Anonymous assessments of workshops

Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Daniel Brouse -
Number of replies: 7
Is there a way to remove any reference to the time of day when a workshop was assessed? This is the time that shows when another student assessed a students work. I am wanting the assessments to be truly anonymous and so I have the "hide name" turned to "yes." It appears that this is not enough. I was just informed by a student that some students felt that they were able to deduce who assessed a prior assignment (our first workshop) based on comparing the time of assessment (shown to them in the workshop tool) and the last time that people logged in (displayed on the list of participants/people for each class).

  • I am using a hosted account (Bluehost) but I DO have access to each file on my section of the server and so I can edit a .php or other file if I know where to look and what to change.
  • The version is Moodle 1.6.1 I'm feeling guilty that this is so old but when I tried to upgrade to 1.7 I had some problems due to some issues with course backups. I have since then corrected the backup issues but I am in the middle of a term and would prefer to wait until our next break to upgrade.

Thanks in advance,

Daniel
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In reply to Daniel Brouse

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by John Isner -
I was just informed by a student that some students felt that they were able to deduce who assessed a prior assignment

So what?

This is a college, isn't it? I would tell whoever complained to suck it up and quit whining. Then I would set "Hide name = no" and let the reviews take place in the open. Tell your students that public review is good for them -- it teaches accountability. Anonymous peer review is for grownups.
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In reply to John Isner

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Daniel Brouse -
John, I certainly have a part of me that agrees with you. In the future I will probably setup workshops so that all of the peer assessments are done "in the open." For this assignment I explicitly stated that the assessments would be anonymous (possibly poor judgment) and so I am trying to fulfill that commitment. It is not clear to me why students need to be informed of when their workshop submission was assessed - to the minute. If there is an easy way to change the code so the timestamp part of the information is not displayed, it would serve my purposes. I'm not a programmer of any sort and so I am hesitant to just start changing code in the workshop module on my own.

I didn't quite follow your meaning of the last statement. "Anonymous peer review is for grownups" seems to be the opposite of your prior statements. If I missed something important, please let me know -- type real slow so maybe I'll get it this time! wink
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In reply to Daniel Brouse

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by John Isner -
I mean that it takes a higher level of maturity to give and take anonymous criticism. Anonymous peer review is common in the upper echelons of the academic world, where reviewers do not abuse the shield of anonymity and where authors can take criticism at face value.
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In reply to Daniel Brouse

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Peter Sereinigg -

sorry, but that idea to compare has never been thought before ...

we will think about this in the next version, BUT how should we view the actuality and NOT make it comparable?

Peter

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In reply to Peter Sereinigg

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Daniel Brouse -
Peter,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, my students are pretty smart. Unfortunately, they seem to occasionally conclude that it is easier to use their metal facilities to find shortcuts rather than just learn the material (Human Anatomy and Physiology). Is it possible to just omit displaying the peer assessment timestamp? That would allow students to see that their submission was assessed, and possibly the date it was assessed on, but NOT the time that it was assessed. I think that would solve the issue for most workshop configurations as the timestamp information would still be logged for system and administrator use but not displayed to students.

Thanks,

Daniel
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In reply to Daniel Brouse

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Daniel Brouse -
Does anyone have experience with the code for the workshop module? I have been looking at the .php files and am trying to find the portion of the code that causes the assessment time to be displayed to students. If the function is a combined date-time display I would like to change it to only display the date. If the code has a separate display of date and time, I would like to disable the display of the time.

Thanks in advance.

Daniel
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In reply to Daniel Brouse

Re: Anonymous assessments of workshops

by Daniel Brouse -
There must be just one (or a few) lines of code that cause the peer assessment time to be displayed. I am trying to learn/figure out the PHP as fast as possible, so that I can prevent the time display. If anyone has any ideas on how I can prevent the DISPLAY of the time of assessment to students, I would appreciate your input.
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