ABSTRACT
Tertiary educators in software related topics experience issues during project-based group assessments. Our long term goal is to help educators manage the challenges that inevitably occur by providing a risk planning mechanism for students that suits the needs of the course. In this paper, we describe the first iteration of an action research study to trial a risk framework for academic group projects. Our aims were to understand how educators appropriate the framework to suit their course, gain insight into students’ understanding of risk concepts and refine the framework. A questionnaire based on the framework was distributed to students in three 12-week computer science (CS) courses. We found that most students reported few issues. Participating courses used the framework in different ways. Students lacked a holistic understanding of risk management concepts, implying the need to formally introduce these. Our study progresses the understanding of the issues experienced in academic group projects and contributes a revised framework to help manage these. In future iterations, we will investigate links between issues and project characteristics and establish a repository of mitigation strategies that is project-specific.
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Index Terms
- Refining a Risk Framework for Student Group Projects
Recommendations
Risks in Student Projects
ACE '22: Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Computing Education ConferenceAnecdotally, tertiary educators in software related topics experience challenges during project-based group assessments. To address the range of issues experienced, some educators have introduced aspects of project management (PM) into their course. ...
Educator Experiences of Low Overhead Student Project Risk Management
ACE '24: Proceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education ConferenceMany software-related courses at tertiary level incorporate group projects in their assessment strategy. Project goals vary according to course learning outcomes, for example, consolidating course content and preparing students for industry by providing ...
Student initiated capstone projects
SIGITE '14: Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference on Information technology educationCapstone projects/courses, in which students undertake a significant project under supervision, have been offered in many computing programs In this paper, we present our experience for the senior project course as offered by the BCIS program at Mount ...
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