Implementation and outcomes of online self and peer assessment on group based honours research projects

Honours research projects in the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide are run with small groups of students working with an academic supervisor in a chosen area for one year. The research project is mainly self-directed study, which makes it very difficult to fairly assess the contribution of individual students to a group-based research project. Until recently, a paper-based method of self and peer assessment (SPA) for the honours research projects was used to assess the projects. This was unsatisfactory for both students and academic staff, who found that the same mark was often awarded by the peers to each student without feedback. In 2010, therefore, an online SPA tool, SPARK, together with a set of newly developed assessment criteria, were used for SPA by the honours students. The new SPA criteria are based on teamwork and research skills, and the new rating scales reflect standard academic grades. Surveys of the students confirmed that they found the criteria and scales much more suitable for the assessment of group work and design projects.     

Management of Education — An Industrial Comparison

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the increasing pressure on the continued existence of the Honours Project in its present form. The author uses the recent changes implemented on the BA Business Studies Degree at Coventry University as a case study to illustrate the need for continuous sensitivity to environmental pressures and specifically for a proactive approach to anticipate future necessary change to the structure, supervision and assessment of the Project. Increasing student numbers emphasise the relatively high cost in resource terms of supervising projects; increasing levels of competitiveness and changing work patterns in industry highlight the demand for independent, self‐disciplined graduates with good problem solving skills, the main attributes the Honours Project aims to promote; and advances in technology such as cheap, powerful and readily available word processing and publishing software, computerised easily accessible research and publication databases, and the ubiquitous ‘Internet’ give unprecedented access to information and the ability to easily present projects and assignments to a higher standard than was possible even five years ago. The paper incorporates the results of a survey carried out specifically with regard to BA Business Studies Degrees within Business Schools in the ‘New University’ sector (Polytechnics prior to 1992) in the UK.     

A Structured Approach to Honours Undergraduate Research Course, Evaluation Rubrics and Assessment

This paper presents a new approach to the Honours Undergraduate Research Course design and implementation. The course design process, assessment and evaluation rubrics are provided. Lessons learned and the experience of the faced challenges and opportunities for two cohort offerings of the course during the winter terms of 2011 and 2012 are highlighted. Assessments show that major benefits include increasing interaction with the faculty and increasing intellectual maturity, skills, knowledge and confidence for the students and for the faculty, the furthering of research projects by the participation of undergraduate students. The course can serve as a model that can be easily adapted for use across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.     

Exploring the experience of ten Australian Honours students

Honours study is viewed as a transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study and/or to enhanced career prospects. In Australia, Honours is usually an adjunct to the standard undergraduate degree. This paper provides an ethnographic study of 10 Australian Honours students. Seeing their experience through their reflections, in their own voices, reveals that Honours may be more than transitional – these students were transformed personally. Such emotionally charged transformations require academics to reflect on the best forms of support for Honours students.     

Honouring the incomparable: honours in Australian universities

The Honours undergraduate degree in Australia is unlike that in most other countries. It has taken on a particular significance as a qualification, as a pathway to and a pre-requisite for direct entry into doctoral programs. This paper explores the outcomes of a study that suggests that the aims, outcomes, curriculum, pedagogical practices, purposes and enrolment patterns of Honours vary substantially across disciplines and university types. It addresses the questions about the diverse nature of Honours programs and questions what this diversity means for Australian higher education in the context where global standardisation of awards is rapidly occurring. Honours is seen variously as a qualification, an experience, or a program. These variations are discussed and it is demonstrated that Honours globally has not one, but many meanings. These meanings are often poorly understood within, and outside the academy. These multiple meanings create confusion about what Honours stands for and inhibit communication about the role and purpose of Honours both within Australia and in a global context.     

英国“教育研究”的学科基准述评

2000年,英国高等教育质量保证署(QAA)发布了"教育研究"(本科荣誉学位)的学科基准,以帮助高等教育机构设计和发展教育研究类课程.2007年,依据定期审核的结果对此进行了修订.本文评介了英国"教育研究"的学科基准及其在三所大学中的应用状况.     

Honours: a taken-for-granted pathway to research?

In this paper we examine variations in Honours programs in Australian universities and the consequences that this has for students who wish to undertake higher degrees by research after their undergraduate programs have been successfully completed. Our review of universities’ Honours programs across rural, regional, and urban Australia has indicated that there is a degree of variation that is localised as far as each university is concerned, and that there is a lack of consistency in various universities’ application of policies or procedures in the implementation of their Honours programs. We conclude by calling for greater consistency across universities in Australia in the awarding of Honours, certainly, but also suggesting that a review needs to be undertaken as part of national, systematic and orchestrated project.     

毕业设计辅助信息管理系统的设计

针对目前高等教育的大众化、培养方式和途径多元化,设计实现了一套基于B/S模式的涵盖课题申报发布、学生选题、设计指导、设计评定等毕业设计工作环节和任务的管理系统。本系统经试运行,可有效地帮助普通高等院校完成毕业设计的辅助管理。     

The performance of academic identity as pedagogical model and guide in/through lecture discourse

The study described in this article sets out to understand the barriers and affordances to successful completion of the short research thesis required in many advanced undergraduate courses or Honours programmes. In the study, the genre features of students' research projects and the criteria used to assess them were analysed and both students and supervisors were interviewed. The article focuses on one particular student from the case study and the findings provide in-depth insights into the complexities of genre acquisition in one particular department at a South African university, where writing and knowledge of the genre are often not taught, but must be acquired through a form of apprenticeship. The article concludes by raising some questions about how research genres can best be mediated in developmental contexts, where the teaching of writing may not be valued.     

'In Most Classes You Sit Around Very Quietly at a Table and get Lectured at…': Debates,assessment and student learning

This paper details a collaborative action research enquiry undertaken while both authors worked at the University of Glasgow. It explores the use of class debates as a teaching method in an International Management Honours course as the framing context for developing students' capacity to assess their own and each other's learning through the debates. In addition, issues of assessment for grading purposes are signalled and explored with the students. The collaborating partners in the study were a Management Studies lecturer and a Higher Education Studies lecturer, who worked together on the framework for the debates, reflected on the unfolding process together, and collected and analysed evidence. This case suggests that the debates enabled students to develop a critical view of the topics under discussion and to acquire a number of 'transferable skills', for example, team work. On peer grading, students were ambivalent. While self-and peer assessment appears to work well for formative purposes, summative peer assessment may not be welcomed by students.     

The Leaking Pipeline: Women Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers in Australia

This paper explores the leaking pipeline in women's participation rates from Bachelor to postgraduate research programmes. In examining projects at two Australian universities to identify and implement strategies to improve women's participation in research higher degrees, it focuses on three points of leakagebetween Bachelor and Bachelor with Honours degree programmes, Bachelor degree with Honours and postgraduate research programmes, and completion of postgraduate research and taking up a postdoctoral position, and the links between them. It examines three important consequences of women not undertaking or completing postgraduate research: entering academia at lower levels or in casual positions, often while doing postgraduate research part-time; tending to focus on teaching rather than research; and, due to under-representation at middle levels, not achieving a critical mass in senior academia. The paper suggests ways in which university policy may impact on women's participation in postgraduate research programmes through implementation of university-wide and departmental policies encompassing the strategies identified in these studies.     

论汉代厚葬之风

在中国古代丧葬史上,汉代的厚葬颇为突出,主要表现在:坟丘高大,配套建筑众多;墓室种类多,葬具豪华,随葬品多;以财物助人办丧事的赙赠盛行。汉代厚葬风尚形成原因是多方面的,既有历史传统的影响,也有现实的因素在内。汉代厚葬的盛行,对当时社会发展产生了消极影响:厚葬造成了人力、物力的巨大浪费,影响了生产的发展;厚葬严重败坏了社会风气。     

树立社会主义荣辱观的方法论问题

胡锦涛同志《牢固树立社会主义荣辱观》思想深邃、意义深远,内涵十分丰富。它不仅提出了社会主义荣辱观的主要内容,回答了什么是社会主义荣辱观;强调了树立社会主义荣辱观的重大意义,回答了为什么要树立社会主义荣辱观;而且明确了树立社会主义荣辱观的方法,回答了怎样树立社会主义荣辱观。树立社会主义荣辱观,必须坚持以人为本、必须把社会主义先进文化建设放在十分突出的位置、必须与树立良好的社会风气紧密地结合在一起、必须充分发挥教育的基础性作用、必须深深扎根于社会生活实践。各行各业各个单位都要联系工作实际和干部群众的思想实际,把社会主义荣辱观教育与推进工作结合起来,要始终坚持联系实际,强化养成,注重实效,坚决反对形式主义、表面文章,努力在全社会形成人人身体力行、自觉树立和实践社会主义荣辱观的良好局面。     

以赛带训模式下的项目化教学研究

＂以赛带训＂教学模式的本质是以技能竞赛引领和带动职业教育改革。项目化教学是以赛带训模式的本质要求.只有将技能大赛的项目、内容、操作规范、考核标准等,通过项目化教学引领到课堂教学中去,才能真正发挥以赛带训人才培养模式的作用。抚顺职业技术学院在推进以赛带训人才培养模式过程中,积极与企业进行深度合作,以企业项目为载体,以项目化教学为支撑,以技能大赛为导向,将项目化教学与技能大赛有机融合,赋予了项目化教学新的内涵。     

校本专业评估指标体系的矛盾与重构

校本评估研究起源于1982年国际经济合作和发展组织（OECD）一个名为＂国际学校改进计划＂的跨国研究项目。校本专业评估是学校评估的重要单项之一,其首先要解决的问题就是构建一个具有＂校本＂特色的科学合理的评估指标体系。目前高校专业评估指标体系内容繁杂,在某些方面与＂校本评估＂理念存在着矛盾,如过于强调统一性,忽视院校及专业的多样性;内容的全面性有余,但针对性不足;突出评估的终结性功能,弱化了形成性功能。校本专业评估指标体系构建须符合学校的人才培养定位与发展目标,以多类型指标体系为指导,突显形成性功能,以促进专业发展与改进。     

The distinction of excellent students in the Portuguese state school as a strategy of educational marketing accountability

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - The mechanisms of academic distinction of the best students, such as the Honours Boards of Excellence and Value, emerge in Portuguese state...     

Use of the Touch Sensitive Screen with Children who have Special Educational Needs

This article is based on the dissertation for the degree of B. Ed (Honours) awarded by Birmingham University in July 1987 to the author when she was a student at Westhill College Birmingham. Beverley Elf is now teaching at Mandeville School, Ealing.     

申请国家自然科学基金课题浅探

军队工程院校相对封闭和以工程应用研究为主的特点 ,不利于国家自然科学基金课题的申请。本文从政策引导、申报组织、课题论证到申请书评审等各个环节 ,论述了军队工程院校搞好国家自然科学基金课题申报工作的要点 ,对提升工程院校的科学研究水平具有一定的参考意义     

Work in “value-added” analysys of schools' performance at the National Foundation for Educational Research

Abstract

The article presents a revision of the added value model in school assessment, understood to mean the extent to which the school achieves greater student performance, once other factors have been controlled, such as the socio-cultural context and the initial level of knowledge. Firstly, the evolution of this concept over the last few years is analysed, on account of an advance in three areas: studies on effective schools; performance measures; and changes in educational ideology. In point two there is some reflection on the contributions this model makes towards the most classical assessment approach, but attention is also drawn to the risk which may be run in doing so. Part three presents the assessment and research projects which are conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) within this theoretical framework. Finally, there is an appendix with a guide on taking the necessary decisions for working from the added value approach.     

Sex Education for Pupils with Severe Learning Difficulties

This article is based on the dissertation for the degree of B.Ed. (Honours) awarded by Birmingham University in July 1986 to the author when she was a student at Westhill College, Birmingham. Karen Giles is now teaching at Rosemary School, Islington, in the Inner London Education Authority.