Slides from a presentation given by Kathleen Gray and Jenny Waycott for a Medical Education Unit seminar series at the University of Melbourne in June 2010. From the ALTC-funded project "Web 2.0 Authoring Tools in Higher Education: New Directions for Assessment and Academic Integrity".

1. Good practice in using Web 2.0
to assess student learning in higher education
An ALTC Priority Project 2009-2011
Kathleen Gray & Jenny Waycott
Health Informatics & Virtual Environments Research Group
University of Melbourne
Medical Education Unit, University of Melbourne
Seminar 30 June 2010

2. Project team
Jenny Waycott (project manager), Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health
Sciences, University of Melbourne.
Celia Thompson, School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne.
Margaret Hamilton, School of Computer Science and IT, RMIT University.
Joan Richardson, School of Business Information Technology, RMIT University.
Kathleen Gray (project leader), Faculty of Medicine / Department of Information
Systems, University of Melbourne.
Rosemary Clerehan, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash
University.
Judithe Sheard, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University.

3. Project
background

4. The future of scientific & scholarly communication
Chodorow • “the form and substance of scholarly
(2000, p.91) communications will change over time, so
that it will be difficult to trace the historical
flow of the work”
• “a free-flowing stream of scholarly discourse
will reduce the role of scholarly authority in
the progress of research”
Chodorow, S. (2000).
Scholarship & scholarly
communication in the • “the roles of individual authors will be
electronic age.
Educause Review, obscured in the electronic environment”
35(1), 86-92.
http://www.educause.e
du/ir/library/pdf/ERM0
01B.pdf

5. Use of Web 2.0 in university learning and teaching
‘Web 2.0 and emerging technologies in online learning’
‘Analysis of 10 popular Web 2.0 tools used in higher education’
‘Facilitating new forms of discourse for learning and teaching:
harnessing the power of Web 2.0 practices ’
‘The changing space of research: Web 2.0 and the integration of
research and writing environments’
‘Can Web 2.0 and social software help transform how we
measure quality in teaching, learning, and research?’

6. Implications for university learning, teaching & assessment?
O’Reilly & Battelle “One of the fundamental ideas underlying
(2009, p. 2) Web 2.0 [is] that successful network
applications are systems for harnessing
collective intelligence ... a large group of
O’Reilly, T., & Battelle, J. (2009). Web
Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On.
people can create a collective work
Special Report for the Web 2.0
Summit, 20-22 October , San Francisco
whose value far exceeds that provided
CA.
http://assets.en.oreilly.com/1/event/2
by any of the individual participants”
8/web2009_websquared-
whitepaper.pdf

7. Implications for university learning, teaching & assessment?
Kakutani “jump to the summary, the video clip, the
sound bite — never mind if context and nuance are lost
(2010, in the process; never mind if it’s our emotions, more
paras 13-14) than our sense of reason, that are engaged; never mind
if statements haven’t been properly vetted and
sourced”
“tweet and text one another during plays and
Kakutani, M. (2010, 17
movies, forming judgments before seeing the arc of the
March). Texts without entire work”
context. [Book review].
New York Times. “power-search for nuggets of information that
http://www.nytimes.co
m/2010/03/21/books/ might support their theses, saving them the time of
21mash.html?ref=book
s
wading through stacks of material that might prove
marginal but that might have also prompted them to
reconsider or refine their original thinking”

8. Project aims
Academic standards, academic integrity, assessment principles ...
How to apply these to assessing student web 2.0 activities?
1. Survey and interview teaching academics (September 2009)
2. Draft guidelines for good practice (November 2009)
3. Pilot with teachers and students (February - June 2010)
4. Produce and share resources (July 2010 ff)

9. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices
Some preliminary findings
about how, where and why
60 Australian academics
are using Web 2.0
for assessment of student learning
that is more than just formative
(i.e. that earns marks in a subject)

10. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: How
Type of Web 2.0 activity Number of responses
Wiki writing 32
Blogging/microblogging 31
Social networking 17
Audio/video podcasting 16
Virtual world activities 12
Social bookmarking 11

11. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: How
Where students complete assignment Number of
responses
Off campus elsewhere (e.g., at home during
52
independent study time)
On campus but out of class 25
On campus in class 16
Off campus while undertaking fieldwork or
7
workplace learning

12. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: How
How much the assignment is Number of responses
worth
01-10% 7
11-20% 11
21-30% 9
31-40% 6
41-50% 9
51-60% 2
61-70% 0
71-80% 3
81-90% 2
91-100% 4

13. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: Where
Field of Study Number of respondents
16
Humanities / Society & Culture
15
Education
11
Information Technology
9
Medicine & Health
6
Management & Commerce
Other 3

14. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: Where
Number of students Number of responses
enrolled in unit
Less than 50 21
50-100 10
101-200 9
More than 200 7

15. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: Where
Level of study Number of responses
Bachelor or honours degree 35
Postgraduate coursework degree 16

16. Current Web 2.0 assessment practices: Why
Intended learning outcomes Number of
responses
Generic or graduate skills or attributes 35
Specialised knowledge or skills required in a
29
discipline or profession
Foundation knowledge or skills preparatory to
28
a discipline or profession

17. Medicine/Health Example 1
• Individual students:
– Develop a wiki page on an assigned topic of relevance to
the unit of study.
– Publish it for peer review.
– Review another student's wiki page on another topic.
– Reflect on the feedback received on/edits made to their
wiki page
• Graded on a five point scale (F, P-, P, P+). Grades are awarded
for criteria in five capability areas
• Encourages deep engagement with the topic, involves peer
feedback, develops materials for use by all students.

18. Medicine/Health Example 2
• Students interview working biomedical scientists, review each
others’ reports and publish final marked reports on a type of
social networking site.
• Worth 11-20% of their subject mark
• Published for: “High school students ... looking for careers in
science don’t know the names of many disciplines, they
certainly don’t know the names of any people ... it’s a bit like
a dating site. The visitors answer the same questions and the
system pulls up the people who match.”

19. Medicine/Health Example 3
• Students are allocated to groups and given a topic, on which
they must create and upload an educational and informative
“document“ and give a class presentation.
• Groups may choose to create a video clip or a podcast (or a
poster or flyer or similar).
• The students’ “document” and talk are assessed by peers and
course coordinator/ faculty member.
• Part of the subject learning experience is for students and the
teacher to negotiate assessment criteria to be used.

20. What would good practice look like?
National roundtable
Three checklists:
Affordances of Web 2.0 tools and technologies
Assessment processes
Assessment and related academic policies

21. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Affordances checklist ... • Open publishing
• Communication styles and
What is an appropriate fit texts
between what assessment • Personal identity and
is trying to achieve and experience
what Web 2.0 can do? • Co-creation, collaboration,
crowdsourcing
• Content management

22. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Open publishing:
• Student work can be made easily
accessible to an audience of
peers for mutual benefit including
reviewing and rating.
• Review and assessment of
student work from outside the
university can be invited or
anticipated.

23. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Communication styles &
texts
• Web 2.0 assignments can involve
frequent short pieces of work
employing conversational language
and combining audio, video,
images & text.
• Feedback can be exchanged
rapidly, using rating or ranking
systems, informal rejoinders,
audio, video, images, icons.

24. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Personal identity &
experience:
• Students’ online identity can be
different from the student who is
recognisable in class.
• Students’ social or cultural
experiences of web authoring can
influence the work they produce
for assessment.
• Reflection and self-reflection
about the idea of identity are
prompted by the need to create
and express an online identity.

25. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Co-creation,
collaboration,
crowdsourcing:
• Group work can scale between a
small closed group and a large
free-to-join learning community
• Individual contributions to group
work can (sometimes) be
distinguished.
• Groups can work on large,
complex tasks.

26. What would good practice look like? Affordances
Content management
• Students’ assessable work may
consist of remixing web content
from diverse sources.
• Students’ assessable work may be
posted on several host sites.
Work posted on one site may be
syndicated by others and tracked
back.
• Students can control the content
they produce for assessment in
accordance with terms of service,
end user agreements or other
governance policies of host sites.

27. What would good practice look like? Processes
Processes checklist ...
How do teachers use Web 2.0 Design
to support student, self- and
organisational learning
Review Implement
throughout the cycle of
activities involved in the
assignment?
Feedback Mark

28. What staff have said about ...
Designing the assignment
Implementing the assignment
Marking the assignment
Giving results and feedback to students
Reviewing how well the assignment works

29. What would good practice look like? Policies
Policies checklist ... • disability
• access to IT services or
How can assessment using equipment
Web 2.0 be made safe and fair • appropriate conduct
for students and staff? • identity and privacy
• academic honesty and
integrity
• special consideration
• moral rights and copyright

30. Examples where policies are not clearly observed
Policy area % Not sure
Copies of students’ marked work are available if there is a need to 20
deal with appeals/complaints
This assignment encourages academic honesty and integrity 20
Students’ identity and privacy in online environments are 20
safeguarded
Students are provided with timely feedback on marked work for this 20
assignment
This assignment provides for equitable assessment for students with 23
a disability
Students’ moral right and copyright in work they produce are 27
protected
Students whose work shows evidence of cheating or misconduct are 28
formally disciplined

31. What can (and can’t) be done in real subject teaching settings?
Draft guidelines Cinema Studies / Criminal Law
Blogging
pilot-tested Cultural Studies / Media Studies
for practicability Social bookmarking Education
in 17 subjects Social networking Languages
at 5 universities Video sharing Business / Economics
in Victoria
Photo sharing Communication Design
during Sem 1, 2010
Virtual worlds Languages
Accounting / Education
Wiki writing Information Technology
Languages / Science
Combined Information Management
Web 2.0 tools Information Technology

32. Sharing project progress
Moodle: www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2146
Blog: http://web2assessment.blogspot.com
Bookmarks: www.citeulike.org/tag/assessment20
Webinar: www.transformingassessment.com/events_26_may_2010.php
Workshops 2010-11 @ HERDSA, ATN Assessment, ASCILITE, ACE
Papers:
• Gray, K., Thompson, C., Clerehan, R., Sheard, J., & Hamilton, M. (2008). Web 2.0
authorship: Issues of referencing and citation for academic integrity. The Internet
and Higher Education. 11(2), 112-118.
• Gray, K., Thompson, C., Sheard, J., Clerehan, R., & Hamilton, M. (2010). Students as
web 2.0 authors: Implications for assessment design and conduct. Australasian
Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1), 105-122.

33. Acknowledgements
Project Advisory Group
• Matthew Allen, Bill Anderson, Greg Battye, Robyn Benson, Tracey Bretag, Jenny Buckworth,
Denise Chalmers, Geoffrey Crisp, Leitha Delves, Bobby Elliott, Jacqui Ewart, Glenn Finger, Tom
Franklin, Merrilyn Goos, Scott Grant, Ashley Holmes, Christopher Hughes, David Jones, Marj
Kibby, Adrian Kirkwood, Mark Lee, Catherine McLoughlin, Beverley Oliver, Kaz Ross, Alison
Ruth, Royce Sadler, Mary Simpson, Arthur Winzenried, Katina Zammit, Lynette Zeeng.
Project Reference Group
• Michael Abulencia, Robyn Benson, John Benwell, Marsha Berry, Marilys Guillemin, Laura
Harris, Deborah Jones, Gregor Kennedy, Shaun Khoo, George Kotsanas, Lauren O’Dwyer,
Jason Patten, Emma Read, Julianne Reid, Gordon Sanson, Cristina Varsavsky.
Project Pilot-testing Group
• Matthew Absolom, Anne Davies, Cathy Farrell, Scott Grant, Terry Hallahan, Michael
Henderson, John Hurst, Ramon Laboto, Warren McKeown, Michael Nott, Kerry Pantzopoulos,
Michele Ruyters, Michael Smith, Sandra Smith, Robyn Spence-Brown, Elizabeth Stewart, John
Terrell, Jenny Weight, Lynette Zeeng
ALTC Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching
Council Ltd. (www.altc.edu.au), an initiative of the Australian Government Department of
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The views expressed in this presentation
do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, or the
views of individual contributors apart from the project team.