MANAGING AND ASSESSING TEAM PROJECTS IN ECONOMETRICS

In the context of Economics and Business degrees, Econometrics provide a wide variety of tools which appear to be narrowly related to several main competences such as information management, creativity, problem solving or decision-making. Furthermore, the need of analyzing and interpreting the functioning of the economy suggests the convenience of learning Econometrics by doing Econometrics.

Team projects can play a main role in the teaching-learning process, since they allow students cooperating in the development of econometric models, taking benefit from econometric software and ICT facilities, and also improving their ability to work in team, as suggested by employers. Moreover, from the teachers´ perspective, the development of team projects represents a good opportunity to re-think some methodological aspects, also opening new challenges and requiring extra-efforts in the management and assessment of the projects.

In this paper we describe our experiences in managing and assessing Econometrics team projects, that have provided quite satisfactory results, according to both objective and subjective indicators. The proposed methodology is based on an intensive use of the virtual campus resources, also including oral presentations and forum debates. Regarding the assessment, we aim to evaluate both the product and the process, and include self- and peer assessment in order to estimate the relative contribution of different members of a group.

The available information (based both on objective statistics and online students´ surveys) shows some interesting facts referred to the consistency of the peer assessment results, the consistency between self and peer assessment and the impact of the assessment system on students´ grades.