On business processes of computer-supported collaborative learning: a case of peer assessment system development

Nowadays peer assessment is recognized as a crucial part of a wide range of active learning routines. Nevertheless, practitioners and educators speak of the complexity and high resource consumption for the implementation of this type of assessment. Undoubtedly, convenient software that supports peer assessment processes may substantially raise productivity of its participants. A review of educational literature and free software shows there are several bottlenecks in the business processes of peer assessment and key user roles. First, most of the programs examined are web-based and expand a set of tools for teachers and learners by extra interfaces. Moreover, this logically creates a new branch in the learning business process. Second, there is probably no peer assessment system which allows users to attach something other than the text to be reviewed. There is a gap in the market of free peer assessment software. This paper offers a peer assessment system specification that attempts to eliminate these disadvantages in order to improve user experience and thus increase the use of information technologies in peer assessment. The specification is based on a thorough description of the peer assessment process involving complex artifacts and double-blinded peer review. Software called PASCA (peer assessment system for complex artifacts) is introduced to illustrate the specification achieved. PASCA uses habitual e-mail services and does not affect other business processes. It supports standard features like blinding and randomization, and it provides a set of original features. They contain evaluation of arbitrary artifacts, creation of complex peer review forms with their validation and scoring, and easy analysis of data from peer assessment sessions.