A rubric for grading collaborative learning on wiki

Background: Active and collaborative learning opportunities help engage students in the learning process and are being aggressively promoted in the university setting. Major complaints from students about group work, however, are that group members contribute disproportionate amounts of time to the project and that their grades are influenced by other students' shortcomings. Use of a wiki tool can help resolve this major drawback of group work. A wiki allows students to work together on a group project, but the instructor has the ability to see exactly who contributes what to the project. A wiki is a relatively innovative teaching method, and few effective assessment instruments have been identified to assess student learning using wikis. Grading rubrics are recognized as effective and efficient assessment devices. Description of Project: In the spring semester, 2009, students in a master's level health education and promotion program planning class were assigned to a group service learning project. Students were to develop this project in a series of wiki assignments. A grading rubric was developed to assess students' individual contributions to the wiki pages (50%, e.g., contributions are relevant and on topic, showing a clear recognition and understanding of the salient issues), teamwork and individual motivation (40%, e.g., shows commitment and responsibility to the project), and quality of the final product (10%, e.g., product meets expectations given appropriate constraints). The grading rubric, the process of developing the rubric, and reflections on its strengths, weaknesses, or how it may be modified in the future will be presented.