Enhanced Student Collaboration in Mining Engineering Through Peer Review of Major Projects

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Group projects form a major part of the assessments in the 3rd and 4th year course curriculum for the School of Mining Engineering, The University of New South Wales, where collaboration is is considered to be an integral component of this learning environment.. The rationale behind the group projects is to encourage students to develop collaboration amongst themselves and also to facilitate peer learning. This is considered one of the most important graduate attributes for the school. Since assessment strongly influences learning, any course objective to improve peer learning and/or collaboration must have assessment that promotes it.

It has been observed that self and peer assessment is a valid solution for promoting these objectives and overcoming potential problems of equal marks for unequal contributions. Group members are responsible for negotiating and managing the balance of contributions and then assessing whether the balance has been achieved. The implementation has not been without difficulties as it a new way of thinking for the students who previously were used to more teacher directed activities.

This paper reviews the various peer review systems that are currently available for assessing group projects and describes the effectiveness of each of these systems.

Stream: Organisational Learning, Organisational Change

Paper: Enhanced Student Collaboration in Mining Engineering through Peer Review of Major Projects

Dr Rudrajit Mitra joined the School of Mining Engineering at the University of New South Wales in July 2006. After completing his Bachelors in Mining Engineering in India, he moved to the US and completed his Masters at Penn State and PhD at Virginia Tech both in Mining Engineering. His specialisation is Geomechanics and Ventilation. He is also working as part of Mining Education Australia focussing a lot on student collaborative techniques.