A. Designing Assessment Schemes for Online Discussions

There are a number of ways to evaluate online discussion contributions:

• Include an outcome that requires participation in discussions to achieve. Having an outcome will help you identify criteria for participation. Skills related to teamwork, for example, lend themselves well to participation-based outcomes and can be combined with co-operative learning techniques.
• Require a set quantity of posts per week or per lesson. Award participation marks if the target is met. The advantage of this approach is the ease with which it can be done; the difficulty is that it encourages shallow discussion.
• Reward a combination of quality and quantity. For example, work on a four-point scale: assign one mark for posting, one for achieving the deadline, one for the post’s relationship to the topic, and one for drawing on other responses.
• Alternately, award two possible marks for each post as follows:

0 = no posts
0.5 = no interaction with others’ ideas in posting
1 = post builds on the ideas of 1-2 others
2 = post builds on multiple views, forming a basis for reflection by others

• Require a set number of posts to meet a set quality. For example, require at least three posts per week, one of which must make reference to another participant’s posts, one of which must make reference to course reading, and one of which must relate to personal experience. This can be administratively difficult to keep track of. You may require participants to keep track of their own success in meeting this objective and send you a log at the end of term.
• Require participants to critique their own posts. As an assignment, ask them to identify the post they found the most satisfying and explain why. Ask, “How did your post deepen the discussion? Did it bring in new or challenging materials that were then considered by others?” Ask participants to consider the value of their own contribution. You may wish to have them assign themselves a mark for participation based on this contribution and make their self-assigned mark part of the marks for participation.

Here is a simple example of rubric for assessing student work in a discussion forum: