Making group assessment transparent: what wikis can contribute to collaborative projects

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of new media technologies, in particular wikis, for the compiling and grading of group assessment tasks. Wikis are open web pages that can be viewed and modified by anyone with internet access and are well known for their collaborative nature. Wikis are also transparent, which means that any edit/modification is recorded and attributed to a specific user. Such transparency has immense implications for the assessment of group work, as one of the major criticisms of group assessment tasks made by students relates to fairness in the distribution of grades. Therefore, the aims of this paper are to examine whether a wiki can help make the grading of group work fairer and whether the wiki environment encourages students to engage more directly with the contributions of other group members, thereby making it a truly collaborative experience.

Keywords:

• group assessment
• wikis
• network literacies
• tertiary education

Acknowledgements

This project was assisted by a Learning and Teaching Small Grant from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW. We are also very grateful for the generous support and feedback from colleagues who participated in the peer review of the ARTS1091 wiki and the assessment task. These are: Prof Matthew Allen (Curtin University of Technology), who provided ongoing feedback throughout the semester that helped to guide the project; and Dr Tim Dwyer (University of Sydney) and Dr Christina Spurgeon (Queensland University of Technology) who provided comprehensive and most informative reviews once the assessment had been completed. We would also like to thank the students who participated in the interviews regarding their experiences with the wiki.

Notes on contributors

Helen Caple is a lecturer in Media, Journalism and Communications at the University of New South Wales. In 2009, she completed her PhD on text-image relations in print news media with the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include press photography, text-image relations in news discourse and the discursive approach to news values. Her latest book, News discourse (co-authored with Monika Bednarek), will be available in 2012. Helen is a former press photographer.

Mike Bogle is an educational technologist in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales. In 2002, Mike joined the Educational Development and Technology Centre at UNSW, where he supported staff use of enterprise eLearning systems. His research interests now include open education, participatory culture and networked learning.