Enhance student engagement and fair marking of group work using Collaborative Writing

A paper has recently been presented by Dr James Xue at The 10th China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education, Chengdu, China. The presentation is on his and a student's, Gaurav Ravindra, work on looking at Google Docs for student engagement and fair marking in group work.

Enhance student engagement and fair marking of group work using Collaborative Writing

James Xue, Gaurav Ravindra School of Science and Technology University of Northampton, UK James.xue@northampton.ac.uk

Abstract

The second year computing group project in the Department of Computing at the University of Northampton typically involves three or four students on the same course. It consists of two main parts - software development and group report. While version control software (e.g., SVN, GitHub) can be used to monitor individual contribution to software development, current practice lacks an effective way for monitoring individual contribution and fair assessment of the group report. Google Docs is a free collaborative writing tool, and very rich in features. It allows tracking of individual work and real time communication within a team. The proposed project uses Google Docs for group report writing, aiming at better student engagement and fair marking of submitted group work.