Abstract:

The purpose of this work is to describe an informatics tool that supports teachers in wiki assessment tasks in Higher Education.

Wiki is considered a type of Web 2.0 technology that enables users to work together on the Web. Through wiki, users can collaboratively create a website that includes information, links, images; indeed any type of content. The advantages of using wikis in teaching are the same as those of collaborative work; they allow an interaction among all educational community members to greater and better trace teaching-learning process.

Different skills can also be developed during wiki activity. To include content in wikis, students must read the content already in it, and then contribute to their personal understanding and integration process. After reviewing content, students will research the topic to extend their knowledge. Then they have to be able to integrate new information into an already written topic, which encourages their permanent learning and innovation. The writing process will help develop currently impaired language skills. In addition, students are encouraged to share their content, who experience how this can enrich them in many ways; e.g., fostering effective communication, motivation and social responsibility. The literature research reports a number of positive experiences with wiki-based collaborative writing in education.

There are different ways to develop wiki activity in an educational environment, such as lab books or knowledge base, and either individually or as a group. However, any approach shares a common technological support. This support enables design tools that can automatically obtain information from work done by students. Number of words, number of links, number of figures, number of sources are some of the parameters that can be directly obtained. This information can facilitate wiki activity assessments and sustain teachers’ continuous challenge of assessing both student work and skills developed or acquired during the wiki process.

This work aims to contribute to this line by showing the design of a wikis measurement tool for a WikiMedia platform. The wiki tool includes activities designed by a single user, collaborative writing, and assigning activities (wiki pages) to users in both cases. The above parameters are measured individually and collectively. Time distribution regarding contributions of individual students is also considered. The skills that we wish to assess by a specific wiki activity can also be customized by this tool. Throughout the paper, the tool and its possibilities by means of explanations and screen shots are shown.

Keywords:

Wiki, collaborative learning tool, assesment, competences.