Using WebPA for Peer Assessment of Laboratory-Based Group Work, by Laura Hancock

Using WebPA for Peer Assessment of Laboratory-Based Group Work
Laura Hancock

Group work can be unpopular with students. The main reason for this seems to be the presence of ‘free-riders’ who are content for other members of their group to complete the majority of the work. Whilst it may be considered to be a more authentic experience if all group members receive the same mark for their work, at university level (especially in first year) it is important to ensure that the mark each student receives is a fair reflection of their contribution to the work, and this can be incredibly difficult.

WebPA is an online peer-moderated marking system designed to be used where a group of students receives a single mark for a piece of assessment. Students assess both their peers and their own contribution to the group work (either on a Likert scale or as a percentage) and these marks are combined with the overall group mark to generate an individual grade for each student. A worked example of the scoring algorithm can be found here*

First year chemistry and medicinal chemistry students at Keele undertake a laboratory based project in groups of 4 or 5. Each group is provided with a project title, list of objectives and the laboratory resources (both chemicals and equipment) available to them. The groups are required to produce a project proposal outlining how they will achieve the project objectives, undertake 8 hours of laboratory work and produce a poster to summarise their results. They receive separate group marks for the proposal and the poster.

We started to use WebPA for peer assessment of these group projects after using a stand-alone peer-assessment mark (generated from a number of questions students were asked to answer on a Likert scale using a Google docs form) which comprised a small percentage of the total mark (~17%). This method proved to be unsatisfactory as the difference the peer-assessment mark made to final grade was minimal, and it was incredibly time consuming to collect the individual data for each student. There were also comments from students that they did not feel the mark they had received was a fair reflection of their contribution to the work. WebPA goes a large way to addressing all of these concerns.

As part of our group projects, students are now asked to complete two forms, one to moderate the proposal mark and the other to moderate the poster mark. The latter includes assessment of contribution to the laboratory work. We have found WebPA to be exceptionally user friendly, and very quick to use. It is embedded within the KLE so it is straightforward to assign groups, and once the assessments are completed, the adjusted marks can easily be downloaded. In addition, it is easy and quick for students to use – there were no reports of anyone struggling to access or use WebPA. Importantly, 96% of students surveyed felt that the use of WebPA to moderate their marks was a fair way to assess their projects. Staff members leading the projects also believed that those who made substantial contribution had been adequately rewarded whilst any ‘free-riders’ had been penalised for their lack of effort. Following some student feedback, in the future we may expand the assessment to allow students to define their own criteria by which the group projects are assessed.

WebPA is a fantastic tool; it saves staff time and provides students with a fair and transparent method for assessing group work.

*Weblink: http://webpaproject.lboro.ac.uk/academic-guidance/a-worked-example-of-the-scoring-algorithm/




Using WebPA for Peer Assessment of Laboratory-Based Group Work by Laura Hancock, from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://lpdcsolutions.blogspot.co.uk.

Using Google+ to support students undertaking a research project, by Claire Stapleton

A Google plus community was set up for one year group who were about to embark on their research project journey. In Physiotherapy this starts in semester two of their second year where they are introduced to a selection of research titles. Students have a couple of weeks to view the titles and submit their preferences (we ask for the top three preferred titles, their preferred topic area and their preferred study design). The google plus community was set up to support students through this decision making process. They could ask any questions to aid their selection. All questions about title selection had to go through the google plus community discussion board in order to receive a response, which allowed all students to benefit from the answer and spark further queries. The benefit for the module leader was that there was no repetitive emails to respond to and sometimes students answered the questions between themselves. The advantages of using this forum instead of the KLE's discussion board was the ease of use on smart phones and tablets. At the time of releasing the titles to the students, they were on clinical placements sometimes with little access to internet connected PC's. You can also change the settings so you receive a notification when a comment or question has been posted. This feature allowed the module leader to respond to each query in a timely fashion. The discussion board also allows the members as well as the moderators to post information, files and video clips. The list of titles, a google form to submit their preferences and a screencast to explain how to use the google form were all posted on the google plus community page. The moderator can use a feature to create events which was employed to remind the students when they should be submitting work to their supervisor for formative feedback and for submission deadlines. Following the selection process the google community was of continued use when the students started to prepare their research proposals for submission, many queries were answered and students also posted interesting and useful information they had found to share with the rest of the cohort. The module leader as the moderator of the group has the capacity to remove anything deemed inappropriate however this issue did not arise. The google plus community for this cohort will continue to run into their third year and support them through the research project module. The use of this method of communication within the module was deemed a success with high levels of student engagement. This judgement was echoed by students who rated the following items on the module evaluation report for that year as 4.6 out of a possible 5, 'staff created an environment to ask questions and seek help' and 'the team were helpful dealing with queries'). A second google community will be created for the next cohort who embark on their research project journey.

Using a Google+ community to support students undertaking a research project by Claire Stapleton from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://lpdcsolutions.blogspot.co.uk/.

StudyWrite, interactive resources to support students with Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism, By Dan Harding

StudyWrite was an innovation project funded by Keele University in 2012/13 a link to the project proposal and final report can be found here.  The project has continued to develop and has produced some really valuable interactive resources, an update on developments can be seen below

During the past 12 months, the StudyWrite project has been piloting interactive resources that aim to improve student’s understanding of academic scholarship. Following the conclusion of this pilot, staff and student feedback has been collated and used to develop StudyWrite into a resource which has shown to be of significant benefit to students.

Amongst the feedback received, some of the stand out statistics include:

StudyWrite Plagiarism (191 respondents)
91% of students feel that it has improved their understanding of plagiarism.
97% felt that the content was clearly explained.
81% reported that interactive activities helped them to understand the material.
90% now know where to go if requiring further help regarding plagiarism.

StudyWrite Referencing (129 respondents)
88% of students feel that it has improved their understanding of referencing.
92% felt that the content was clearly explained.
89% reported that interactive activities helped them to understand the material.
90% now know where to go if requiring further help regarding referencing.

During the past few months, StudyWrite has undergone a major re-design, along with the addition of a further resource that deals with note taking and assignment planning. These resources are now freely available for all Keele University staff and students to use and can be accessed at:

https://sites.google.com/a/keele.ac.uk/studywrite/


If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
By Dan Harding
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Learning Technologist

What are Learning Technologists sharing?

Blackboard tests- Item analysis,
This blog post from February 2014 by Tim Smale an e-learning Fellow covers the Blackboard tests - Item Analysis, demonstrating how statistics from tests can be accessed.

Ask-a-Techie episode 2

Keele Learning Technology staff answer questions put to them by colleagues at Keele

This webinar is aim at answering your questions on anything technology related (with application to the university).

Ask-a-techie episode 1 by Tim Smale, Matthew West and Dan Harding from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sxxgRWJsk&list=UU5ARRAoWR0H0ieYTweKOzXA.

Ask-a-Techie episode 1

Keele Learning Technology Staff answer questions put to them by colleagues at Keele


Published on 5 Aug 2014
Pilot episode from the Learning Technologies Advisory Group (LTAG)

00:00 - Welcome and Intro
01:03 - How to customise a Course HomePage in the KLE?
11:08 - Alternatives to Mediator - mobile friendly non-flash alternative to create learning packages
17:23 - What screen-capture type products would the panel recommend to allow us to create longer videos which we can edit (eg to use pointers, add annotation, use zoom)
20:43 - The new double-marking feature in Blackboard looks very useful, but how do we integrate it with Turnitin? Or should we stick to Grademark, which seems to have better marking tools as well as plagiarism checking, but no double marking?
24:25 - FRustrated Users Information Technology [FRUIT] mobile signal group asks... Q When are we going to have a decent mobile phone reception on campus? or is it a deliberate policy to avoid exposure to potentially harmful microwaves?
28:17 - Not sure if this is the right environment to ask this but... will it be possible to access the S Drive from outside the university?
33:44 - Are there any future plans to potentially move away from Terminal 4 and use a different form of content management system(s) that would allow more features etc?
35:40 - Close

Ask-a-techie episode 1 by Tim Smale and Matthew West from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFAh31V4QHM&list=UU5ARRAoWR0H0ieYTweKOzXA.

A view from beyond the bubble

PebblePad Mini Bash July 2014

This blog post provides a summary from a recent PebblePad event.  It provides links to further resources and discusses developments to the PebblePad product.