Assignment's assessment and management of university students via e-mail

摘要

E-mail is a means of online teaching that has prospered recently in universities. There is a short term background of using Email for assignments’ management and assessment. In this study, I investigated different dimensions of E- mail applicability and usefulness for assessing assignments and its strengths and weaknesses among new students. With this intention, I based my case study on 158 students in three courses and one professor during a semester. By monitoring case studies and observing self reporting checklists I investigated the behaviours of students and their E-mails. The results showed that speed of transmission and giving feedback is much higher than other current methods. Possibility of electronic search for assignments, giving feedback to students without time and place restriction, group feedbacks and guidance, and reinforcements of teaching – learning in informal times are advantages of using E-mail as a tool for assignment management. However, using E- mail has some limitations, too. Restricting communication to writing, prolonged individual feedbacks, repetitive E- mails, misunderstanding and technical problems among new students are weaknesses of using e- mail for assessing assignments. At the end I’ll offer some recommendations to make E- mail an effective means for assignment assessment.