Featured speaker
Ed Gehringer
Ed Gehringer has been an associate professor in computer science and computer engineering on the North Carolina State University faculty since 1984. Through his career he developed an interest in student-generated content, and in 2005, began the Expertiza platform project, which resulted in software that helps students develop reusable learning objects through peer review. His ethics in computing Web site is currently Google's top hit for "ethics in computing." It was produced by student projects using the Expertiza system.
The University recognized Prof. Gehringer for his collaborative work with a Gertrude Cox Award. Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning awarded him with a 2008 Effective Practice Award.
Ed received his Ph.D. in computer sciences from Purdue University in 1979. He was a Fulbright fellow at Monash University in Australia and a research associate and lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University before his post in North Carolina. Other research interests include collaborative programming environments, hardware and software support for memory management, architectures for security, and object technology.
Expertiza: Peer review and social networking for co-producing learning objects
Summary:Attendees will learn about "co-production" of course materials--where students assist faculty in updating and improving the course. They will see how various forms of peer review can be used to establish that students have competently completed their work and assessed their peers. They will appreciate how recognition of student achievements can motivate students to contribute their efforts to the betterment of the class.
Description:
Expertiza is a Web-based system for “co-production” of learning materials. As part of their homework in a class, students do projects that help update or improve the course. For example, they might research new developments related to a specific lecture in the course and write a hyperlinked summary. They might devise an active-learning exercise that could be used during a class session. Or they might make up questions that could be used on future homework or tests. All of these have been produced successively with Experitza; we will summarize the results.
The Expertiza application supports individual or team submissions. For team projects, any team member can submit on behalf of the team. Submissions can be in the form of files, URLs, or wiki pages. Individual students can be assigned to review teams. Authors can give feedback to reviewers during the review period. There can be multiple rounds of review, allowing teams to update their submissions in accordance with the feedback that they have received from their reviewers. After the assignment is over, students fill out a questionnaire on their teammates’ contributions. All feedback in Expertiza is based on rubrics.
At any time, the instructor can view a report showing all these kinds of feedback: Reviews by individual students of teams’ work; feedback from the team members on the reviews of their work; and, at the end of the assignment, evaluations of teammate contributions. The instructor can “drill down” to view the scores and comments.
Currently, we are adding several social-networking features to Expertiza. Students will be able selectively to make their peer-review ratings visible to other class members and other Expertiza users. We hypothesize that by being able to share their achievements with the class, as well as attempt useful “microtasks” for extra credit, students will become more engaged with the class material and their fellow students. In addition, the course will be improved by the contributions that students will be motivated to create.