of 5-7 students developing a software solution to a real-world problem for their client. At four points during the course team progress is assessed using gateway reviews which involve the team, the client, the team mentor and course academics. Peer assessment is used to calculate a moderator which is used to generate individual marks from the team mark. Students like using peer assessment in this way as it empowers them. It enables students who want to work hard and get a good mark while not rewarding those students who have less drive and seems to overcome many (if not all) of the problems associated with social loafing and free-riding. The assessment scheme makes it clear, and we are at pains to explain to students how we use peer assessment. We are also explicit that we reserve the right to amend the marks generated by peer assessment if we feel they are not a true reflection of contribution and that the marks they receive therefore may not be exactly as generated by WebPA. We have rarely had to intervene and amend the peer assessed marks. We do, however, exclude self-assessment when calculating the peer assessed rating as otherwise students can affect their own results in a way that is not necessarily reflective of contribution. We collect written feedback as well as the numeric ratings (using a Likert scale of 1-5). The written feedback provides valuable insight into team contribution and validates the numeric ratings. The peer assessment data we collect usually validates the performance we see in the gateway review process and what mentors observe while supporting teams. Like Neil we use SVN repositories and collaborative sites so the academics involved have access to all artefacts and team communication which enables us to verify claims if necessary. Since the introduction of peer assessment, the complaints about marks have dropped to almost zero. After all who better to know what is going on in a team than the members of the team itself. Now with minimal effort by the academics we can award defensible individual marks for group work. The peer assessment data collected can also be used to mentor students to improve their performance - we have some great evidence of this working extremely well. The course forms part of a 4-year accredited software engineering degree and our accrediting body have been very accepting of the benefits the students draw through the use of peer assessment to generate individual marks from group artefacts. Cheers Lynette On 25/04/2013 01:13, Linsey Duncan-Pitt wrote: > Thank you Neil, Keith and Paul > > This is really helpful information. I saw a presentation on this a little while ago but gleaned from that and the WebPA resources that there were checks and balances. However the real experience of people using it at the degree classification module level is what I was really interested in. I like the safety net options you mentioned Neil. > > Best Regards > Linsey -- ==================================================== Lynette Johns-Boast Lecturer Research School of Computer Science The ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science CS&IT Building 108 The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia T: +61 2 6125 4526 F: +61 2 6125 0010 M: +61 405 611 859 W: http://cecs.anu.edu.au Available Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday ________________________________ Important Notice: the information in this email and any attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to an intended recipient, you should delete it from your system immediately without disclosing its contents elsewhere and advise the sender by returning the email or by telephoning a number contained in the body of the email. 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