[Contrib: Evaluation System] Evaluation Strategy for 3akai

[Stephen Marquard]

The deeper we get into assessment vs course evaluations, the more different they look.

If Sakai had "survey technology" then there'd be a stronger overlap. Currently the evaluation tool has one of the strongest feature sets for generic surveys (i.e. it's better at surveys than either T&Q or Mneme, for example through support for blocked questions).

The fact that it's a contrib tool and the code structure that Steve G alludes already make it an independent tool which is integrated (and in different ways at different institutions).

We haven't got into hierarchy much yet, but our Course Evaluation hierarchy use wouldn't  be too different to other academic hierarchy use (e.g. specific access for heads of academic departments).

The characterisation of the "US use case" and "Quality Control" is probably a little narrow. Our use case is largely self-service within a broad institutional policy, tending towards mid-term course evaluations which are more formative than summative.
 
So from our point of view, the evaluations tool is well positioned, and its integration with Sakai is appealing and of value for all the campus stakeholders in the process. There is also some demand for deeper integration along the lines of the "condition service", e.g. make release of gradebook items or certain resources conditional on completing a course evaluation.

An interesting question is whether there might be a bigger audience for it outside current Sakai-using institutions, if it was easy to use with a "mini Sakai" or something.

Regards
Stephen

>>> John Norman <john at caret.cam.ac.uk> 03/11/09 8:33 PM >>> 

On 11 Mar 2009, at 18:08, Steven Githens wrote:
> [...]
>
> Again, the Evaluation system is an interesting use case since it was  
> designed to be decoupled/standalone and not necessarily depend on  
> the concept of 'sites'.
>
> -Steve

I find it interesting for a similar reason. In fact I would question  
whether we add value by including it in Sakai at all. It seems that  
for the US use case - which I am tempted to describe as the  
institution checking on the faculty - the 'independence' of a separate  
solution has merits. The thing that is shared between a course  
management system and a course evaluation system is the roster (staff  
and student, including sections) the course name and potentially some  
aspects of instructor hierarchy within the course (e.g. professor vs  
TA). The hierarchy of Quality Control (who can edit which questions,  
who can see the responses for which courses) seems to be an  
independent hierarchy. Bulk mailing has some overlap with certain  
Sakai features and aspects of questionnaire delivery seem to have high  
potential overlap with Sakai assessment technology, but that has not  
been exploited.

So all in all, I'm strongly tempted to look at it as a stand alone  
system and look at integrating it as such.

John
_______________________________________________
evaluation mailing list
evaluation at collab.sakaiproject.org
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/evaluation

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to evaluation-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe"