Open and distance e-Learning (ODeL) in higher education has been transforming our traditional view of learning not just in the delivery of courses but also in the method of teaching, learning, and assessment. Just like in the traditional setting, peer assessment is also an integral part of online learning. Peer assessment in the learning process must enhance interpretation and reflection, develop critical thinking skills, and accept peer criticism. Aside from providing better understanding of students’ needs, development, and achievement, effective and reliable peer assessment can also be a tool for co-creation of academic text. As such, peer assessment is also a means for knowledge sharing and creation among teachers and learners. Thus, peer assessment should be perceived as ‘assessment for learning’ more than ‘assessment of learning’.

According to Brooke and Andrade (2013), peer assessment is defined by the following:

“simply a matter of students giving informed feedback to one another on an assignment. Effective peer assessment is related to clear standards and is supported by a constructive process of critique. Peer assessment is a valuable tool because feedback from peers can be delivered with more immediacy and in greater volume than teacher feedback. Peer assessment should happen during the learning process, on works-in-progress, and be followed by opportunities for students to use the feedback they received to revise their work” (Brooke & Andrade, 2013; p. 1)

Thus, peer assessment should not be a process by which peers determine grades for one another.

Peer assessment enhances student interpretation and reflection. Students are able to observe their peers’ work and learning process, and therefore come to a better understanding of how their peers learn. In the process of peer assessment, students are capable of learning how to make judgment, criticize peer work, and accept peer criticism, thereby developing their critical thinking skills (Lan et al., 2007; Kwok & Ma, 1999).

Brooke and Andrade (2013; p. 2) also listed the guidelines for effective peer assessment as follows:

1. Determine the criteria on which the assignment will be assessed (what counts).

This can be done by the teacher alone, or preferably by co-constructing a checklist or rubric with students.

2. The teacher groups students into small peer feedback groups.

Two to four students can be grouped based on ability level.

3. The teacher may take an assignment and use the Ladder of Feedback protocol to ask clarifying questions, state what she or he values about the assignment, list what concerns her or him about it, and ultimately make suggestions (not mandates) that may be used to improve the assignment.

4. Students receive a checklist or document that reminds them how to deliver effective peer feedback. The Ladder of Feedback is a good choice of a checklist for students to use as a quick reference.

5. The teacher clarifies the assignment to the students. Clarification includes peer assessment of performance and the timeline for that assessment.

6. The teacher actively monitors the progress of the peer feedback groups.

Students will need a lot of support when they are first introduced to peer assessment, and less as they become accustomed to it.

7. The teacher monitors the quality of feedback.

The teacher ensures that her students are using the constructive feedback protocol (possibly the Ladder of Feedback).

8. Peer feedback is checked for reliability.

The teacher may compare she or he feedback on an assignment with a student’s feedback to check for alignment and provide further support and instruction if needed.

9. The teacher provides feedback to students on the effectiveness of  their peer assessment.

10. After students have generated effective peer feedback, it should be used to guide student revisions of works-in-progress.

Similarly, Yeh and colleagues (2008), state that “peer assessment becomes a popular and effective approach to enhance students’ critical thinking skills and make them reflect more about their and others’ work.” The study they conducted showed how web-based peer assessment systems were developed and applied to assist in assessing peers’ works in several school or university activities. The application of peer assessment encouraged the students to deeply reflect, evaluate, and comment on peers’ work. It was also noted, based on some studies, that peer feedback will considerably “strengthen students’ academic writing skills as well as foster meta-cognitive awareness on learning processes” (Gibbs et al. 2004, Nicol et. al 2006, Jensen, 2017).

Open and distance e-Learning (ODeL) is a worldview of teaching and learning that is grounded on three (3) main aspects: the access, equity, and resource sharing philosophy of open learning; the learner-centered and flexible technology mediation in distance education; and the connectivity, ubiquity, and interactivity approaches of e-Learning, while being supported by the values that underpin the university ethos – academic excellence, academic freedom, intellectual pluralism, and service to society (Alfonso, 2014).

Just like in a traditional education setting, peer assessment is also an integral part of an online learning environment. A study that looked at the benefits of the group or self-evaluation integrated in an open and distance learning system particularly states that group discussion is a vital aspect of study skills in an open and distance learning environment which involves self, peer, and group participation (Usuji, U.S.A.,2012).

Peer or group self-assessment of assignments, projects and/or tests can improve the learning experiences of the students (Usuji, U.S.A., 2012 cited in Boud 1995; Brown & Knight, 1994; Gibbs, 1992; Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 1997; Brown & Glasner, 1999; Brown & Dove, 1990). Again, this can be utilized in helping the students develop critical thinking during the evaluation process.

Though peer-assessment is recognized as one of the useful tools for evaluating learning and skills development in an open and distance e-Learning setting, there are also challenges in this kind of assessment. For one, learners may not have enough knowledge and experiences to evaluate their peer’s work. Another concern is the reliability or quality of learner’s feedback. It is important that the learners accept accountability and provide careful comments; however, not everyone gets involved (Hadaddi, et al., 2017).

In this course of the UP Open University, peer assessment was introduced in several online courses under the Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies (BAMS) program. One of the major courses under BAMS program that employs peer assessment as a tool for co-creation of academic texts is Videography in Multimedia (MMS 175). In this course there is an emphasis on the teacher and learner as multimedia researchers and co-creators of academic text. MMS 175 focuses on the process and techniques of producing videos with focus on the visual language. Principles of videography are discussed extensively to provide a framework to ground the capturing of images in the student’s video outputs. The theorizing on videography as form of research, documentary, and narrative-telling brings students in to higher level of innovation, creativity, and critical thinking fit to critique and evaluate their works and the works of others.

Furthermore, the course focuses on capacitating students in knowing what images to capture. The importance of the concept, “know how to see”, and automatically use these principles of visual design as part of the process of capturing the moving images through video footage is emphasized. Course outputs of the students are largely concentrated on principles of design that highlight the importance of taking up the aspects such as frame, shot, sequence, scene, time, pace, rhythm, mise-en-scène, and montage among others which are present in all video works.

The course navigates the students through the process of generating videos as part of multimedia productions. As an exercise, they are asked to produce a short video using montage of short takes, and a short video making use of long take. This emphasizes that the doing of videography highlights its praxis. The way multimedia productions capture process, emotion, concept, and story under the different genres are showcased in this course. There are six (6) genres employed in this course: learning objects, informational materials, documentaries, animation, experimental, and narrative. This course addresses the development of skills and awareness of theorizing in multimedia production. Going through this exercise-driven course design brings the students in doing their exercises through open fora, synthesis papers, reflection papers and short video exercises to finally prepare them for the peer assessed final video production.

As part of the course requirements, the students are required to produce their own video output. A very brief version of the annotation or write-up of their work and the URL of final video production in the forum in myPortal are shared with their fellow learners. Viewing is scheduled, and the same forum is used to give insights on their classmates’ productions. Furthermore, the forum is a venue for sharing and inviting their classmates to watch each other’s work.

After watching the video productions of their classmates, students are required to submit in the assignment bin their “Top Ten” choices, with reasons for each choice. This is considered the final assignment in the course.

Peer assessment is part of the direction of more openness in assessment design. This is going towards openness where there is learner participation and use of measurement parameters created by a homogenous population which in this case is a class on videography. This is consonant with our times of creating digital teaching and learning communities. This chapter focuses on a process of evaluation and assessment that is grounded in an ODeL environment. This gives space to learners as co-creators of academic text together with their faculty to make use of a teaching and learning process considered as part of open pedagogy.

This process of assessment brings us closer to measuring knowledge creation, innovation, and creativity through this open teaching and learning course design that is activity-based. Learners who have been closely honed throughout the course become familiar with videography through practice and praxis. The learners, as they become videographers, are likewise turned into reviewers, critics, and evaluators allowed by this course design that maximizes the connectivity, interactivity, and ubiquity of digital technology, and digital pedagogy as well.

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) allows this openness maximizing the affordances of e-Learning as experienced in ODeL as platform and space for multimedia as research and production of content. However, it is even more than that, since the works produced are both art and science as well. Multimedia enhances the teaching and learning experiences of both open universities and traditional brick-and-mortar higher education institutions as they integrate ODeL and peer evaluation as one of the forms of assessment. Multimedia merges oral, visual, and written texts, and dictates new methodologies and modalities. This is a call for a continuing study of peer evaluation as a form of assessment in this ever changing digital environment and it is an important part of a multi-modal evaluation and assessment design.