CPSC 481: Evaluation Of Group Work

Description

Based on my past experiences from teaching this class, most students have found group work to be a positive experience.  Not only does having additional people working on the project reduce the pressure (and workload), many students also find that it produces a better project: in terms of design having several people working on the project helps spur the creative process as multiple people are able to come up with a more diverse set of ideas for prototype interfaces; in terms of evaluating the prototype, different people tend to spot different weaknesses in the design so again a better end product is produced.  

Unfortunately for some groups not all group members contribute an equal share of the workload.   For students who have taken the course in the past, I have gotten requests from the people who have had to "carry" their group members for me to develop a group evaluation mechanism to help prevent this from happening to students in the future.  There are two parts to the group evaluation mechanism that I came up with:

1. A contribution form.

2. Numeric group evaluations.

1) Contribution forms:

The contribution forms indicate who did what for each assignment.  To complete this form you must sit down each week as a group and determine which group members contributed to what parts of the project.  This process is not an evaluation process but merely stating the facts of the situation so there is not need for anonymity.  You can download the forms, which you find for each assignment component and simply fill in the applicable boxes for each person.  If a person worked on a particular assignment component then put a check mark in the box.  It is important that this process be done as a group - make sure that all group members are involved!   All group members must view and sign each page of each form or your TA's will not provide you with a mark for your project.

e.g., Suppose that we have a group of three students: Larry Smith, Moe Smith and Curly Smith.  These three students write up a list of 5 task examples for their project portfolio:

• The first task was written up by Larry alone.

• The second task was written up by Moe alone.

• The third task was written up by Larry alone.

• The fourth task was written up by Larry and Moe together.

• All the group members contributed equally to the writing up of the fifth task.

Every time that a group member was involved a substantial portion of the work, that person receives credit for having worked on that portion of the assignment.

Exert of the contribution form for Larry, Moe and Curly

By itself the contribution form won't have an effect on the grade.  I won't have the time or inclination to interfere with each group's work processes unless I am flagged down that there is a problem which you can indicate to me in Part 2: The numeric group evaluations.  Put your completed contribution forms at the very front of your binder when you hand in your assignment.  For students who are worried that their group members may offer "help" with a section of the project but who do no work I suggest that you only have one person work on a portion of the project.  For example with Larry, Moe and Curly you avoid having more than one person work on a task say by requiring that each group member come up with 2 or 3 task examples. 

2) Numeric group evaluations

These evaluations are to be emailed to the course instructor and to the tutorial TA whose tutorial that your group is attending.  Make sure that the subject line of your email is titled as follows: 

• Assignment 1 Subject line: "Assignment 1 numeric group evaluations"

• Assignment 2 Subject line: "Assignment 2 numeric group evaluations"

• Assignment 3 Subject line: "Assignment 3 numeric group evaluations"

The numeric group evaluations is an anonymous evaluation to be completed by each group member of all the group members.  (You must include yourself in the evaluation).  The required information includes the names of each group member and an integer value indicating how many letter "steps" that a particular person's grade should be adjusted by (e.g., "A" to "A-" is a letter step).  Restrictions on the numeric steps are:

• This process is used to indicate the proportion of work that a particular person contributed to each assignment relative to the contributions of the others.   So if one person contributed a smaller portion that means that another person contributed a larger proportion of the total work put into the project.  Consequently the sum of all grade adjustments must be zero - otherwise group members could simply give each the maximum grade and evaluation process would be meaningless.

• The highest possible grade is an A+ (4.3) regardless of how many letter steps that the group members want someone's grade to be increased.  

• The lowest possible grade is an F (0.0)  regardless of how many letter steps that the group members want someone's grade to be decreased.

• Adjustments must be an integer value - no fractional values are allowed.  If the difference in the amount of work contributed is too small to be measured by a grade step then it probably isn't worth bothering with.

Example from above

Evaluation from Larry:

Evaluation from Moe:

Evaluation from Curly:

Suppose that the group receives a grade of "B" for this project.  When I receive the three emails from Larry, Moe and Curly I would see that there is an apparent disparity in the amount of work that each person contributed to the project.  In this case I also note that there is a consensus in the suggested grade adjustment sent in by each group member.   When group members send me evaluation forms that suggest adjustments should be made to individual grades this is a signal for me to look for "evidence" of this disparity in the contribution forms.  In the Larry, Moe and Curly example assuming that the rest of project was as unevenly divided as the contributions for the tasks, then together the evaluation and the contribution forms would be sufficient grounds for me to adjust the grades by the amounts specified by the students.  So the adjusted grade that would be recorded in my grade book for each student would be:

Do not write any additional comments in the email containing the evaluation because they won't affect my adjustment of the grades.  This is because, unlike the contribution forms, there are no checks and balances in the comments that people email me - quite frankly people can put down whatever comments they wish but in reality these comments may or may not have any basis in fact.  I will be only using the anonymous evaluations and the contribution forms in the determination of any grade adjustments.  In the cases where there are still further disputes I may have to contact all the group members and hear the different sides of the story from all parties involved.  This is why I require you to list email addresses when you hand in your assignments.  With the above example there was a consensus as to how the grades should be adjusted.  In the cases where there isn't an obvious consensus I will have to compare how each person's anonymous evaluation matches up with the evidence in the contribution forms and judge from there. There must however be some match between the anonymous email evaluations and the evidence provided by the contribution forms.  If someone claims that they did all the work in their group but this does not match the information provided in the contribution form then I won't be able to make any changes.

The emailed evaluations must be sent to me within 48 hours of your assignment deadline.  Evaluations sent after two days will not play a role when I am determining your assignment grade.

Final comments:

• My adjustment of the grades will be based solely on contributions as indicated on the contribution forms and in the email evaluations.
• Make sure that you take this process seriously!  If your group does not bother to complete an accurate contribution form and evaluations or if you all fill in the information wrong it will make it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for me to do anything about your grades.    Reminder: Do not have just one group member fill and sign in the contribution form.   You should do this as a group and sign the contribution to indicate to me that this process was completed properly.