1. Wiki for Asynchronous Continuous
Assessment: the Experience at UAB
Sergi Robles
Dept. of Information and Communication Engineering
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Sergi.Robles@uab.cat
May 2008

2. Aim Wiki Learning UAB Evaluation and results Weaknesses Tools Conc.
Contents
1
Motivation
2
What is a wiki
3
Wiki for learning
4
The wiki experience at UAB
5
Evaluation and results
6
Weaknesses
7
New wiki tools
8
Conclusions
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Motivation
We need to explore new information technologies to face the
new challenges of the European High Education Area.
→ Current technologies do not meet the requirements: forums,
chat, web pages, word documents, ...
Requirements
Flexibility
Asynchronous work
Easy to access and use
Student activity tracking
Portability
→ A wiki meets all of these requirements!!
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What is a wiki?
Wiki definition
A Wiki is a web space where different authors can collaborate
in the dynamic creation of documents.
No expertise on IT required for using it.
Mechanisms for cooperative work.
Tracking: recent changes,
subscriptions, ...
Allows attaching external documents.
Easy using / low cost for maintenance.
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Wiki for learning
The wiki has been used in many scenarios:
Research groups (writing papers, meeting minutes, state of the
art), teams in companies (project oriented work), global
projects (Wikipedia), ...
It can also be used to improve learning, for it provides:
A peer-to-peer communication channel
A collaborative editing system with version control
An automatic repository
Free organisation of information
It can be considered an enhanced virtual portfolio, but allowing
continuous team work, and promoting active participation.
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Interest group Mission Design Example
The wiki experience at UAB
The “Wiki” Interest Group on Higher Education Innovation at
UAB has been using this tool since 2004.
Some facts:
We have carried out more than 80 experiences, in more
than 10 majors.
We are 11 instructors from 6 different departments at UAB.
There has been an important improvement of academic
results of students (more motivation, less absence, better
marks, more students write the exam).
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Mission
Our objectives are to
Extend the workgroup model used for laboratories
Improve the learning process of students.
Increase the motivation of the student.
Make students participate actively, even those who have a
job and cannot attend to classes.
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Designing a wiki
Although there are many advantages in using a wiki for
supporting learning, there are some key aspects that must be
firstly considered:
Important aspects:
Information organisation / Wiki structure.
Designing of the learning evidences.
Time devoted for following up student progress.
Assessment of the contributions to the wiki.
All these aspects must be perfectly defined before using a Wiki.
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Reported wiki learning hindrances
There is a list of well-known learning hindrances when using a
wiki (http://www.educause.edu).
→ This is how we have overcome them:
Group editing (All documents are edited by a group of
students, no private information). An access and change
control is used.
Content structure (Free structure makes assessment
difficult). Learning evidences define the structure of the
wiki.
Collective group representation (The group is assessed
as a whole). An individual assessment is performed.
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Access and change control
A specific implementation is used for access and change
control.
Access and change control
Group definition and management
Access Control Lists
Change log mechanisms
Scripts for specific permission management
MoinMoin adaption
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Learning evidences
Students contribute to learning evidences in their wikis.
Learning evidences
Class notes / Records
Problems (proposal,
solution)
Syllabus extensions
Virtual debate
Field work
Glossary
...
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Individual assessment
The assessment process is individual. For every learning
evidence this is taken into account:
Quantitative and qualitative
elements
Constancy
Reactivity
Concept integration
Command of terminology
Group participation
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Interest group Mission Design Example
Facing the problem of large classes
The ratio instructor/student in Computer Engineering is very
low (1/150, 1/200, ...).
Peer-to-peer assessment has proved to be an important tool to
facilitate instructor’s task.
Peer-to-peer assessment
One week period every month.
Every wiki group assesses the wiki of other two groups
(assessment and answer).
Concise form.
Special scripts for MoinMoin
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Interest group Mission Design Example
An example
This is an example of a wiki used for the subject “Computer
Networks II” (in the 4th year of the 5-year Computer
Engineering, +200 students). Wiki teams of 6 students.
Learning evidences
Exercises (10): Three stages: Writing, Remarking,
Correcting
Extensions (2), in groups of 3.
Field work (1), in groups of 3.
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Interest group Mission Design Example
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Evaluation
According to the surveys at the end of every experience:
+ The wiki facilitates the groupwork and increases the
active involvement of students.
+ Improves academic performance.
– Work volume in significantly increased for both students
and instructors (consequence of continuous assessment?).
– Reluctances to peer-to-peer assessment.
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Results
Some basic figures about the results:
Final exam and overall marks have increased.
Number of students not taking the exam slightly increases.
Significant increase of students who, having taken the
exam, pass the subject.
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Weaknesses of the wiki
The wiki is very powerful, but in these four years of applying it
we have found some weaknesses:
It is difficult to control the time needed by student and
instructor, and the time they have devoted to the wiki.
There are many variables to assess; an external
spreadsheet is required to keep all the evaluation notes.
Setting up teams can be tedious: a typical course in
Computer Engineering may have more than 200 students.
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27. Aim Wiki Learning UAB Evaluation and results Weaknesses Tools manager Activity tracker Assessment Time C
Tools Wiki Conc.
New wiki tools
Our group has devised new wiki tools to assist students and
instructors to overcome these weaknesses, and to create a wiki
which is specific for teaching.
New wiki tools developed:
Wiki manager
Student activity tracking
Time Control
Assessment notes
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Tools Wiki Conc.
Wiki manager
The new wiki manager assists the instructor in the task of
creating and managing wikis. Now it is trivial to create a number
of wikis for teams in the same course, only with one click.
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Tools Wiki Conc.
Student Activity Tracking
It is convenient to analyse the activity of a student in the wiki.
With this new tool all this information, not accessible in a
traditional wiki, is available instantaneously.
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Tools Wiki Conc.
Assessment
To avoid the need for having an external document to keep
track of the assessment of the student, we have created the
assessment note. An assessment note, public or private, can
be attached to every page in the wiki.
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Tools Wiki Conc.
This is how one of these assessment notes looks like:
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Tools Wiki Conc.
Time Control
In order to make a better control of time, every student may
indicate how much time he or she has spent in doing the
activity.
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Conclusions
A wiki is extremely useful for supporting learning, and the UAB
Wiki group has been using it since 2004.
However, a generic wiki lacks from some basic functionalities
such as
Time control tools
Detailed user activity information
On-line assessment
Easy creation of team wikis
Our group has developed an extension for the MoinMoin wiki
engine to support these functions.
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Future work
We are planning now to integrate a wiki in the institutional
electronic teaching platform at UAB (expected by 09/2008).
This wiki will have, eventually, all the tools we have
devised.
We will focus on competence assessment via wiki, as this
is of paramount relevance now for the new majors that are
currently being defined.
We want to create a network of groups interested in wiki for
learning (groups from 5 universities interested so far).
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Thank you!
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