PEER ASSESSMENT IN A COLLABORATIVE HYPERMEDIA ENVIRONMENT - A CASE-STUDY

Peer assessment has been advocated as a way for students to assume mor e responsibility for their learning. A computer-based peer assessment tool has been developed in the University of Liverpool's Department of Computer Science. A group of 32 undergraduate students participated i n a peer assessment exercise using this system. Contrary to expectatio ns, the marks awarded by the peers were remarkably similar to those aw arded by the tutors, so peer and teacher assessment seem to be equally reliable forms of assessment. Despite this, the majority of the stude nts were extremely skeptical of peer assessment, preferring traditiona l teacher-based assessment. Thus, although an effective platform has b een established for conducting peer assessment, further efforts are re quired to make the process of assessment more acceptable to the studen ts.