Greg, thank you for your feedback. Can you suggest how this can work online? I have been struggling to find a way for online (but anonymous) assessments, and will really appreciate some help in this area.

And thanks for sharing it openly. Being a newbie in online facilitation it gives me a very good map of what is out there.

I am very interested in Assessment. While there seems to be some models presented in Anderson, T. (pp 355-357) and Harper, D. G. (pp. 213-244) I am still wondering how assessment of students can be done more effectively, e.g., how do we minimize/take out the facilitator’s bias?

I don’t know how large your class is, but one approach we use in Organizational Learning is 360 degree assessment, i.e., everyone assessing everyone else. What I have found out using this approach is that my assessment is usually reflected in their collective assessment. The difference is that I don’t sit at the top as the sole judge. Just some thoughts.

I agree with Caren about being specific. Granted if you say two, you will most likely get two. Overall tho, it’s better to say how many comments. One thing my prof did this term was tell us to pick two classmates to follow throughout the term. We read their projects and posts. Therefore, I really know these people’s work and they know mine. We get deeper reactions and better feedback.

My only other thing is check the title in the suggested readings: online is missing an L.

Have fun!

Some clarification points (which you may be addressing in different ways): I’m not sure how large your class will be; do you intend for students to comment on *everyone* else’s blogs regularly? Also, I have found it helpful to be explicit about expectations regarding online forum postings – some sense of frequency and content standards might be useful to the students and to you in terms of evaluation.

Great work! Can’t wait to hear how it goes!