All 7 entries tagged Isabel Fischer

Interested in diverse assessments? – Isabel Fischer et al.

Interested in diverse assessments? Join our learning circle for an exciting grant-funded project on the future of assessments.

Authors: Isabel Fischer; Leda Mirbaha; Lewis Beer; Dawn Collins; Peter Fossey; Celine Martin; Natasha Nakariakov; Pula Prakash; Farrah Vogel-Javeri

We have recently created an interdisciplinary learning circle which aims to optimise the learning opportunities for Warwick students. We want to ensure that the teaching and learning opportunities are inclusive and cater for our diverse student community. Assessment and feedback are critical stages in the learning process. Using diverse assessments will ensure that students are not unfairly disadvantaged or advantaged by a specific form of assessment. Although it is worth noting that what may count as diverse assessment in one faculty may not necessary be seen as a diverse assessment approach in another. Therefore, using diverse assessments comes with its own challenges and barriers such as:

• Diversification without sufficient opportunity for students to practice and get familiar with the new and different forms of assessment, disadvantaging group of students that may not be as familiar with certain style of assessments
• The resource and time component needed for familiarisation then reduces the uptake and engagement by faculty with more innovative assessment approaches

Therefore, the aim of this learning circle is to capture both staff and student experience of diverse assessments and to involve students, staff, and other stakeholders in shaping the future of assessments. Furthermore, the learning circle aims to develop practical recommendations on overcoming some of the challenges associated with use of diverse assessments which will significantly benefit the community.

To achieve this we need your support!

If we have not yet convinced you to join our learning circle, then read on:

Vision: Our vision is to foster an inclusive environment where assessments are designed and developed in partnership with students, staff, and external stakeholders, to effectively promote learning, valuing students’ uniqueness and considering their future employment(s) and wellbeing, as well as the social and environmental responsibility and sustainability of the wider community.

Mission. Our mission is to:

• Gather existing data on practices around use of diverse and inclusive assessments, including Warwick staff and student experiences
• Develop shared understanding of principles and practice of diverse assessment
• Develop an evaluative framework for measuring the success of diversified assessment strategies at module, year, and course level
• Capture student and staff views on diverse assessments

To help us achieve our mission we have successfully applied and been awarded a WIHEA funding which will enable us to capture staff and student experiences of some of the diverse and innovative assessment approaches used in different disciplines to address some of the key questions around: 1) perception of diverse assessments from a staff and student perspective, 2) practical tips for successful application of the assessment method and marking, 3) communicating assessed skills and requirements, 4) overcoming challenges. To achieve this, we will conduct interviews with staff and students and will share resources, included but not limited to examples of assessments, marking and feedback rubrics and assessment briefs.

For further information on joining the learning circle please contact the co-leads: Leda Mirbahai, Warwick Medical School (WMS) (Leda.Mirbahai@warwick.ac.uk) and Isabel Fischer, Warwick Business School (WBS) (Isabel.Fischer@wbs.ac.uk)

Stay tuned for further updates and blogs on our initiative, such as: Creative Projects and the ‘state of play’ in diverse assessments – Lewis Beer

Abigail Ball : 14 Mar 2022 09:16 |  Tags: Assessment Celine Martin Dawn Collins Farrah Vogel-Javeri Isabel Fischer Leda Mirbaha Lewis Beer Natasha Nakariakov Peter Fossey Pula Prakash |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Considering and measuring impact

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Considering and measuring impact

By Dr Kerry Dobbins (Assistant Professor, Academic Development Centre) and Dr Isabel Fischer (Reader in Information Systems at Warwick Business School)

Questions about how to evaluate and measure impact of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning activities (SoTL) have always generated much lively discussion and debate within the SoTL community. For example, a recent LTHE Tweetchat focused on the topic of ‘Breaking boundaries: career progression and education-focused roles’. At the heart of the discussion was the nature and purpose of SoTL in relation to career advancement. Two specific questions discussed were ‘what forms and outputs can SoTL take?’ and ‘how should quality and impact be measured?’ In recent times, these questions have become more important than ever for all colleagues on education or teaching-focused contracts due to their connection to institutional promotions criteria. Routes to promotion for these colleagues will often involve criteria including:

• Making a significant contribution to pedagogy.
• Gaining recognition for quality and impact of scholarship.
• Demonstrating educational impact and influence within and beyond the University.
• Producing scholarly outcomes that advance learning, teaching and assessment.

Outputs and demonstrable impact of SoTL underpin these criteria and highlight why the recent Tweetchat was such a topical discussion. Considering the various forms or outputs that SoTL can take connects to how impact from those outputs may be measured or viewed to have made a significant contribution. The Twitter community identified a wide range of forms that SoTL outputs can take. These included:

• Conference/webinar presentations
• Publications
• Podcasts, blogs, vlogs
• Infographics
• Content for repositories, e.g. the National Teaching Repository
• Books
• Invited talks
• Staff/student development training
• Well-designed courses/modules

There was much leaning towards open access forms and critical scrutiny occurring through the teaching community, rather than tying outputs largely to journal publications and scrutiny through the standard academic peer review process. This leaning is still in line with the SoTL principles of sharing findings for communal use and review, but importantly the Twitter community placed considerable value on practitioner-focused scrutiny.

There was also recognition that different outputs serve different purposes and that any output can have an impact. This takes us into the realms of questioning what ‘impact’ means in SoTL and how it might be measured. Again, the Twitter community identified various ways that ‘impact’ of SoTL could be considered and/or measured:

• Policy changes – national, institutional, departmental, etc.
• Creation of staff development provision.
• Explicit recognition and reward of teaching through, for example, promotion and recruitment criteria.
• Improved module/course evaluations and student grades.
• Enhanced student engagement.
• Paper citations, usage metrics.
• Engagement in networks or communities of practice.
• Improved resourcing for teaching/development.
• Changes in colleagues’ practices.
• Engagement in collaborative activities.

It is interesting to see from the responses the different levels at which impact may play out (e.g. individual, institutional, etc). Of course, one of the ultimate aims of SoTL is to understand how students learn effectively so that learning experiences can be enhanced. However, SoTL is also recognised as an essential component of academic professional development and a mechanism through which HE teaching as a profession is advanced. As the responses above show, this wide remit of SoTL means that impacts from its activities can take many forms.

It is also apparent that some of the impact examples offered above may take longer to realise than others and be harder to measure in a quantifiable sense. A key question emerging in the Twitter discussion was whether SoTL impact needs to be measurable. This again takes us back to the question of what ‘impact’ means in SoTL and more specifically, what type of impact is being sought.

Different stakeholders (e.g., individuals, community groups, institutions) may of course be seeking different types of impact from SoTL activities but in reality, the needs of the different stakeholders are not so easily separated. There continues to be a challenging balancing act being played out in SoTL between it being an activity to develop individual and community practices, and it becoming a significant feature of aspects like promotions criteria. Whilst inclusion in promotions criteria demonstrates institutional recognition and reward of SoTL, it adds a layer of trying to measure or capture a narrative of identifiable and evidence-based impact that resonates with a panel who may or may not be familiar with the various lenses and dynamics of SoTL.

What all of this leads to is the need to keep engaging in institutional conversations about SoTL so that purposes, outputs and impacts of this activity are not viewed in too reductive terms and the various lenses and levels identified by the Twitter community are not overlooked. This is the vast flavour of SoTL and if we are too reductive, we may only taste elements of the impacts that it could have.

Two further questions should also be asked in the context of these institutional discussions:

1. How to align expectations about output and impact with time allocated for SoTL, e.g. what should be the output for somebody who receives a workload allocation of, say, two to three hours a week versus somebody who receives one to two full days per week?
2. How might expectations about output and impact be aligned on an inter-disciplinary instructional-level to encourage transferability?

It is important to ensure that discussions to define impact more clearly (and broadly) at an institutional level do not deter us from seeing the sharing of SoTL work and findings as an activity worthy in and of itself. At Warwick, we aim to create and encourage opportunities for the sharing of SoTL activities as part of our internal communities of practice. This way inspirational SoTL findings can be spread and impact upon colleagues’ practices, independent of views about measurability.

Abigail Ball : 10 Jan 2022 09:43 |  Tags: Isabel Fischer Kerry Dobbins Learning Scholarship Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Using Machine Learning to offer students optional feedback on their draft essay

Using Machine Learning to offer students optional feedback on their draft essays: A joint initiative with Progressay

By Rebecca Mace (Progressay), Moktar Alqaderi (Progressay), and Dr Isabel Fischer (Reader in Information Systems at Warwick Business School)

As part of their Digital Marketing and Technologies module WBS students had this summer the opportunity to receive feedback generated by Progressay, an EdAI organisation, on their draft assignment essays. The initiative was in response to students asking for more academic writing support. The project received formal ethics approval from the university. Students who decided to participate found the recommendations received useful, e.g., ‘I found the graph that showed where the references come from very useful. It is good to see what kind of research my peers do’ and ‘I think it is relatively objective and trustable, because the different evaluations it gave were consistent with my expectations.'

We discussed the importance of ethics for this type of projects already in previous articles and blogs, e.g.:

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2043886920961782#articleCitationDownloadContainer
• https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/five-reads-you-need-to-make-ai-ethical-and-trustworthy/
• https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/wjett/entry/ai_ethics_for/

Rebecca Mace, from Progressay, explains here her thoughts on the ethical foundations of Progressay generally and this project in particular:

Progressay is a disrupter in the EdTech world, not only due to the technology, gamification and feedback systems it offers, but due to its deeply human desire to change things from the inside. We are educationalists, not technologists, at heart. Although we work developing EdTech and EdAI, our fundamental aim is to make things better for those who struggle to find ease of access with regards to learning. Our ethical value system is almost hardcoded into everything we do. Here is how:

• We are acutely aware of the potential for algorithmic bias and seeks to avoid this by working with schools and universities that have significant diversity in their student population. This goes a long way towards ensuring that training for the machine learning model does not reflect common problems such as race or class bias.
• We firmly believe that access to education is a human right, however, having access is so much more than having the ability to attend but feeling you can fully participate in the process. Truly understanding the teaching and learning available is fundamental to a deeper understanding of ‘access’. We facilitate this through gamified and adaptive learning activities for students.
• We focus especially upon making higher achievement a understandable process and understand what reduced transparency within the marking process can do to student aspiration. Our tool marks the essay and shows the student/lecturer in a detailed way how the grade generated was arrived at. It does this using written feedback and infographic dashboards, but also a series of targets for how to improve. Aspiration is translated into achievable reality.

• We adopt an honest and open approach that allows students, lecturers and parents access and understanding into how the system works. It presents this in understandable and easily accessible dashboards. The information it presents is designed to be immediately useable. Students and lecturers can feel informed and knowledgeable about fine grained information relating to their work. Transparency is facilitated through fairness and trust.

• Humanity, not technology, is at the core of everything we do. Education is about the quality of relationships that can be developed, fostered and maintained. We have specifically designed its entire platform to retain this educational ideal adopting an “augmented” approach, where humans are helped rather than replaced. It positively impacts upon areas such as marking workload, leaving increased time (and energy) for lecturers to focus on in depth knowledge of their students’ strengths and weaknesses. It also retains a human in the loop throughout with lecturers having the option to override the system, change feedback, offer alternative comments to their students. Furthermore, the system has been developed to promote student agency. Having deeper engagement with ones learning through transparency of grading, coupled with gamification to enhance understanding, has been shown to increase student efficacy and have positive impacts on motivation and engagement.

In short, we have deliberately and mindfully developed our platform to reflect its ethical values. At the heart is a drive to enhance social mobility by democratising access to education. Those involved in developing the platform have an in-depth understanding of educational theory, as well as years of experience teaching, lecturing, and working with students at all levels. They know what limited transparency, conscious and unconscious bias, a lack of motivation, discrimination, and reduced expectation can do to a student’s educational aspiration. It is out of personal experience and a real desire for change, that we have sought to develop a tool that speaks to these issues directly.

For more information about this project please contact:

• moktar@progressay.com
• Rebecca@progressay.com
• Isabel.fischer@wbs.ac.uk

Abigail Ball : 02 Dec 2021 09:26 |  Tags: Isabel Fischer Machin Learning Moktar Alqader Progressay Rebecca Mace Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)

Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL): How to get started with a journey in mind

By Dr Isabel Fischer (Reader in Information Systems at Warwick Business School) and Dr Kerry Dobbins (Assistant Professor, Academic Development Centre)

Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) represents the opportunity for critical reflection both on generic pedagogic practices as well as on subject specialisms. It leads to knowledge‐in‐practice, knowledge‐of‐practice and productive disciplinary engagement.1 Based on a panel discussion at Warwick’s Education forum here an overview of how we got started, as well as lessons that we have learned along the way. We hope that the following ten suggestions might help colleagues either to get started, or to reflect on and engage with discussions on their SoTL journey. For colleagues considering applying for promotion, we have loosely aligned our suggestions to our interpretation of the current promotion research bands.

Approx. Band 2:

1.Decide on your interest and intellectual position, this might be pedagogic and/or disciplinary. For Isabel, this was (and still is) the intersection of Ethics & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), Technologies, and Education. For Kerry, it was initially the interplay between particular HE policies and individual teaching practices and has now evolved to communities of practice, particularly in relation to SoTL.

2. Start reading articles in the area of your interest, taking note of what was researched and how it was researched, i.e. methodology. Google Scholar can be a good place to start finding relevant articles and you might also try an online education database like British Education Index (BEI). One learning point here is that it is actually good to align yourself with relatively recent and frequently cited papers rather than trying to develop something completely new. Another learning point is that you might want to consider a systematic literature review to perhaps be able to convert this later into a ‘systematic literature review and research agenda paper’.

3. Develop your research proposal including ethics approval. Both of us have conducted several research projects on our own modules (with students explicitly agreeing to these as per ethics requirements) and this is our favourite part of SoTL. For all of our projects, we have learned so much from students. Action research for your own teaching is also quite popular for SoTL and if the activity is purely for professional development purposes, it would not require ethical approval (though it would still have to be conducted in an ethical manner of course). For those new to SoTL and education research, you might start first with a question that you have about your teaching in relation to your area of interest. From there, you could identify various sources of evidence that already exist that will allow you to gain insight into your question, e.g., published studies, module evaluation data, student feedback, performance data, etc. You might then begin to make changes to your teaching practices using insights gained from this evidence-informed approach whilst building confidence to develop a more formal research proposal. It is important to note that it is possible to engage in SoTL without conducting primary research but through engagement with literature and/or communities of practice. Up to hear, this represents roughly band 2 of the research-related academic promotion criteria (there is no band 1).

Approx. Band 3:

4. Having gained these insights, it’s time to talk to colleagues at conferences and/or events. There are always a range of internal and external conferences as well as sharing practice events. These are good ways to connect to a wider network of colleagues and build confidence in presenting your education-focused work to broader and interdisciplinary audiences. My (Isabel’s) first conference presentation was at Advance HE. I have since expanded to international conferences and also organised my own specific events. While applying for conferences and organising events seems time consuming, these are extremely useful both for disseminating own findings and for getting feedback on these, as well as for hearing about and getting inspired by other research. Presenting at conferences and being a reviewer for journals translate roughly to band 3 of the promotion criteria. And don’t forget, presenting at conferences might also help with demonstrating impact in FHEA or SFHEA applications.

5. Similar to conferences, a good way to engage with other academics and to understand more about research as well as teaching, is to become a reviewer for journals and/or an external examiner. One way to do this is to apply for these roles as they are often advertised. Another is to talk to colleagues about their external engagements as they might be looking for reviewers for the journals that they are editing. Do not hesitate to contact external editors too as most are always eager for reviewers and usually very happy to be contacted directly. This is particularly relevant if there is a journal which focuses on your area of interest and many articles on topics that you find interesting are published in that particular journal. Once you have been a reviewer for some time as a next step you could consider guest editing or assistant editing of journals.

Approx. Band 4+:

6. The more you engage with academic literature you start to understand some of the complexities of publication, especially the length it takes from writing a first draft to publication. For high impact journal the review and resubmit process takes several years. You might therefore want to consider developing a portfolio of output and consider writing a blog, producing some videos and/or writing article(s) for journals with lower impact factors. Many journals publish conceptual or case-study papers as well as research articles. All output, independent of the journal’s impact factor, might be helpful for future FHEA or SFHEA applications as by disseminating to colleagues and/or the public - rather than ‘just’ your own students - these demonstrate an increased sphere of influence. For promotion criteria, depending on the journal’s impact and ranking this might be classified as band 4 and if sustained even higher.

7. You might consider inviting co-author(s) for your research projects. Of course, you can also consider doing so from the start of your research process or alternatively colleagues might ask you if you want to join some of their research projects. Both of us really enjoy working with co-authors, our second favourite part of SoTL after the primary research, however, the downside is that your co-author(s) might work at a different pace to yours or have different aspirations of journal impact factors.

8. Instead of peers as co-authors you might want to consider doing a joint student-project where students are the co-authors or co-creators. This is also very enjoyable, however, when initially starting with SoTL, you might feel that you want to exchange ideas with colleagues who are more or as experienced rather than guiding students.

Outlook:

9. Possible barriers? You might think there is not enough time for SoTL (and you should check your departments policy on workload allocation for SoTL), or you might encounter ‘representativeness heuristics’ where you are compared to an existing prototype of colleagues who have already published many articles, however, this might only be you thinking it (no need to feel like an amateur or imposter, or to hide your educational research!)

10. Finally, and possibly most importantly, SoTL allows you to be slightly less theory-driven and more action oriented than traditional research. Hence, SoTL provides you with the opportunity to make change happen. Enjoy the journey!

References

Gregory J. Kelly, The social bases of disciplinary knowledge and practice in productive disciplinary engagement, International Journal of Educational Research, Volume 64, 2014, Pages 211-214, ISSN 0883-0355

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/internal/academicprocesses/academicpromotion/academic_promotions_criteria.pdf

Abigail Ball : 09 Nov 2021 16:40 |  Tags: Isabel Fischer Kerry Dobbins Learning Scholarship Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

AI Ethics for Assessments in Higher Education

AI Ethics for Assessments in Higher Education: A project example of an interdisciplinary social sciences undergraduate summer research scheme

By Isabel Fischer (Warwick Business School) and Thomas Martin (Economics)

Warwick’s Social Sciences offer students and faculty from economics, education and Warwick Business School (WBS) the opportunity to take part in an interdisciplinary summer research project to improve awareness and understanding of collaborative research work on a topic of the students’ choice. One of this summer’s group focused on AI ethics for assessments where students applied the EU Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI to Higher Education Assessment. Students concluded that despite the limitations of AI, AI has the potential to make assessment processes in higher education more effective and fairer. Students suggested that AI should be embraced, but only with human oversight and agency, and with clear stakeholder communication in place.

Linden Davison, a student from the Department of Economics, commented: “Getting involved in the UG research scheme broadened my awareness beyond my single subject discipline - working in a field I wasn't aware existed when we started! It was a pleasure to work alongside students from different departments and be guided by such engaging, motivated staff alike.” Toby Pia, also from Economics, added: “Throughout my URSS experience I improved my ability to explain complex ideas in a more understandable way. I also got better in conveying a balanced argument as previously I tended to get more entrenched into one side of a debate rather than looking at it from both sides.”

At the end of the project each student produced a research poster, depicting one of the seven overarching themes of the EU Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. Below an example by Shubhangi Bhatt, a student from the Department of Education Studies, on Transparency.

poster_example.pdf

AI poster (text only version)

Finally, here a link to five articles that explain how AI could be made ethical and trustworthy:

https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/five-reads-you-need-to-make-ai-ethical-and-trustworthy/

And you also might want to read here how AI can (positively) influence education generally:

https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/five-areas-ai-can-have-the-greatest-impact/

Abigail Ball : 25 Oct 2021 13:30 |  Tags: AI Assessment Isabel Fischer Research Teaching Thomas Martin |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scholarly blogs part two

Scholarly blogs: An assessment tool to strengthen students’ personal brand by developing an online presence (part two)

Isabel Fischer, Associate Professor Information Systems and Management, WBS

As discussed here, as part of their assessments, WBS Digital Leadership and Design Thinking students submitted scholarly blogs as an authentic assessment in preparation for the digital workplace and to increase their online presence. Many students submitted very engaging blogs, getting readers ‘hooked’ from the start by asking and answering insightful questions. Some examples can be found here:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/helper-hinderer-ai-replace-reinforce-stack-overflows-digital-becky-wl7be/?trackingId=%2BqvIVnNRQ26FMiAF41UBcA%3D%3D
2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-bright-vinted-critical-evaluation-role-digital-buraimoh-zowse/?trackingId=f%2FdNTv0JQlCrmwCzC2H0kw%3D%3D
3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/media-vs-social-unleashing-power-influencer-marketing-butt-snfhf%3FtrackingId=v%252FgysT6ZRE6aAijDPb9xbw%253D%253D/?trackingId=v%2FgysT6ZRE6aAijDPb9xbw%3D%3D
4. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dark-side-personalized-ads-eavesdropping-devices-our-homes-yadav%3FtrackingId=4gVGNKPZQLCMkR%252BF4NJaOg%253D%253D/?trackingId=4gVGNKPZQLCMkR%2BF4NJaOg%3D%3D
5. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revolutionizing-digital-odyssey-ai-machine-learning-modern-mittal%3FtrackingId=xbOClCnQTdGSMGsvjLjFJA%253D%253D/?trackingId=xbOClCnQTdGSMGsvjLjFJA%3D%3D
6. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dark-social-unravelling-hidden-power-private-sharing-singhania%3FtrackingId=4uo2i%252BhiTXOCr72leisPKA%253D%253D/?trackingId=4uo2i%2BhiTXOCr72leisPKA%3D%3D
7. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/micro-influencers-spell-dominance-declare-battle-real-vishva-yadav%3FtrackingId=6pUFJuYVR0mhkPTQcfQnRg%253D%253D/?trackingId=6pUFJuYVR0mhkPTQcfQnRg%3D%3D
8. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-miss-out-secret-behind-fomo-marketing-digital-you-keshav-agarwal%3FtrackingId=tuxGfqVtQ0i5%252FQqi3ZAvWw%253D%253D/?trackingId=tuxGfqVtQ0i5%2FQqi3ZAvWw%3D%3D
9. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gamification-digital-marketing-future-user-engagement-burak-erensoy%3FtrackingId=TN%252B5tFOlRxSyy32C4MbAEQ%253D%253D/?trackingId=TN%2B5tFOlRxSyy32C4MbAEQ%3D%3D
10. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/product-marketing-odyssey-ahmed-elyamany/
11. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ai-changing-consumer-behavior-decision-making-haya-yousef
12. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nfts-hype-marketing-revolution-leon-heinrich/?trackingId=9xoIwv8KSbyaa0byo0s3jQ%3D%3D
13. https://medium.com/@kenan.shikhlinsky/our-career-in-the-hands-of-artificial-intelligence-and-machinelearning-will-the-recruiting-process-f5dbfd656b80
14. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-influential-virtual-media-influencers-fatma-anwar-sajwani/?trackingId=l7m0yxM9SCGYmvTCLzaDpw%3D%3D
15. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6944744930804215808/
16. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-could-applying-modern-business-strategies-data-transform-webb/?trackingId=1Mbdm%2F1PTr2bm1YjfWn3Dw%3D%3D
17. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/personalisation-profiling-pain-point-danya-hannah/?trackingId=6UwMDzDWQ1WzvKcOHNw6IA%3D%3D
18. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transforming-edtech-saas-products-platforms-real-world-joseph-conlon/?trackingId=1hC4RyRhRrSxMqlr4wA19A%3D%3D
19. https://pabloramirezgarcia.wixsite.com/technologyandinnovat/post/team-work-10-tools-to-ensure-successful-collaborations
20. https://bushrapatel.wixsite.com/thecoinreview/post/blockchain-in-videogames
21. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/could-blockchains-improve-data-integrity-transparency-peter-nadudvari/?trackingId=ilaX%2FjNxQtmCzRaat52%2FCg%3D%3D
22. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/please-mind-gender-gap-ai-help-hinder-goal-equality-thilaganathan/?trackingId=pLGGMxMiQTuRko5yPDUb4A%3D%3D
23. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bamboozled-blockchain-read-priyanka-kaur/?trackingId=8XCAqFjgShWuvpWibgUgNQ%3D%3D
24. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/criticizing-ai-digitization-hrm-gig-economy-how-digital-jiaqi-wu/?trackingId=DsFIdvOySRCe4Wn6mJiz5A%3D%3D
25. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/esg-ratings-why-ai-silver-bullet-astitva-karunesh-1e/

In addition, here is a blog that you need to be a LinkedIn member to read:

• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-can-potentially-make-better-faster-credit-risk-decisions-sechin/?trackingId=GchJXDinRPC42ZFOclcBPw%3D%3D

For further questions or comments on introducing scholarly blogs as an assessment tool please email: Isabel.Fischer@wbs.ac.uk

Abigail Ball : 02 Aug 2021 09:52 |  Tags: Assessment Blog Isabel Fischer Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scholarly blogs: An assessment tool to strengthen students’ personal brand

Scholarly blogs: An assessment tool to strengthen students’ personal brand by developing an online presence

Isabel Fischer, Associate Professor Information Systems and Management, WBS

Graduates require an increased (professional) online presence and a ‘personal brand’ for career advancement. To encourage students to communicate opinions that matter effectively - and to strengthen their confidence both at the time of writing as well as later on when reflecting back on the blogs - I introduced this term scholarly blogs as a written assignment tool. A scholarly blog builds on the transferrable elements of academic writing and transposes these into a publishable blog.

The remainder of this post outlines how the scholarly blog could be introduced in practice as an innovative form of assessment.

To write their blogs, students are asked to draw on theories and concepts covered in the module as well as in their extended reading. Blogs should demonstrate expert knowledge and thought leadership. The generic marking criteria for assessments can apply, e.g. (1) Comprehension, (2) Analysis, (3) Critical Evaluation, (4) Academic Writing, and (5) Reflection. Students are asked to submit their blog as not yet live but ‘ready to post’, including, for example, images, hashtags and approx. time for reading. The blog should be scholarly and contributing to knowledge, i.e. ‘serious’ rather than ‘colloquial’ and reviewing existing knowledge prior to adding to knowledge. It therefore should be underpinned by extensive referencing to academic literature and to professional reports/posts/webpages. In addition, students can, but do not have to hyperlink their references.

The ideas/content that the blog conveys need to be convincing and should demonstrate critical thinking. The blog should therefore be thought-provoking rather than explaining concepts in a textbook-style-writing. The blog should be seen as written by a subject matter expert and driver for change in a specific field whose opinion matters. The language used should be formal, yet appropriate for a blog, i.e. more informal than an academic journal article. Students might want to write the blog using a first-person positioning (e.g. ‘A recent WBS module on Digital Leadership made me consider…’ or ‘I suggest…’), yet most sentences will not include any writing in the first person (e.g. ‘Miller (2021) raised the point of….’ or ‘If X than Y (see Jones (2020) and Smith (2021)’).

I communicate to students that I expect to see a clear structure in their blog which is aligned to academic writing without using the same headings. For example, students might start in larger letters with an executive summary of the blog which is similar to an abstract. They might then introduce the topic (without calling it introduction) and provide a review of existing material (without calling it literature review). Students are encouraged to structure their main body in different sections using content-related titles in bold before having their concluding thoughts. Students could then show their list of references/bibliography under a heading such as ‘Useful articles in the domain of X’ and adding hashtags to relevant areas.

For further questions or comments on introducing scholarly blogs as an assessment tool please email: Isabel.Fischer@wbs.ac.uk

Abigail Ball : 23 Feb 2021 11:36 |  Tags: Assessment Isabel Fischer Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem