Assessment in Web 2.0

2012 Market share of Learning Management Systems for Universities in Australia

Mathew — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:30:39 +0000

The market share across Universities in Australia for Learning Management Systems represented by counts (and percentage) of current primary centrally supported LMS are:

LMS	Count (43)	Percentage %
Blackboard (including Web CT)	25	58
Moodle	16	37
Sakai	1	2
Desire to Learn	1	2

*percentages rounded to nearest whole number in the above table.

Source:
The above data collected March 2012 by Mathew Hillier. Each institution website was visited looking for their LMS. Omissions possible, corrections gratefully accepted!

In some cases it was unclear if the system was WebCT or BB proper as webCT is also labeled as BB on some sites. Where unsure it was marked as BB.

As vendor support ends for Web CT by 2013 some changes will be coming at the 4 institutions where it is still their primary LMS.

Prediction: the 58% will be dropping by next year given the pattern of migration away from BB to open source alternatives. This is shown in the data attached.

Further details – see attached excel spreadsheet and charts (this includes a table of which institution is using which LMS).
Data file (xls)

Similar environment scans are listed below.

UTas environment scan sourced from ACODE 2009 study. http://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/60896/ACODE-LMS-update-August.pdf
Smithers, M (2009) Learning Management Systems at Australian Universities. http://www.masmithers.com/2009/07/10/learning-management-systems-at-australian-universities/
ACODE, 2011 Australasian Educational Technology Survey http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/resources/documents/2011ed-techsurvey.pdf

Game Based Learning

Mathew — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:17:02 +0000

We have recently had two webinar sessions covering assessment and game based learning presented by Professor Sara de Freitas (Coventry University, UK) on 14 October followed by Dr Nicola Whitton (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) on 27 October. Each presenter offered a fascinating perspective on the use of games in learning, education and assessment that are well worth a second look!

For those that missed these sessions you can catch up via the recordings on the past events page.

Further information and links to resources mentioned in these two sessions can also be found in our e-assessment exemplars area for serious games.

Feel free to advise us of any game based learning resources and links in the comments area.

University of Adelaide to give free iPads to all first year science students

Mathew — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 02:48:02 +0000

This looks like an exciting project with great potential for interactive online learning, just in time learning and e-assessment. Read more about the Faculty of Science iPad project at – http://sciences.adelaide.edu.au/future/ipad/ipad.html and
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news39761.html

eMarking software tools

Mathew — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:00:08 +0000

Our recent web seminar session on e-marking (e-grading) software presented by Dr Peter Evans provided an insightful and practical demonstration of one such tool. The details of this and some other useful tools that can be for commenting and grading student written work are below.

eMarking Assistant and eRubric
(Dr Peter Evans, University of Southern Queensland).
Commercial software.
http://emarkingassistant.com/
This software is a M.S. Word toolbar that permits document mark-up, marking/summation, customisable comment library, audio comments and marking by rubric. A user community is available at http://www.emarkingassistant.com/community/course/view.php?id=2

Dr Evans also maintains a list of e-marking tools online at http://www.emarkingassistant.com/community/mod/forum/view.php?id=19

RemarksPDF and RemarksXML
(Professor Stephen Colbran, The University of New England)
Commercial software (note remarksPDF is free to Australian Universities until 2011 and remarksXML is free to Australian Universities until 2013).
http://www.remarkspdf.com/
RemarksPDF permits annotation of student submitted PDF files. RemarksXML is a customised M.S. Word tool bar that permits document mark-up, comment libraries, annotation, marking and audio comments.

MarkMyWords
(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Semi-commercial? A time limited trial is available to non-HKUST users. Free to HKUST users only.
http://mws.ust.hk/
This is a M.S. Word tool bar to assist with the mark-up, commenting and grading of written student submissions. This is one part of a suite of tools targeted at English as a Second (or foreign) Language learners and teachers.

Computer Aided Feedback and Assessment System (CAFAS)
(Dr Denise Wood and Mr Martin Freney, University of South Australia)
Creative Commons/Free.
http://cafas.pbworks.com/Home
http://cafas.pbworks.com/CAFAS-Online
http://cafas.pbworks.com/CAFAS-Excel
Based on a ‘marking sheet’/rubric concept. It is an online system (permitting home institution logon for Australian Universities) The system can be customised to suit the terminology used in each organisation. Assessments can be organised into courses, semesters and assessment items. Each assessment item can have customised weighted assessment criteria using a mix of sliders, standards based rubrics and auto/custom comment lists. Grades are tallied and fed into a built in grade book. An earlier version of the tool is also available as a downloadable series of M.S. Excel workbooks.

Augmented Reality in Education Links

Mathew — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:44:33 +0000

As a follow up to the ‘Augmented Reality in education’ web seminar held on 4 August 2010.
(see http://www.transformingassessment.com/events_4_august_2010.php for a recording of the session).
Please continue the discussion and contribute further links by adding comments to this post!

This is a list of the links provided by participants…

AR Textbooks
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ar_textbooks_virtual_chemistry_sets_the_future_of_learning.php

Augmented reality with chemistry, molecule structuring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQOwPJsyDSs

Computer Aided Medical Procedures & Augmented Reality
http://campar.in.tum.de/Main/PatrickMaier

AR tool kit
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/

AR encyclopaedia
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4893196/ipst_3d_augmented_reality_books/

Surgery simulator using AR and haptics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDzg3vd9Dc

Google search with “augmented reality training in surgery Munich” will return resources including a dissertation.

Test AR yourself using info at
http://www.artag.net/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Hologram-on-Your-Computer/

AR implemented in a museum: School in the Park at the San Diego Museum of ARt.
http://schoolinthepark.net/

MIT STEP’s Handheld Augmented Reality Simulations
http://education.mit.edu/drupal/ar

Google Sketch up and AR
http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/en/products/arplugin_su/info.php

Contact Bruce Thomas and the Wearable Computer lab
Phone +61 8 830 23464
Email: Bruce.Thomas at unisa.edu.au
http://people.unisa.edu.au/Bruce.Thomas
http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/
http://www.tinmith.net/ (about the wearable AR backpack and head set)
http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/arquake/ (about the AR Quake game)

Talking to Beakers

Mathew — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:59:57 +0000

Virtual worlds afford new and sometimes strange ways of interacting with students. We have just set up a model chemistry/bio lab on the Transforming Assessment island in Second Life. There are two new activities at present. The first is a ‘touch to explore’ exercise using the QuizHUD tool and the second involves a ‘talking Beaker’ that if spoken to will ask you questions and provide more information about itself.

Continue the conversation! Assessing students’ Web 2.0 activities Webinar

Mathew — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:01:06 +0000

Assessing students’ Web 2.0 activities Webinar 26 May 2010
Presenter: Dr Kathleen Gray and Dr Jenny Waycott (University of Melbourne, Australia).
Continue the conversation by using the comments feature!

*Update* A You tube video play list is available of the session.

Transforming Assessment on Facebook and YouTube!

Mathew — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:11:40 +0000

Join our facebook page.

See all of our videos on our You Tube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/transformassessment

Just a sample! See the videos for the seminar held on 12 May 2010.

Webinar Series – 12 May 2010 – Why should we change assessment because of Web 2.0? – Geoff Crisp

Admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:25:42 +0000

Transforming Assessment has hosted a series of webinars. Upcoming events and archives of past events can be found at http://www.transformingassessment.com/events.php

Links from the 12 May webinar:

Imperial College Second Life Hospital example http://slurl.com/secondlife/Imperial%20College%20London/142/34/27
New Zealand midwifery Second Life example http://slenz.wordpress.com/
IMMEX problem based assessment site http://www.immex.ucla.edu/
New Media Consortium in the USA with Second Life examples http://www.nmc.org/
WebPA self- and peer-review system http://webpaproject.lboro.ac.uk/
SPARK self- and peer-review system http://spark.uts.edu.au/

Issues raised by participants that require further discussion:

the biggest challenge is getting institutional support/infrastructure that will enable innovative ways of learning and assessing /engaging
how to involve students more in assessment marking?
teachers/academics need to make sure it’s an informed decision and not just moving to innovation for the sake – one can get carried away with this and lose sight of the real purpose sometimes
how to assess discussion forums?
so does ‘web 2.0′ make it more likely that learning will align with ‘real’ life?
what (useful) activities are being done in Second Life here? Aside from those assessment tasks which lie outside of the virtual environment?
why would you go to Second Life to do Chemistry?
does Second Life just add a barrier to the activities
aside from Second Life, what other ways can we improve on the social aspect of e-Assessment? e.g. how can we create questions in the VLE that draw upon Web 2.0 (social) examples?
What are capability maps and how can they be used for assessment?

Assessment Tools for Web 2.0

Mathew — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:28:14 +0000

An Australian Learning and Teaching Council project is currently being undertaken which seeks to develop guidelines for the use of web 2.0 technologies when assessing student learning in higher education. This project features a number of live trials involving the use of various social media technologies in student assessment that will culminate in the publication of a set of guidelines to be distributed nationally. A recently published paper arising from case based work in the project identifies challenges for academic assessment that arise from students’ use of Web 2.0 authoring and makes some recommendations for strengthening the educational efficacy of the practice. The paper can be read for free in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/gray.html.
The project team include Kathleen Gray, Jenny Waycott and Celia Thompson at The University of Melbourne, Margaret Hamilton and Joan Richardson at RMIT, and Rosemary Clerehan and Judy Sheard at Monash University.
The main project site is located at http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2146 while recent Blogging about the project can be read at http://web2assessment.blogspot.com/.