A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF AN ONLINE PEER ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (OPAS)

The method of assessing knowledge and understanding can vary, with new approaches being developed periodically. Although traditional methods such as exams, essays and oral presentations still form the backbone to many undergraduate assessment programmes, much focus is being given to newer techniques that are able to more effectively assess a student‟s abilities. Peer assessment is one such technique that enables the learning process to go beyond summative submission and incorporates the assessment into the learning process itself. This approach however, has traditionally included a large manual overhead for the academic and the student. This report describes a study into the application of peer assessment using online resources, which seeks to evaluate the feasibility of the approach. The online nature of the implementation meant much of the manual overhead was removed. An end-user evaluation was undertaken with 136 students. On completion of the exercise 90 % of respondents had a positive experience, with 79 % having learnt something new from the process