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Credit & Evaluation
Redesigning the C&E process at NID
Introduction
Established in 1961, NID is a pioneer of design education in India. Throughout the decades that followed, the institute has continuously undergone many changes in the structure, pedagogy and curriculum to adapt to the growing needs, demands and pace of the industry.
Traditionally in NID, the way of assessment of a student's work was by designating individual projects and marking the project "complete" or "incomplete" by the faculty when the work is presented by the student. A student could invest as much time required by him/her to finish the same.
A lot of students were pursuing further studies from universities and college across the globe after their course completion at NID. The absence of a time frame for completion also led to a lot of student back logs. There was an emerging need to fit into the international evaluation criteria in this scenario and hence "The Credit & Evaluation" system was introduced to NID in the early 2000's
About the project
The Credit & Evaluation system was created to track performance of a student and help teachers and students themselves to analyse and work positively for improvement. The original intent of the system eventually deviated as grades became a medium of comparison instead of being a necessary feedback system. The two week long project focused on DESIGNING & DEFINING an effective Credit & evaluation system for M.Des students.
Approach
The project aimed to tune the attributes of leadership to the C&E system so that it serves the purpose of inspiring students to perform better every time. We went about the whole process in 5 phases.
PHASE- 1
TO STUDY THE EXISTING MODEL
PHASE- 2
TO UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS
Question or Challenge if the system is actually required
Understand the purpose & intent
PHASE- 3
ENQUIRIES WITH THE DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
PHASE- 4
ANALYSING THE DATA COLLECTED
Qualities that should ideally be in the system which can help achieve the intent and make the functioning of the process effective
VS
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Where is the current system falling short
- Behaviours that are hence emergent and hinders from achieving intended results
PHASE- 5
ANALYSING & GATHERING INSIGHTS FROM PHASE 4.
CONCEPT GENERATION TO COME UP WITH DESIGN SOLUTIONS.
Research Methods Adopted
In order to gather information necessary for the generation of insights, we used various research techniques which helped us steer through the process.
A semi-structured interview provides more open-ended questions, allowing for a discussion with the interviewee rather than a straightforward question and answer format.
Semi-structured Interviews
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5 whys) is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem.The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question "Why?". Each answer forms the basis of the next question.
5 whys
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Discussions as a group of two
Diads
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Discussions as a group of three
Triads
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Word Concept Association
Word Concept Association is a way to identify relationships between two stimulus words based on the response words. Besides the relationship between words, the association also gives an indication of the participants’ mental models and language i.e. how participants associate one thing with another.
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Gaps Identified
Few of the major gaps identified are as follows:
Grading scale is subjective to teachers and students. There is a lack in standardization of the process.
Feedback section in the evaluation is not a mandatory section. Lack of feedback creates ambiguity for the students.
The same evaluation parameters are followed for different module subjects. In few cases the parameters does not prove suitable to the related module at all.
Lack of clarity in the evaluation criteria followed by faculty, instead encourages competitiveness and thus hampers peer-to-peer learning.
Time gap between course completion and feedback breaks the continuity and ability to recollect and relate to instances from the class.
How should the process lead?
What leadership qualities should the process have, in order to make the functioning more effective.
How should the process in itself lead?
Be Conversational
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Two way channel of communication
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Facilitate dialogues & transfer of knowledge between faculty and students (on the evaluation criterias)
Build Trust
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Transparent evaluation criteria, so that there is no fear of biased judgement
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Inputs of both students & teachers should be included for evaluation
Be Constructive
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Strive for excellence and not for averages
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Encourage improvement
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Promote pursuit of knowledge
Guide
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Evaluation to provide a direction to movie forward. For example provide insight on where to focus more on and how to go forward with it
Design Directions
Inducing Transparency & Flexibility can create more credibility for the system
There is a lack of clarity of criteria undertaken to give marks to a student in a particular subject. This reduces the value perception of score assigned to students.
There should be an access for students to know the evaluation criteria undertaken by a faculty while assigning students with a particular score for the subject.
Feedback column is an integral part of the C&E report, which gives insight on why a faculty has given a particular score. Feedback from faculty is mostly left blank in the current C&E reports
Why is it lacking currently?
Faculties have to align their evaluation criteria to the template of parameters provided to them
Less motivation to give a genuine feedback
Leads to low ownership
Design Direction 1
UNIFIED APPLICATION PLATFORM
Create an avenue to fill and analyse evaluation given by self, peer, and faculty
Rule of Averages
creates Mediocrity
Individual starts to strive for only average in grade system, not improvement from previous.
Why?
No criteria wise progress tracking tool. Creates confusion on own position/performance.
Scope of Tracking has to be for modules of same category, not the CGPA between semesters.
Student should be able to track progress of skills acquired from each category of subjects. For example, an apparel design student should be able to track their progress in subjects in areas like garment construction, draping etc from semester 1 to final semester to understand how they have progressed and areas of improvement.
Design Direction 2
SKILL WISE PROGRESS TRACKING from the previous semester
Team Record- Understand & Grow
Team Record is an application which enables you to understand evaluation criteria for a subject and help you in improving in the particular subject.
Features
Team Record is an application which enables you to understand evaluation criteria for a subject and help you in improving int he particular subject
Meet your faculty personally
Semester Timetable
Faculty Feedback Forum
Lets you fix a convenient time slot to meet faculty, when they will be free from office work, present in their cabin and be available to give feedback to the students
Evaluation Criteria
Shows the criteria that is followed for assessment
Peer Feedback Forum
Peers give you feedback on your work. They can choose to do so anonymously also. The comments have to follow the code of conduct on the platform
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