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An innovative approach to improve assessment of group based projects

Published: 24 November 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Computer Science graduates are often expected to work in teams, make decisions and handle responsibilities in dynamic work environments. As such, graduates need to be able to analyse information, solve problems, communicate and reflect on their own role and performance. Group based projects provide an opportunity for the development of such skills.
At our institution, an undergraduate web-based development module was re-designed to incorporate a real-world group based project. The first roll-out of the re-designed module went well; however, assessing the work fairly was difficult especially where team members contributed at considerably varying levels. In particular there was concern that some diligent students were penalised by other students' poor work and less hard-working students were rewarded because of more conscientious students' work.
This action research paper describes the implementation of an innovative assessment structure, using peer-, self-, and co-assessment, for a group based real-world project, that is deemed fair and reasonable by the stakeholders. The process cycles are described, key findings identified, and implications with recommendations are provided.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Computing Education Research in the UK & IrelandPast, Present and Future of Computing Education Research10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_19(421-479)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2023
  • (2021)A collaborative GIS programming course using GitHub ClassroomTransactions in GIS10.1111/tgis.1281025:6(3132-3158)Online publication date: 21-Jul-2021
  • (2020)First Year Computer Science Projects at Coventry UniversityProceedings of the 4th Conference on Computing Education Practice10.1145/3372356.3372358(1-4)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2020

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    Koli Calling '16: Proceedings of the 16th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research
    November 2016
    189 pages
    ISBN:9781450347709
    DOI:10.1145/2999541
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    • Univ. Eastern Finland: University of Eastern Finland
    • Univ. Turku: University of Turku
    • Monash University, Australia: Monash University, Australia

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 24 November 2016

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    Author Tags

    1. co-assessment
    2. curriculum design
    3. group based
    4. innovative assessment
    5. peer-assessment
    6. real-world project
    7. self-assessment

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    Koli Calling 2016
    Sponsor:
    • Univ. Eastern Finland
    • Univ. Turku
    • Monash University, Australia

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    Koli Calling '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 21 of 57 submissions, 37%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 80 of 182 submissions, 44%

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2023)Computing Education Research in the UK & IrelandPast, Present and Future of Computing Education Research10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_19(421-479)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2023
    • (2021)A collaborative GIS programming course using GitHub ClassroomTransactions in GIS10.1111/tgis.1281025:6(3132-3158)Online publication date: 21-Jul-2021
    • (2020)First Year Computer Science Projects at Coventry UniversityProceedings of the 4th Conference on Computing Education Practice10.1145/3372356.3372358(1-4)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2020

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