{"id":12789,"date":"2013-01-07t16:30:36","date_gmt":"2013-01-07t21:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=12789"},"modified":"2013-01-08t10:45:46","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08t15:45:46","slug":"getting-to-know-coursera-peer-assessments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2013\/01\/getting-to-know-coursera-peer-assessments\/","title":{"rendered":"getting to know coursera: peer assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"
by katie mcewen, graduate assistant<\/em><\/p>\n <\/a>after getting started talking about assessment methods<\/a> in coursera, in general, today we\u2019ll turn our attention to peer assessments, in particular.\u00a0 peer assessments are designed to evaluate the kinds of unstructured output\u2014essays, projects, videos, music, art, design challenges, etc.\u2014a student might reasonably be required to complete in a traditional course. \u00a0but it is precisely these kinds of open-ended assignments that pose serious problems in a massive online setting more suited to automatically graded quizzes and programming assignments.\u00a0 who, after all, has got the time to read 10,000 essays?<\/p>\n the answer, for coursera at least, is other students.\u00a0 and while peer assessments have garnered a fair bit of attention<\/a>, they\u2019ve also quickly enough underscored some of the more pervasive, and truly difficult, issues faced by the coursera model<\/a>.\u00a0 plagiarism<\/a> is perhaps only the most obvious one.\u00a0 peer assessments\u2014the ways they work, they ways they don\u2019t\u2014raise serious issues about creating and cultivating community online; navigating questions of authority\u00a0 and language proficiency; and about grading as a reflective practice.<\/p>\n laura gibbs, an experienced teacher of online courses, provides a thoughtful response to her own experience with peer feedback<\/a> in the recent \u201cfantasy and science fiction\u201d class on her blog coursera fantasy<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 there, she also addresses some of deeply problematic<\/a> aspects of grading in coursera.<\/p>\n