Scaffolded Writing and Rewriting in the Discipline (SWoRD)
www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/sword/index.html
Summary
"SWoRD is a web-based reciprocal peer review system. In less fancy terms, students turn their class papers into SWoRD, which then assigns this paper to five or six peers in the class. The peers grade the paper and give advice for how to improve it. Students revise the paper and turn it back in to SWoRD, which distributes the paper to the same peers for final review. SWoRD determines the accuracy of the ratings through a complex process of separating out different kinds of bias in grading. The authors rate the advice given to them in terms of helpfulness. Reviewers get a grade for their work which is one half accuracy and one half helpfulness. In this way, reviewers must work hard and take their task seriously. SWoRD has been used in many different courses (graduate and undergraduate), in many different disciplines and at many different universities. The grades that are produced are just as reliable and accurate as instructor grades, and authors get advice that is possibly more useful than what they would have received from an instructor. Most importantly, SWoRD allows the instructor to assign writing tasks of the most important kind (with feedback and revision) without having to do any grading at all, which means that writing practice can now take place in every class (from small sections of 10 students to large sections of 1000 students). SWoRD is free for use. Instructors create an account and setup a course in SWoRD. Students then create their own accounts on SWoRD and sign-up for the class."
People
Project Publications
- Cho, K., Chung, T. R., King, W. R., & Schunn, C. D. (2008). Peer-based computer-supported knowledge refinement: An empirical investigation. Communications of the ACM, 51(3), 83-88. (Abstract-html)
- Nelson, M. M., & Schunn, C. D. (2008). The nature of feedback: How different types of peer feedback affect writing performance. Instructional Science. (Abstract-html)
- Cho, K., & Schunn, C. D. (2007). Scaffolded writing and rewriting in the discipline: A web-based reciprocal peer review system. Computers & Education. (Abstract-html)
- Cho, K., Schunn, C. D., & Kwon, K. (2007). Learning writing by reviewing in science. Proceedings of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. New Jersey. (Abstract-html)
- Cho, K., Schunn, C. D., & Charney, D. (2006). Commenting on writing: Typology and perceived helpfulness of comments from novice peer reviewers and subject matter experts. Written Communication, 23(3), 260-294. (Abstract-html)
