Integrating project management and peer assessment: A case for increased teamwork

In the Erasmus+ project EPIC, students from different degree programmes, degrees, universities and countries work together in groups on authentic problems for the industry. The goals of EPIC are to explore how this approach can increase students’ learning and make them better prepared for both national and international labour markets. As student numbers are relatively low, EPIC allows for experiments with different ways of project organisation, such as the number of students per group and the level of integration of their contributions. Students participate in an EPIC semester, bringing different characteristics into their project team. Their level, e. g. bachelor or master and first year of more advanced, the degree programmes they are enrolled in, e. g. technical programmes, creative programmes or busines programmes, and the amount of time they invest in the project is different for each student, apart from the country of their university and their own (cultural) background. Especially with the students coming from different backgrounds and educational traditions, it is crucial to prepare them for effective and efficient groupwork during the EPIC semester. To support this, a platform called MECEPIC was developed that combines different features: exploring and outlining the background of each participating student and the added value of each student for the project, the project management and a peer assessment system that allows for reflection on the contribution of each individual student to the joint outcomes of the project. This paper aims to evaluate the use and the impact of the platform. An analysis of the data on project management and peer assessment as filled out by the students in the platform shows that it contributed to a more focused starts of the students as a team, streamlining the project and staying in control of the project deliverables and also showed that the peer assessment requires a strong involvement of supporting teachers and/or tutors.