We are trying to reduce the amount of assessment to make everyone's life easier. In my module "G54SIM: Simulation for Decision Support" which I teach in the School of Computer Science we currently have a shared assessment model: 40% coursework and 60% exam. You can find examples of these assessments on the module website.
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pos/g54sim/2012-2013/index.html
I am now in the process of planning the assessment for the next semester. But I am not sure how I should design the assessment. I need to be sure that I am assessing the student's abilities and not the ability of other students ;-). I need to make sure that I reduce the amount of overall assessment and don't increase the amount of coursework assessment too much. Also I motivate the students during labs (we have 10 two hour labs) to work in small groups as conceptual problems can be solved much quicker this way and students learn interacting with clients and expressing their thoughts.
I am now thinking of having a group coursework (25%) early in the semester and an individual coursework (75%) late in the semester. Part of the individual coursework assessment would be a 10 minute oral exam to ensure students did the work themselves. I was told that telling the students in advance that they will be orally examined would prevent plagiarism.
The big question is: Am I reducing the assessment (amount of work for students and lecturers) in this way or am I just changing the format of assessment? What do you think?
Can you please share your experience of coursework only assessment in computer science or related fields?
Can you point out literature that discusses this topic?
In my experience coursework only assessment doesn't necessarily reduce the students or your workload. I run a module purely on coursework. My primary reason was that the exam occurred at a time when I was heavily loaded setting up modules for the following term and I didn't get help with marking the exam. The module, Problem Solving, is also better suited for coursework.
Each assessment is still going to have the same number of assessments to mark. So you land up with the same amount of marking if you keep the number of assessments the same. It is simply the timing and in my case the assistance of others to help me do the marking. This still introduces other overheads such as training my assistants.
For the students, spreading assessments out over the term can spread their work even if it is slightly more work. Students tend to focus on assignments close to the due date so they have work peaks around due dates. More but smaller assessments can spread that work out for them and reduce the amount of marker per assessment although increase the marking overall.
These issues are critical to me as I get little support for my teaching. I find myself stressed after some assessments simply because of the amount of marking that I have to do while other work doesn't stop. I am thinking more and more about how the work flows and how to reduce my workload. Often the simplest solution is to produce simpler assessments that are easy to mark but often these do not really assess the students properly.
Dear Dr. Peer-Olaf Siebers, First of all let me congratulate you for your fairness for thinking about your course. What we can help is to provide you the feedback.. Your course work is fine for undergraduate students except if you can reduce final exam by 10%. Your exam is of one hour duration so reducing its weight is justified. Experimenting with 10 labs are also good for the students. For Master students some research work and design of paper or directed topics will be good. Also, in this course you have a lot of scope for multiple choice quizzes.
Though I am a strong supporter of lessening the burdens of our learning and reducing their stress levels by giving more assessments via coursework and less exams/tests, I have found that if course work becomes the rule of thumb, students sometimes become a bit lax about their learning. They start believing that they do not have to put too much pressure in themselves to retain information, and often, they start regressing in subject area. In many cases, I have noted that with course work and projects, they have become heavily reliant on the internet, believing they do not need to think, rationalize, analyze their submissions, instead, they often hijack, copy and paste other people's works and then use synonyms to replace words so tutors will not easily recognize they have plagiarized. It is for this reason, that I believe we must have a good balance of in-class testing and assessments, and combine this with other forms of course work like projects, presentations etc.. to force maximum acquisition of knowledge of our learners.
Sunita, I am not convinced that assessment regimes alone will solve the problem of student attitudes to assessment. Learning is being replaced by certification. That is the students don't see the goal as learning, rather they see the goal as obtaining the credits to obtain the appropriate level degree. As a result, they will use whatever means they feel appropriate to pass the assessments even though they have learnt nothing.
I see this problem being generated by the attitudes in the wider community that focusses on grades for assessing people for employability. We have a systemic problem that can only really be changed by radical reform of our systems and ways of thinking about education.
@ Sunita & Errol: You are both making good points! Just wanted to make a comment in support of my students. I usually have a good proportion of students (I teach MSc only) that are interested in learning (and demonstrate their understanding by active participation during the lectures) and not just in assessment (although this is of course their second biggest priority ;-)). This is in particular true since we changed the MSc student entry requirements to a higher standard: AAB.
Let's see how it goes. I will start teaching the module in its new form at the end of January. I will keep you updated.
Respected Peer,
I have a great experience under your supervision. After Studying OOS module today I am eligible to apply for OOS related jobs and confident too. I studied class diagrams in my Bachelors also but today with the help of you I truly understand the meaning of all diagrams.
Sincere thanks to you
Hope we will meet soon!!
@ Stefan: Thanks for reminding me about this discussion stream :). The conference is a bit far away for me but I have now written up my experience in form of a "Working Paper" which is available here:
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszps/docs/pos-PGCHE-WP-v1.0.pdf
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