Engineering peers: a computer-assisted approach to
the development of peer assessment system

Anne H.H. Ngu, John Shepherd, Doug Magin

Workshop on Research and Development in Higher Education 18: Blending Tradition and Technologies,
Rockhampton, Queensland, August 1995.

(Compressed Postscript ... 15KB)

This paper describes of a computer-assisted peer assessment system called "Peers" which is currently in use in marking assignments in a postgraduate database subject within the Master of Information Science course at the University of New South Wales. Students enrolled in the Advanced Database Management System subject are required to submit their major essay assignment on-line. In the week following assignment submission, each student is required to log on and, whilst on-line, mark two assignments allocated to them by Peers.

The assignments are also marked in this way by the teaching staff. A special feature of Peers is that prior to marking the assignments, all students and teaching staff are involved in determining the criteria to be used in marking, and the weighting to be attached to each criterion. This is done on-line, with the system automatically computing the final criteria weightings using fuzzy decision theory.

In addition to describing the development and application of the Peers system, this paper also provides data on the reliability of peer assessment and outlines student and staff reaction to its introduction.

Keys: Computer science education, Peer assessment

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