Autorating: getting individual marks from team marks and enhancing teamwork

In most academic training institutes, projects performed by teams are used because of their efficient use of teaching and material resources. With the use of teams comes attendant problems. How to assess individual performance within teams from the results of team assessments? More importantly, how to ensure that individuals contribute equitably to team outcomes-the "passenger" syndrome? The Autorating system not only allows derivation of individual marks from team marks, but by devolving some power to team members in determining individual marks, the system promotes effective teamwork and discipline. This, in turn, promotes individual learning in team projects. The system is not a student self marking system, but combines the best features of supervisor team assessment with weightings determined by the team members. The system has been in widespread use for more than four years in the Departments of Communication and Electronic Engineering, and Computer Systems Engineering at the RMIT. With correct application, it has proven effective and reliable and is simple to implement, requiring only the use of a spreadsheet package.