For this assessment item, you need to register in the PeerWise system. We will be using PeerWise as a place for you to create, share, answer, and evaluate multiple-choice questions with your...

For this assessment item, you need to register in the PeerWise system. We will be using PeerWise as a place for you to create, share, answer, and evaluate multiple-choice questions with your classmates. You may start by visiting the PeerWise website at :http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/at/?csu_au

If you have not used PeerWise before, just click the "Registration" link and follow the prompts. All you need to do is choose a username (students are advised to use their CSU usernames, if possible) and a password for your PeerWise account.


If you have used PeerWise before, simply log in and then select "Join course" from the Home menu.

To access the Assessment Item 1, "ITC544 201860", you will need to enter two pieces of information:

1) Course ID =To be provided in the Interact2 site - Announcement
2) Identifier = Please enter your CSU Student ID for this course

Using PeerWise, please engage yourself in the peer learning and teaching activities with your fellow classmates by posting maximum 10 multiple-choice questions on (i) the Reading material uploaded in the Resource Section of Interact Site (Introduction to computers), (ii) Textbook Chapter 1: Introduction (sections 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 and 1.8), and (iii) Textbook Chapter 2: Data representation (sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6).

Furthermore, you need to answer questions and post comments on questions/answers posted by the other students. You discuss the topics with other students using the comments. You can also rate other questions and answers posted by other students or the lecturer. This will assist you and your lecturer assess your readiness for study in this subject. The lecturer may contact you if you do not engage with this assessment item.

Please note,you are allowed to post MAXIMUM 10 questions on the three topics. However, there is no restriction on the number of answers and comments you post. Please post quality questions.

Please read the following carefully to understand how PeerWise works.


About PeerWise


PeerWise is a web-based repository of multiple-choice questions with alternatives and explanations written by students as part of their required coursework. Activities in PeerWise include developing new questions, answering existing questions, and rating and providing feedback on questions.


After logging in the PeerWise system, the main menu is divided into three sections entitled: “Your questions”, “Answered Questions” and “Unanswered questions”. The role of each of these sections is described next.


Your questions:
This section allows a student to review all of the questions they have contributed to the system. The questions are displayed in a table with columns listing the date the question was developed, the number of responses, and the rating. The table can be sorted on any of these keys. A specific item can be selected from the table, to display details such as how often each alternative was selected and any feedback provided by students who have answered it. There is also a column in the table which displays the perceived difficulty of the question, as rated by students who have answered it. Another column displays whether or not the question is “suitable”, which occurs when it has a rating greater than 2, and the most popular alternative selected is the correct alternative. If either of these conditions is not met, it may indicate that the question is overly tricky, or contains errors.
When creating a new question, the contributor needs to provide a question stem, at least two and up to five alternatives, an indication of which alternative is correct, and an explanation of why that is the correct alternative. The explanation is shown to all students who answer the question and serves to assist students who select an incorrect alternative to identify their misunderstanding. Each new question can be tagged with the name of any relevant course topics, which allows students using the system for revision to easily find questions of interest. As soon as a question is contributed, it will appear in the “Unanswered questions” section for other students in the course.


Unanswered questions:
Each question in the system is available to every student in the course. The unanswered questions are organised into a table that can be sorted by the order they were developed, or by the number of responses they have received, or by the rating they have been given. Once a student selects a specific item to answer, the question stem and the alternatives for that question are displayed. The student then selects the alternative they believe to be correct, at which point they will be shown the correct alternative, as suggested by the author of the question, as well as a histogram of all students’ responses to the question. The explanation provided by the author is also displayed, along with any comments previously written by other students. In addition, a simple metric is used to approximate whether the selected answer is actually correct. The selected alternative is deemed to be correct if it agrees with the answer suggested by the author, and if this alternative is also the most popular amongst all previous responses. After receiving this feedback, the student who answered the question has an opportunity to rate it and provide open-ended feedback. The rating scale is an integer between 0 and 5, and is expected to take into account the quality of the question, the distractors and the explanation. The student is also able to rate the difficulty of the question as either “easy”, “medium” or “hard”. Once a question has been answered and rated, it will always be available for review by the student in the “Answered questions” section.


Answered questions:
All previously answered questions are available and can be reviewed at any time. As other students provide responses, the accuracy of the correctness metric improves. The table that displays the answered questions can be sorted by the order in which the questions were answered, by the total number of responses to the question, or by the question rating.

A basic leaderboard is also available, which ranks students contributions. It was included to provide some motivation for participation well beyond the minimum requirements for assessment. Tables on the leaderboard display the top rated questions, and rank students on the number of questions they have answered, the popularity of the questions they have contributed, and the popularity of any open-ended comments they have written during the rating process.

Rationale

back to top

This assessment task will work towards assessing the following learning outcome/s:

• be able to demonstrate and appropriately use computer organisation and architecture terminologies.


• be able to apply an understanding of data representations and calculations to practical situations.


• be able to investigate, evaluate and communicate general trends in computing technologies including examples of leading edge developments.

This assessment item has been designed to increase the peer to peer interaction among students as a way to learn and teach each other and to incorporate collaborative learning and teaching. Involving students in the development of questions on topics puts the educational process in focus and empowers students by providing a greater degree of control in reflection, peer assessment, and deep learning. Discussing the construction of questions helps to demystify the assessment of learning outcomes and provides insight into how course objectives are being measured. In addition, providing good feedback is a critical aspect to effective learning. Moreover, commenting and evaluating other students’ questions engages students in a deeper and richer learning experience. This is also an opportunity to self-assess your readiness to engage with this subject.

Marking criteria and standards

back to top

Marks will be awarded based on PeerWise system generated reports. PeerWise generates reports on participation summary, student scores, and student badges.

Participation summary:This shows how many questions, answers and comments are posted by all students within a time period.

Student scores:As students participate with and contribute to PeerWise, they accumulate two independent scores:

• aReputationscore


• anAnswerscore

TheReputation scoreis composed of three components. The first component is for question authoring, the second component is for answering questions, and the third component is for rating questions they have answered. A given student's component scores increase whenever the actions of other students generally agree with that student’s earlier decisions. In this sense, to accumulate high component scores, a student is encouraged to make thoughtful contributions as early as possible (which are therefore more likely to agree with the decisions that other students make later on). The total Reputation score is calculated using a formula that combines the component scores such that to achieve a high total score it is much better to have good scores for each component rather than a very high score in just one (or two) components. The lowest possible Reputation score is 1 (every student starts with a score of 1).

TheAnswer scoreincreases every time the student submits an answer that is "correct" (in the sense that it agrees with the author's suggested answer or is the most popular answer) and it decreases each time an incorrect answer is submitted. In general, the Answering score should be very approximately 10 times the number of correct answers that are submitted by the student.

Student badges:As students participate and contribute to PeerWise, they can earn certain badges (Basic badges: A-H, Standard badges: I-P, and Elite badges: Q-Y). The report summarises the number of badges that each students has earned, as well as listing the individual badges.

As you write and explain, answer, rate and provide feedback on questions about the the Reading material and the Textbook chapters you will be demonstrating the depth of your learning and engagement related to computer systems terminologies, organisation and architecture, data representation, and general trends in computing technologies. This will be reflected in the scores you receive for each component.

The following rubric will be used to award marks for assessment item 1:

Assessment item 2