02-24-2013, 10:38 AM
The article states that most of the classes are automatically graded; however Coursera is experimenting with a way to grade essays.
- Students complete the essay and turn it in.
- As soon as students turn in the essay, they are given an anonymous copy of another student's essay to evaluate based on specified criteria
- Students do not receive full credit unless they have completed a specified number of peer evaluations. (The software keeps track of the how many evaluations a student has completed, but the evaluator's identity is not revealed to the students whose papers they have evaluated.)
Of course, there's a possibility that students will grade lightly, but I think that the double blind anonymity eliminates some of that.
- Students complete the essay and turn it in.
- As soon as students turn in the essay, they are given an anonymous copy of another student's essay to evaluate based on specified criteria
- Students do not receive full credit unless they have completed a specified number of peer evaluations. (The software keeps track of the how many evaluations a student has completed, but the evaluator's identity is not revealed to the students whose papers they have evaluated.)
Of course, there's a possibility that students will grade lightly, but I think that the double blind anonymity eliminates some of that.