Rich Media Assessment Portal

Abstract/Snapshot:

Trades education lends itself to “learning on the job” and the “Flipping the Trades” project focuses on re-designing courses to make them more flexible and allow students to learn and be assessed in their place of work.

The curriculum design in the “Flipping the Trades” project includes assessment tasks that require students to use mobile devices to access learning resources and record their work performance, which is then submitted as evidence for assessment via Blackboard.

Blackboard Assessment has facilities to do this using Turnitin, however there is a 10MB limit on uploads and downloads. This may not be large enough for some video files. Also, there would potentially be a large number of media files (e.g. Mpeg 4) being uploaded into the blackboard system which will slow down the system and also be an expensive way to store files as Blackboard charge for storage.

You-Tube and Vimeo are not appropriate solutions for students as they pose security and privacy issues.

The proposed solution is to use Google Drives in conjunction with Blackboard for submission and storage of Rich Media artefacts.

Learning Context

Students who are completing professional and applied courses that require assessment of skills have the greatest opportunity to use such a facility. Also those who would like to be more innovative and creative with assessment design and submission.

This solution has already been picked up by Dental, Business and allied health areas.

Rationale

Students and Staff are being encouraged to develop digital literacy and engage with new technologies for learning and teaching. However those early adopters are finding that the institutional systems are not sufficiently evolved to accommodate assessments other than text based essays and assignments. Increasingly, academic staff are realising the value of digital assessment activities that capture the student demonstrating skills and competencies in WIL activities.

A solution is required to enable students to submit rich media artefacts for assessment. Some regulatory requirements also dictate that assessment materials are stored for a specific period of time. This is currently not available with the existing enterprise LMS and although solutions are being explored there is no time line provided for solving the problem.

Learning Design

It is a creative way to utilise and align the existing enterprise suite of tools.

Conditions/Critical Success Factors

Support will be required from ITS to ensure the success of this strategy. Provision of help desk support to staff and students.

Resources/Technology

A short instructional video is being made to outline the above steps.

Case Studies/Implementation

Step 1

There are really two ways in which this could be done either a Google drive could be set up for each cohort or group of students with access to this drive would be given to all academics and course/program coordinators. Keeping in mind, there would be a limit of 30 GB per group or cohort.

The academic would then need to assess whether this is enough and if not then the group would need to be divided down into smaller sub groups.

This system has the best options for long term storage but requires additional administration work to set the system up.

Another alternative is for the students to use their own Google Drive and share the relevant folder with the academic. Each individual student also has a Google drive available to them as a part of their student account.

This account could easily be used and requires no administrative set up at all and each student would have a 30 gig capacity, however there may be issues with this in relation to the long term storage of the linked file as the student has the ability to remove these files.

The student can also remove the sharing rights from the academic at any time or modify the file, so if this system is to be used then it would be advisable when marking the work, that the academic download the video file and archive it individually in another drive.

Step 2

Inside this drive (Cohort) would be a series of folders with each folder being identified with a student number and an appropriate assignment identification number or name. This folder would then be shared with the respective student with the corresponding student number. This requires administration to be done by the academic or course coordinator and is only required if using a Google Cohort drive system.

If using the student’s Google drive system, then the student creates a folder which indicates the student number and an appropriate assignment identification code. The student then shares the folder with the academic.

Step 3

When a student has an assessment due that requires media files to be submitted, the student can video the activity with a smart phone, tablet, flip cam or any other available device. This video/media file would need to include the supervisor appearing at the start of the video to validate the authenticity of the video and ideally the supervisor would be doing the video recording.

Step 4

The student can then upload the video/media to their folder on the Google Drive giving it an appropriate name that identifies the assessment.

Step 5

Using the assignment feature in Blackboard, the student can submit a link to the document in their folder on the Google Drive. The assignment feature will then notify the coordinator that the assignment has been submitted and they will be able to view the video by clicking on the link.

Note: there would need to be a folder created for each individual assignment for submission.

Step 6

At the end of each course or program, the contents of the Google Drive would be downloaded and archived on a server or DVD or other appropriate method for compliance purposes. Keep in mind that the links in Blackboard will no longer work if the original files in the folders on the Google Drive are moved or deleted.

Work is currently being done with ITS to possibly automate this process and automatically retain the Bb links for both the cohort drives system and the student drive system.

Important Closing Notes

If using this system then it would be a good idea to produce a short video using Echo360 to show the students how to use Google Drive and how to submit the assignments.

Students need to be made aware that they need to try to always use Mpeg4 video files and refrain from using any other video file format.

Outcomes

Students will be able to record and curate their learning activity and submit it securely.

Staff will be able to access and mark students work without delays.

Student work can be stored indefinitely and continue to be accessible.

Course

Blackboard (online learning)

Online assessment and feedback (Turnitin, Video Assessment, Rubrics, PeerMark, Blackboard)