We got ourselves into a corner by not sufficiently testing the workshop module in Moodle 1.4.5+. And situation is critical: students have less than a week to do the assessments before the semester ends.
We have a course with students divided into 9 groups. Each group uploaded an assignment amd now we switched to step 3 in workshop to allow peer assessment. However, there is nowhere in sight any button or link that would allow students to do so.
In the workshop forum, I read that there were some issues with groups that were at least partly resolved last fall. However, I don't seem to be hitting the right combination of options to bring the assessment to students.
I tried setting the course as not using groups or using visible groups. Played with the number of assessment from students, self-assessment. No luck. It seems that only students who actually uploaded something are allowed to make assessment of others.
Any hot tips how to get out of this and allow all students to do the assessment of the work of others (aside from each uploading the same files as other people in their group)?
I suspect the problem is a confusion about what a "group" means in Moodle. When I first came to Moodle, I got all excited and thought that "group" here meant what "group" meant in my classes: a sub-group of the class working together on a project or activity. This sounds like what you may be thinking "group" means as well. But it's not what "group" means in Moodle.
In Moodle a "group" is really like a separate section of the same course, so multiple sections can be running in parallel using the same course set up but without (necessarily - it depends on how you set things up) being aware of the other groups. Within a Moodle group everyone has to do every assignment and there's no support for team projects like (I think) you describe.
I do a lot of team projects, and would love to see support added for such things, but at the moment I'm not aware of any.
I've used the Workshop module quite a lot and it does have a lot of problems (some of which we're trying to clean up), but I think this one is "simply" a matter of misunderstanding terms. I don't know any way out of your dilema except, as you suggest, having everyone upload the work of their group. Note, however, that this will not be perfect because Moodle won't know that several people are in the same team, and it may well assign a significant number of peer assessments where people are assessing the copy of their own project turned in by another team member. It will be virtually impossible to ensure an even balance of "real" assessments (i.e., assessments by people from a different team). If you require quite a few assessments (I don't know how many students in your class, so it's hard to be more precise) you'll probably get a decent balance, but you'll probably end up with quite a few "self" assessments.
Another pitfall to watch out for is the grades for the assessments. If you have part of their grade based on their having done assessments, you'll need to be careful about how you handle the duplicate assessments. It would make sense from a student's perspect to just skip any assessments of projects they'd already assessed (either their own, or another team's project they were assigned twice for two different people), but that could hurt their grade if you have assessments as part of the grade. I'd be inclined to not include assessments in their grade (at least as far as Moodle is concerned) so they can happily skip the duplicate assessments.
Hope this helps - Nic
In Moodle a "group" is really like a separate section of the same course, so multiple sections can be running in parallel using the same course set up but without (necessarily - it depends on how you set things up) being aware of the other groups. Within a Moodle group everyone has to do every assignment and there's no support for team projects like (I think) you describe.
I do a lot of team projects, and would love to see support added for such things, but at the moment I'm not aware of any.
I've used the Workshop module quite a lot and it does have a lot of problems (some of which we're trying to clean up), but I think this one is "simply" a matter of misunderstanding terms. I don't know any way out of your dilema except, as you suggest, having everyone upload the work of their group. Note, however, that this will not be perfect because Moodle won't know that several people are in the same team, and it may well assign a significant number of peer assessments where people are assessing the copy of their own project turned in by another team member. It will be virtually impossible to ensure an even balance of "real" assessments (i.e., assessments by people from a different team). If you require quite a few assessments (I don't know how many students in your class, so it's hard to be more precise) you'll probably get a decent balance, but you'll probably end up with quite a few "self" assessments.
Another pitfall to watch out for is the grades for the assessments. If you have part of their grade based on their having done assessments, you'll need to be careful about how you handle the duplicate assessments. It would make sense from a student's perspect to just skip any assessments of projects they'd already assessed (either their own, or another team's project they were assigned twice for two different people), but that could hurt their grade if you have assessments as part of the grade. I'd be inclined to not include assessments in their grade (at least as far as Moodle is concerned) so they can happily skip the duplicate assessments.
Hope this helps - Nic
Yes, the problem is indeed twofold, one that the version of moodle we use hence no motion of groups, and two that it sees groups differently than we do in many situations.
I have checked the source code in the meantime and found that version distributed with 1.4.5 is from August 2005 whereas the group additions were announced in September. I would install moodle 1.5.2 for that one course if I knew what was really added.
Thanks for reminding me the pitfalls with assessment.At this stage we are still concerned about being able to get any assessments.
I have checked the source code in the meantime and found that version distributed with 1.4.5 is from August 2005 whereas the group additions were announced in September. I would install moodle 1.5.2 for that one course if I knew what was really added.
Thanks for reminding me the pitfalls with assessment.At this stage we are still concerned about being able to get any assessments.
I do not think that moving to 1.5.2 will help you any. I was running 1.4.5 last year, and am currently running 1.5.2, and these versions still treat groups the same way. I'm fairly confident that upgrading would have no effect on your situation. (That said, the upgrade to 1.5.2 brings with it a number of nice pieces of functionality and I'm really glad we upgraded.)
Best of luck!
Best of luck!
Hi Robert,
Am interested to know how it went. for a set up like you proposed I would have use the glossary tool with commenting and peer rating turned on (It's just that you don't have the detailed assessment form, so assessing is necessarily cruder).
Rgrds,
Paul.
Am interested to know how it went. for a set up like you proposed I would have use the glossary tool with commenting and peer rating turned on (It's just that you don't have the detailed assessment form, so assessing is necessarily cruder).
Rgrds,
Paul.