Models for Activities, Collaboration and Assessment in Wiki in Academic Courses

Hagit Meishar-Tal & Edna Tal-Elhasid

EDEN conference,Naples 2007

The Center for TechnologyThe Center for Technology in Distance Education in Distance Education

The OpenThe Open UniversityUniversity ofof IsraelIsrael

Background

The Open University of Israel (OUI):• The largest university in Israel

– 40,000 students, Aged 13 to 85

– 600 courses, B.A , M.A, M.Sc

•Distance Learning institution•A pioneer and a leader in the implementation of advance technologies to support learning• Incorporate a high level of self learning , moving towards collaborative learning

Wiki Project in the Open University of Israel

• Beginning: September 2005

• Participants: Students of more than 30 courses from all disciplines

• Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness of online collaborative learning at the OUI

Why Wiki ?

• Enables the creation of collaborative documents, co-editing and collaborative writing.

• Provides powerful assessment tools for the teacher and the researcher (history, user’s contributions,

comparison of versions)

Wiki Environment in English Course

Students’ edits

History Report

The study

• Scale: 16 courses, 1000 students

• Duration: 2006a, 2006b semesters

• Four aspects of the study: • Types of activities • Types of collaboration • Level of commitment (mandatory or optional)

• Modes of assessment

Types of Activities

דגמי שימוש בסביבת ויקי

5

2

5

4

0

2

4

6

עבודת חקרפתרון שאלותניתוח טקסטיםמאגר מושגים

םסי

רקו

ס' מ

GlossariesAnalyzing textsSolving questions Web inquiries

Num

ber

of

cour

ses

Types of Collaboration

Wiki allows the development of : • Collaborative products (co-operation): sharing

Individual’s learning products, making a shared web of knowledge

• Collaboration processes : co-editing and collaborative writing of content

• Peer assessment

The mode of collaboration depends on the instructional design

Types of Collaboration

11

23

Co-operation Co-editing

Collaborative writing

Peer assessment

Num

ber of courses

Commitment: Mandatory or optional ?

9.7%20.9%

91.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

EnrichmentOptionalMandatory

Non participating students

Students participating inWiki

Percentage of active students due to the level of obligation A

ctive students

Modes of Assessment

• Qualitative vs. Quantitative

• Group vs. Personal • Process vs. Product

Compare Selected Versions

Exercise 1

User Contribution Report

Conclusions

• Wikis are flexible and suitable for a wide range of collaborative learning activities

• The degree of obligation influences the level of participation

• The level of collaboration is influenced by both the instructional design, and the assessment criteria.

What Next ?

The role of the teacher in wikis: • The Instructional design of wiki activities• Managing an effective wiki learning activity• The influence of the above on student’s participation

and collaboration• Using data mining

Other WEB 2.0 tools for collaborative learning• Blogs• Second life

Thanks !

Hagit

hagitta@openu.ac.il

Edna

ednata@openu.ac.il