Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Encouraging and requiring collaboration among students in distance education has become increasingly important and popular due to the growth in distance collaboration in the business sector.  Employers want employees who can work and get along with others.  Collaboration can bring problem solving, new ideas and concepts, and much more.  There is a question as to how collaboration in a learning community should be assessed.  How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?  Siemens (2008) suggest several ways in which online collaboration can be assessed.  “Learners can help to assess assignments by giving ratings or comments” on other members’ wikis or blogs.  Educators must set up an environment where members feel safe to provide information and feedback to others. 

Instructors must realize that setting up an online course is not the same as setting up a seated course.  Different assessments and pedagogies must be used in online education.  Group participation must be assessed and the use of traditional testing (multiple-choice or true false) is not an accurate way to assess what students have learned in the online environment (Siemens, 2008), (Palloff and Pratt, 2007, p. 41).

Other questions and concerns of online collaboration in education are:  If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?  

If a student does not want to collaborate an instructor can work with the student as much as possible, but should clarify that collaboration with others is a component of the course.  While the student could complete the course without collaborating with others, an instructor should encourage this medium, explain its benefits to the student, and explain that the collaboration component is only one aspect of the course.  Siemens (2008) suggests that instructors be flexible in their assessment of online groups and that “Learners can feel more comfortable when they understand the learning communities aren’t 100 percent of the grade”. 

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Siemens, G. (Presenter). (2008). Assessment of Collaborative Learning. (Vodcast). Laureate Education, Inc. Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore: Author.

Siemens, G. (Presenter). (2008). Learning Communities. (Vodcast). Laureate Education, Inc. Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore: Author