Most assessment of students is based on artificial assignments, done purely for assessment, only read by assessing teachers. Much has been written on “authentic assessment” (reviewed in Frey et al. 2012), meant to mimic “the real world” in some sense. But even this is commonly not actual real-world assignments that reach a wider audience than teachers.
Furthermore, in many educational contexts, teachers want to assess not just subject knowledge, but also e.g. writing skills, cooperative project-working skills, and skills in explaining the subject matter to others. These are non-trivial to assess either with traditional forms of assessment or with forms available in NGL contexts.
One tool for assessing cooperative writing skills in NGL contexts is Wiki technology for joint text production. This is the same technology used in Wikipedia, but in educational contexts dedicated Wiki installations are typically used, with mixed results (e.g. Bruns & Humphreys 2005, Judd et al. 2010, Guth 2007).
We have used Wikipedia itself for assessment in several courses in different subjects, from physics to literature, with fair success. Students are assigned the task of writing Wikipedia articles within the course topic.
Wikipedia assessment is suitable for courses with specific characteristics. In such courses it has multiple advantages:
- Authentic assessment, with student texts widely read by the general public, enhancing student motivation.
- Feedback from and enforced collaboration with both the Wikipedia community and fellow students.
- Straightforward tracking of individual student contributions in collaborative texts.
- No setup and maintenance of dedicated system.
- Valuable training in source criticism.
- Writing process…
Technical hurdles in Wikipedia writing are modest, but require some instruction. Copyright is an issue, making it legally difficult to force students to write for Wikipedia.
Frey, Schmitt, & Allen (2012), Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, Vol 17, No 2:14
2014.
NGL2014, Next Generation Learning Conference, March 19–20 2014, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden