Incorporating group coursework as an assessment component into online and traditional university programmes

Despite the many advantages of online learning programmes in university curricula, such programmes can present challenges, particularly in terms of assessment of group coursework and participation in discussion fora. The author’s experiences suggest ways to mitigate the “free rider” problem often accompanying group coursework, in which a few motivated students perform the bulk of the work. Mitigation of this problem can be achieved by requiring a shorter, individual submission separately from each student, in order to better judge the relative contribution to the whole. Participation in online discussions can also be incentivized by making this element a meaningful part of the overall summative assessment. Lastly, both attendance and learning, whether online or face to face, can be motivated by including in each session a brief quiz, to be done individually or in groups, which again counts towards the overall assessment, and encourages students to participate, and reinforces concepts on an ongoing basis

Copyright @ 2016, Asia Pacific Institute of Advanced Research (APIAR). Reproduced by permission of APIAR.