Evaluation of report-based assignments, especially in larger classes, adds a considerable marking load. Even with detailed rubrics, subjectivity may lead to grading variations and inaccuracies. Evaluation of others’ work can also be a very informative and educational experience, improving their skill through exposure to a broader performance range. Involving students in peer evaluation can potentially address both of these issues by reducing marking load, providing alternate (and increased number of) assessments, and by exposing students to a broader spectrum of report skills thus enhancing their own knowledge. This paper discusses the results of an experiment in peer assessment and whether it can be exploited to reduce marking effort, improve accuracy for report assignment evaluation and improve student skill. The data was gathered from assignments in two different engineering classes: a second year course on safety and environmental stewardship, and a senior course on engineering economics. For the second-year course, an individual essay assignment was marked by the instructor and two peers.  The three evaluations were analyzed to assess the accuracy and assign a grade. For the senior course, a group report on a case study was self and peer evaluated.  These evaluations were used to derive a grade for the report directly if the self and peer results were within a prescribed tolerance; other cases were resolved by instructor intervention. The results were analyzed considering the number of outliers, range of scores, and the number of cases which had to be resolved by theinstructor. Parameters considered in assessing the results of the experiment included: the correlation between assessments, the learning opportunities for students, and instructor marking effort required. (preliminary analysis) Results suggest positive gains in reducing effort.  Improved accuracy and enhanced student learning are also expected.

Knowledge of Engineering Economics is a required outcome for accreditation in most engineering colleges in Canada, the United States, and many other countries. This outcome is often fulfilled by offering a course focused on Engineering Economics. Open textbooks are textbooks that are licensed under an open copyright license and reside in the public domain. These resources are made available for free to students, instructors, and the general publicessentially anyone can access these resources for free. Engineering Economics textbooks from major publishers typically cost between $100 and $200 USD to purchase new. Our Engineering College had undertaken a review of their Engineering Economics course; evaluating the method of teaching, the topics covered in the course, and the education resources available. The review highlighted additional topics that should be covered in the course and corresponding gaps in available textbook resources. An opportunity to create an open textbook for the course was pursued to provide a resource to students that was not available. This open textbook focuses on engineering problems and particularly on topics and cases relevant to Canadian Engineers, the Canadian tax system, and includes some topics not typically covered in traditional engineering economics textbooks such as budgeting, cost estimation, and the determination of product costs using principles from management accounting. One of the most beneficial aspects of open textbooks is that others may use the book and modify it for their interest or application. This textbook contains few sections, mainly related to taxes, that would have to be adapted to a specific country to make the textbook applicable to other regions of the world. To facilitate the development of the open textbook, funding was made available to the project that allowed the primary authors to hire two undergraduate students and one graduate student to help in the development of the textbook. The two undergraduate students had previously taken the engineering economics course while the graduate student was in a graduate program in economics. This strategy was extremely beneficial to both the instructors as primary authors and the students as contributors. For the student contributors, their work on the open textbook allowed them to more fully understand the course concepts and apply them to examples and cases for the textbook. For the primary authors this work arrangement reduced their workload and provided feedback related to clarity of the explanations and example problems used in the textbook.

Through the development of a new course focused on spatial analysis and civil engineering drawings and design, several systems were used for learning management, student response, and video content to improve the educational experience of students and provided feedback to the instructor regarding the performance of the course. The features primarily used in the course were the BlackBoard Learning Management System (LMS), TopHat audience response system, Panopto video platform, and LinkedIn Learning resources.