I just finished my peer review and was thinking that this process was worthy of a blog post itself. We are winding down the semester and everyone is feeling busy and there is pressure to get thing done. These factors would, I admit prevent me from getting feedback about materials if it weren't a requirement for the course. Evaluation is something that I firmly believe is important to the process. It is something I've learned through experience and education.
But admittedly, it is the first thing to go as far as time lines are concerned.
I guess what I'd like to learn more about is not why evaluation is important or even how to conduct them. I would like to learn strategies for making them an inherent part of the process rather then something that is perceived as a detachment in some way, particularly in projects such as something like this. In this class we are lucky to get feedback form an instructor and a peer, but in real life it doesn't seem so easy. Does anyone have a good system, such those pages that asked to be ranked or whether or not they were helpful. Do these types of strategies make things easier, or do deadlines do a number on these efforts as well?
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3 comments:
At my workplace, we don’t have any formal way of conducting evaluations such as you mention, but I agree that it would be worthwhile, esp. for those of us in tech. and the public arena where our work is seen and used by many. I believe part of the problem may be that some folks are uncomfortable giving (as well as getting!) constructive criticism for fear that it may be seen as offensive or critical in the negative sense. Perhaps a shared understanding of the phrase “constructive criticism” would be helpful in those situations. I would welcome focus groups made up of peers, users, etc. that would evaluate tech work such as an IMU at specific stages throughout it’s development rather than toward the end. I think the reviewee could be helpful in this process by actively soliciting the feedback so that the reviewers would be more comfortable giving constructive feedback, thus, learning to understand that it’s part of the process.
Erik,
I agree, evaluation is an unpopular stage of the design process. I think one way to make the evaluation process a bit less excruciating is to adopt a design model that incorporates evaluation as part of the project (this is sort of automatic). However, the key, in my opinion, is to design an evaluation instrument or tool that will serve as guide to streamline the assessment and incorporate this instrument as part of the business process. I'll use last week's assignment as an example. The rubric (instrument) was developed to evaluate the IMU, and this rubric was utilized and/or incorporated into an activity/assignment (business process) that is part of the course.
All this is easier said than done.
I concur that evaluation (formative and summative) is very, very important. I also agree that it is rarely done - and often times not done well if it is.
A simple strategy is to ensure that formative and summative evaluation are a part of anything you create - and request feedback from the necessary stakeholders. As Edgar indicated, however, this is easier said than done! Other ideas?
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