The document provides guidance for students in a group project on how to evaluate each other's contributions. Each student will give marks to their group members, which will be averaged to determine 10% of the final grade. Students are told to consider various types of contributions like ideas, writing, technical work, and interpersonal roles. They are also encouraged to have clear communication, reassign roles if needed, and give feedback at a mid-point meeting to improve their work.

1. Damian Gordon

2.  Part of the marking for this assessment will
be done by you...
 So 10% of the marks are going on your
performance within the group
 To allow me to calculate this mark you are
going to have to give a mark to each member
of your group, and I will take all of the marks
for each person and average them out

3.  These marks must be done carefully and with
consideration...
 Be kind and be generous to others when you
give them a mark
 To do well yourself in this process make it
clear at meetings what you are working on

4.  You have to give a mark to each of the group
members based on their performance:
◦ NOT on whether or not they have the same
technical skills or writing ability as you
◦ NOT on whether they were participating remotely or
were present in person
◦ NOT on whether you thought a lot of their
contributions were irrelevant, and that yours were
always 100% relevant
◦ NOT on your personal view of them

5.  Mark based on how they contributed to the
assessment AND to the team...

6.  It is important to recognise that different
people will have contributed differently to the
project:
◦ some may have thought of a lot of ideas
◦ some will have written a lot of the report
◦ some will have helped the team bond and helped
you work as a unit by cooking a meal,
◦ some will have done a lot of technical work
◦ etc.
 all of these activities contribute to the
successful completion of a project and should
be recognised

7.  At the start of this process you should sit down
as a group and decide on who will do what parts
of the assessment and roughly the timeframe for
each task (using a methodology like SCRUM can
help you with this)
 Now decide a bit of leeway for everyone, if any
member can’t contribute for a few meetings
because of personal circumstances decide that
that’s OK, there will be no recriminations as long
as everyone is kept informed

8.  You might consider criteria such as the
following for how you will mark each other:
1. Reliability and Responsibility
2. Participation in Group Work
3. Intellectual Contribution
4. Contribution to Technical Work
5. Contribution to Written Work

9.  As well as the tasks, look at the roles each of
you may play
 You might look at Meredith Belbin’s Team
Roles for inspiration (noting that each person
can play multiple and overlapping roles)...

10.  Plants are creative, imaginative, unorthodox
team-members who solves difficult problems
 Resource Investigators explores
opportunities, make contacts, shares external
information; negotiates with outsiders;
responds well to challenges
 Monitor Evaluators contribute a measured
and dispassionate analysis and, through
objectivity, stops the team committing itself
to a misguided task

11.  Co-ordinators Clarifies goals; helps allocate
roles, responsibilities, and duties; articulates
group conclusions
 Implementers are practical thinkers who can
create systems and processes that will
produce what the team wants.
 Completer Finishers are the detail people
within the team. They have a great eye for
spotting flaws and gaps and for knowing
exactly where the team is in relation to its
schedule.

12.  Teamworkers give personal support and help to
others; are socially oriented and sensitive to
others; they resolves conflicts; they calms the
waters; they serve as an in-group diplomat
 Shapers love a challenge and thrives on pressure,
they push the group toward agreement and
decisions and they can challenges others
 Specialist bring 'specialist' knowledge to the
team. Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated;
they provide unique or rare expertise and skills

13.  But people aren’t robots, even if they are
undertaking these roles, they might not
always fulfil their roles perfectly, so please
give your group a bit of leeway as well
 Belbin suggests some allowable weaknesses
for each role...

14.  Plants can be unorthodox or forgetful
 Resource Investigators can forget to follow up
on a lead
 Monitor Evaluators can be overly critical and
slow moving

15.  Co-ordinators can over-delegate leaving
themselves little work to do
 Implementers can be slow to relinquish their
plans in favour of positive changes
 Completer Finishers can be accused of taking
their perfectionism to the extremes

16.  Teamworkers can become indecisive when
unpopular decisions need to be made
 Shapers can risk becoming aggressive and
bad-humoured in their attempts to get things
done
 Specialist can have a tendency to focus
narrowly on their own subject of choice

17.  When you are halfway through the project I
suggest you have a meeting where you see
what is working and see what is not working
 Communicate honestly and clearly with each
other
 If someone isn’t completing their tasks,
consider if there is any help you can give
 Don’t blame, and don’t label, just express
your own views, start each sentence with “I
really feel that...”
 Reassign roles and tasks where necessary

18.  Try to clear up any misunderstandings as
soon as possible
 Clear communication is really important
 If you get an e-mail you don’t like, phone the
person or meet with them and discuss it
 Don’t let things fester in the group

19.  Have a final meeting before completing the
assignment where each of you are given a
chance to express what you did for the
project, and how you felt it went (..so take
notes during the project on the work you are
doing...)
 You are marking each member based on the
tasks and the roles they undertook during
this process.

20.  These evaluations will be absolutely
confidential.
 No student will have any access to your
evaluations at any time.
 Each student will be informed about the
overall picture of the evaluations she or he
has received from others at the end of the
course.
 No student should ask any other student
about these evaluations.