Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice/Assessment

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Assessment

For this course you are required to complete an evaluation project based on eLearning Guidelines for New Zealand: http://elg.massey.ac.nz/

As part of the project you will do the following:

  1. maintain a progress weblog and post weekly activities;
    1. identify and rationalise two eLearning guidelines which can be used to measure quality in your context;
    2. investigate evaluation theory and processes in your context;
  2. negotiate an evaluation plan (background and rationale, aim, evaluation questions, methodology) with the lecturer;
  3. present an overview of your evaluation plan which can be viewed by the class;
  4. collect and analyse data;
  5. prepare a report about the evaluation – introduction, methodology, results, discussion and recommendations.

Marking criteria

  • All four parts of the project must be completed and meet the marking criteria for a pass. Each part is worth 25% of the final grade. Full details about the marking criteria will be posted here soon: Marking criteria

Part One: progress weblog and weekly activities

Follow the schedule, explore the assigned material, participate in activities, and post notes to your blog with responses to weekly questions. You should also post to your blog progress reports on your learning and what you are doing for the evaluation project. Your blogging should demonstrate your understanding of the assigned material and activities, and should include original thoughts, descriptions, analysis and synthesis, what you have learned and applications in your practice; also include references. Don't just summarize readings or activities. Making connections between the weekly topics and the blogging of other participants is strongly encouraged. It will also be very helpful to yourself and your classmates if you take the time to read their blogs and give feedback on their ideas.

To track the blogs of other participants, you may wish to set up an (RSS) news reader and subscribe to their blogs. There will be a RSS feed of all participant blogs on the course blog.

Some people may find the web service del.icio.us useful for bookmarking web resources encountered during this course.

If you use del.icio.us, please use the tag word "evaluationbestpractice" to categorise and share what you find.

Part Two A: Negotiate and write an evaluation plan

For this part of the project you are required to negotiate an evaluation plan with the lecturer. As part of the plan you will need to include the following information under suggested headings:

  • background and rationale - describe the context, explain why you are doing the evaluation and the need for it;
  • aim - the purpose and what you intend to do in one or two sentences, goals and objectives and outcomes;
  • evaluation questions - the "big picture" questions to which you need answers;
  • decisions - what is important to find out for the stakeholders (management, teachers, students, industry)
  • methodology - this is about the design of the evaluation - what sort of evaluation paradigm you are situating the evaluation in, what sort of evaluation method is it - formative, summative etc.,what sort of data will you collect and how will you do this? How you intend to analyse the data.
    • Include a sample questionnaire, focus group questions etc you will use.
  • timeline and milestones
  • references
  • Negotiate the plan in a timely fashion and action feedback.

Remember: you are doing the course so you can find out how to do all this - do not expect to know how to do this already. If some of you already have experience in an area of evaluation, use this opportunity to explore another method, unfamiliar to you.

Part Two B: Prepare and present an evaluation plan

Prepare a short 5-10 minute digital presentation about the evaluation you are planning to conduct. The aim of the presentation is for you to share your ideas about your evaluation project and gather feedback.

  • Choose a medium for your presentation.
  • Decide how you will gather feedback. For example,
    • Voting on your blog,
    • feedback via comments on your blog,
    • email - list serv, Google groups discussion, etc.
  • Present in real time or asynchronously.
  • Provide a link to your presentation on your weblog.
  • If you decide to present in real time, do not forget to record the session and post a link to it on your weblog.
  • Report on feedback in your blog and acknowledge it in your plan.
  • Provide feedback to at least two other people.

Part Three: Conduct an evaluation

Carry out the evaluation for real using the plan you prepared. As part of this, you will need to do the following:

  • collect data using the sampling instruments you decided on eg questionnaire, focus group, interview etc.;
  • analyse the data;
  • write up the results.

Remember to post your findings on your weblog. These only need to be in draft form as the finished product will go in your evaluation report (Part Four).

Note: Be careful not to use real names for courses, people or organisations.

Part Four: Evaluation report

Prepare a report about the evaluation which contains the following information:

  • introduction - includes background and rationale, aim, goals, objectives, outcomes, big picture questions and the sections which will be covered in the report;
  • methodology - paradigm, type of evaluation (function)- formative, summative, etc, sampling tools - questionnaire etc;
  • results - tables and/or graphs and statements about the results;
  • discussion and recommendations - were the big picture questions answered, what did the results demonstrate etc;
  • references;
  • appendices - example of sampling tool eg questionnaire etc, data not presented in results section etc.
  • recommended word limit is 2000 words.
  • submit evaluation report to the Digital Dropbox in your course Learning Management System or email to the lecturer.
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