Before I disagree with this article, let me say that it is quite a good article and that educators interested in incorporating discussion into their online course should read it. To a large degree this article looks at the assessment of discussion contributions in an online course and proposes an assessment metric. OK. But this is also an article that asks, seriously, whether students should even be told they are being assessed before they make their first post. It is an article that proposes that "promptness and initiative" - essentially the speed and frequency with which a person posts - ought to be included in the assessment. Another criterion would penalize students for spelling and grammatical errors. Another penalizes the student for not staying on topic. In other words, the criteria take defining characteristics of typical internet conversations and penalize them. I don't agree with that. Indeed, I'm not sure that I agree with assessing discussion posts at all - the failure of students to use discussion areas is to me a design issue, and the use of marking to force students to take part in discussions seems to me to be a way of using a power relationship to make up for flaws in the course.
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