Co-creating rubrics: students’ perspective on their process and the

product designed in technology-enhanced learning environments

Santana Martel, Jennifer Saray1 y Perez-i-Garcias, Adolfina2

1
Education Department, Atlántico Medio University (Spain); 2Applied Pedagogy and Educational
Psychology Department, Balearic Islands University (Spain)

Abstract: Assessment co-creation practices are slowly increasing within higher education. This paper pres-
ents partial results of a greater investigation that aims to understand assessment co-creation from different
perspectives in technology-enhanced learning environments (TELE). We will specifically show results that
will contribute to assessment co-creation literature regarding students’ perspectives on the process of co-cre-
ating evaluation instruments (rubrics or assessment criteria) and the product co-created, as well as the benefits
and limitations that they perceived from the process. Consequently, we conducted qualitative multi-case study
and used a validated survey, which contained 5-Point Likert Scale and close-ended questions as well as open
questions, to collect data. So, we have used mixed methods since we analyzed students’ responses from both
quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The main results show that students perceive assessment co-creation
as a positive initiative that allows them to participate in their learning process and to be more engaged and
motivated in it, as well as to create learning communities. However, they also realized that there are certain
challenges such as time-consuming and extra effort within the process. Furthermore, they highlighted that in
order to meet assessment co-creation, there should be good communication between participants as well as a
change of roles in the learning process. Finally, this research has its limitations due to its nature. So, we do not
pretend that our results are generalized but contribute to the scarce literature to date.

Keywords: rubrics, assessment, learning co-design, higher education, student participation, TELE

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Learning co-design
Learning co-design is a recent pedagogical approach that entitles students to participate in different
academic settings which implies active collaboration of both staff and students. Furthermore, ‘co-cre-
ation of learning’, ‘students as partners’, ‘staff-student partnership’, ‘students’ voice’, and ‘participa-
tory designed’ are concepts that are strictly related to learning co-design (Santana-Martel & Perez-
i-Garcías, 2020). Nonetheless, only the first three concepts, usually used interchangeably, imply a
high level of commitment to their learning as well as their agency (Bovill, 2020). On the one hand,
Students as Partners refers to the collaborative work in the learning and teaching process between the
staff (whether academics, the faculty, or professional staff) and students in tertiary education (Mer-
cer-Mapstone, et al, 2017). Also, in the ‘students as partners’ model, students can participate in four
different areas of teaching and learning processes: ‘learning, teaching, and assessment; subject-based
research and inquiry; scholarship of teaching and learning; curriculum design and pedagogic consul-
tancy’ (Healey et al., 2014). Besides, ‘staff-student partnership’ has a similar meaning as ‘Students
as Partners’ but the term partnership implies a certain level of equality among participants, therefore
academics prefer the term co-creation (Bovill, 2019). Bovill, et. al (2016:196) defines co-creation of
learning as a process that “occurs when staff and students work collaboratively with one another to
create components of curricula and/or pedagogical approaches”. At the same time, there is a need to

1152 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

differentiate between two types of co-creation; the one that involves students participating as partners
in the whole curriculum (co-creation of the curriculum) and the one where professors and students
work collaboratively in the teaching and learning (co-creation in the curriculum) (Bovill & Woolmer,
2018:3). Also, within these processes students can assume four roles: ‘Representative’, ‘Consultant’,
‘Co-researcher’ and ‘Pedagogical co-designer’ (Bovill et al., 2016). Moreover, learners can be in-
volved in curriculum design at different levels, from non-interaction with students to controlling
decision-making and substantial influence (Bovill & Bulley, 2011). In addition, Kaminskienė et al.
(2020) identified key characteristics of co-creation in learning contexts. For instance, it has to be a
collaborative process where both teachers and professors are involved in the design of a new product
that requires some adjustments such as the role and position of both teacher and professors since none
should have priority over knowledge. Then, a learning community and partnership can be possible
within this process.
1.1.1. Assessment co-creation
In this paper, we will focus on co-creation in the curriculum, specifically on assessment. It is import-
ant to clarify that even though learning co-design has been used for a couple of decades now, assess-
ment co-creation is still a field that has not deeply been explored in higher education (Dollinger et
al., 2018). Nevertheless, some have attempted to work collaboratively with his/her students to engage
them in their own assessment process. Students can participate in assessment in many different ways,
from deciding the percentages of the task to be assessed to co-designing their exams. In the literature,
there have been different levels of participation in assessment co-creation. For instance, there have
been attempts to co-create students’ exams (Doyle et al., 2019; Doyle & Buckley, 2020; Doyle, et al.,
2020; Benítez-Sillero et. al, 2020). Others have co-designed with their students the essay titles of their
assignments (Deeley & Bovill, 2017) and the topics of their projects (Lubicz-Nawrocka & Owen,
2022). Also, some authors contributed to the literature as students and professors co-assessed assign-
ments by negotiating, reflecting, and coming to agreements about the grade each student would have
(Rodríguez-Goméz et al., 2012; Deeley, 2014; Deeley & Bovill, 2017; Quesada et al., 2017; Hussain
et al., 2019; Quesada et al., 2019; Hortigüela et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2020; Gómez-Ruiz, &
Quesada, 2020). Other authors have preferred to co-design either the criteria or the rubrics that they
would then use to evaluate students’ tasks (Deeley & Bovill, 2017; Walters et al., 2017; Hussain et al.,
2019). Finally, Triantafyllakos et al. (2011) co-created an assessment app with their students.
1.1.2. Benefits and limitations of learning co-design
On the one hand, diverse benefits from the learning co-design process have been pointed out through-
out the existing literature. First of all, students value the opportunity to participate and to be involved
in their learning process (Deeley & Bovill, 2017) although other authors registered that some students
were even shocked when they were offered to co-create with their professor (Bergmark & Westman,
2016). When involved in the process, students value that their professor heard them (Deeley and
Bovill, 2017), which makes them feel a sense of community (Bovill, 2020) where they form new
and closer relationship between staff-students and students-students (Deeley & Bovill, 2017). Bovill
(2020) believes “the strong relationships, trust, and shared decision-making at the heart of co-creating
learning and teaching require a focus on teacher and student attitudes, language, and behavior towards
one another” so that they can learn from each other through collaborative work (Bovill et al., 2016).
In addition, it has been studied that co-creation enables the development of practical, reasoning,
and professional skills (Dorta et al., 2016). On the other hand, students emphasized that co-creation
caused them ‘work overload’ and stress (Blau & Shamir-Inbal, 2018). They also stated that the lack

Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento 1153

of collaboration strategies (Blau & Shamir-Inbal, 2018) as well as the lack of tools to co-design (Har-
aldseid et al., 2016) generated frustration in them. Nonetheless, it has come to our attention that there
is a tendency to see more benefits than limitations to learning co-design from students’ points of view.

1.2. The role of ICT in learning co-design

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are tools that are present in the various educa-
tional processes of the 21st century, and therefore in learning co-design. Nevertheless, Gros (2019)
stated that there was scarce literature that embraces learning co-design enhanced by ICTs. However,
from this limited literature, we can give a glimpse of the use of ICTs in the ‘staff-student partnership’
in TELE. For instance, Virtual Learning Environments (such as Moodle or Google Classroom), seem
to be the most used tool (Villatoro & de Benito, 2021), followed by Videoconference systems (Blau
& Shamir-Inbal, 2018) and e-mails (Doyle et al., 2019) that have been predominantly used to foster
smooth communication between participants, but they also used to plan and prototype the co-design
product. To be specific, Wikis within Moodle have been used to interact and collaborate between
participants as well as the tool Group on Facebook social network (Gros & López, 2016). Durall
et al., (2020) indicated that to plan the co-creation process, they used a ‘looping Slideshow’, and to
prototype Canva. They also highlighted that, in science, Fablabs are valuable tools that allow partici-
pants to co-design. Furthermore, Tablets have also been used as means to prototype (Haraldseid et al.,
2016) as well as Hybrid Ideation Space (Dorta et al., 2016). Moreover, Villatoro & de Benito (2021)
synthesize some of the tools used to co-design that were also connected with self-regulation processes
and they divided them into three groups: the ones used to plan the process (infographic, calendar, and
message forum), the ones to prototype (Videos, Learning Management Systems, Storyboard, Con-
cept map, e-mail, questionnaires, Google Docs, WebQuests, Internet browser, social bookmarks, and
Computer-supported collaborative learning) and the ones where they reflect on their product (wiki,
concept map, Google Docs, forum, and infographic).
Turning to assessment co-creation in TELE, Kahoot (Benítez-Sillero et. al, 2020), emails (Doyle
et al., 2019), and PeerWise (Doyle & Buckley, 2020) have been used to prototype multiple-choice
questions. Besides, students developed video content as part of a co-created assignment (Doyle &
Buckley, 2020). Finally, it is relevant to highlight Aropä (Deeley & Bovill, 2017) and EvalCOMIX
(Quesada et al., 2017) as tools that are related to assessment co-creation processes.

2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research design
This study aims, on the one side, to know students’ perceptions of the co-creation process and product
and on the other, to get to know the possible benefits and limitations of this pedagogical approach in
TELE from students’ viewpoint. Therefore, we followed a qualitative approach where we combine
both the phenomenology approach and the multi-case study. The former is so that we could under-
stand the phenomenon from the participants involved in it (Neubauer et al., 2019), specifically the
students who experienced the co-creation process. We also thought that a collection of cases would
allow us to gather information to understand the phenomenon better. Consequently, in this qualitative
multi-case study (Stake, 2006), we seek to understand how students perceive assessment co-creation
in tertiary education as our ‘quintain’. To do so we formulated our main research question: ‘What is
the students’ perception of assessment co-creation processes in TELE?’ This is further divided into
six sub-questions:

1154 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

 1. How do students feel about the opportunity of participating in their own assessment in TELE?
2. How do students perceive the co-creation process in TELE?
3. Do students believe they have acquired or reinforced learnings and/or skills in TELE?
4. What do students think about the product they have co-designed with their teacher in TELE?
5. What are the benefits that assessment co-creation provides from students’ viewpoints in TELE?
6. What are the limitations that assessment co-creation provides from students’ viewpoints in
TELE?

2.2. Instrument and data collection

Consequently, to conduct this research, we validated a survey with six dimensions based on students’
perspectives regarding (1) their opportunity to participate, (2) the co-creation process, (3) learning
and skills acquired, (4) co-created product, (5) benefits, and (6) limitations. In this paper, we will
focus on the results of some of them (dimensions 2, 4, 5, and 6). The instrument has seven sections
distributed in sixteen questions. The first section has four questions related to general information and
the remaining six have twelve questions (two questions for each dimension) which are linked to each
dimension presented above. The former contained, on the one hand, two open questions related to age
and gender identity and, on the other, close questions in which students reported the subject where
they experienced the co-creation process and whether they had had the opportunity to co-design be-
fore and if so, students state when and how. On the other side, sections two to seven correspond to
each dimension (1-6). Each of these included two types of question: 5-point Likert scale questions
with different amounts of statements in each section (in the section that correspond to dimension 1: 8,
to dimension 2: 9, to dimension 3:15, to dimension 4:3, to dimension 5:9 and to dimension 6:7) and
an open question related to each dimension at the end of each section (2-7).
As for data collection, we chose both quantitative and qualitative data. On the one hand, we have
used descriptive applied statistics to analyze and summarise the data through frequency and percent-
ages (Díaz & Luna, 2014). To do so, we selected excel and calculated the frequency by using the
“COUNTIFS” function to generate the corresponding percentages. On the other hand, qualitative
data was analyzed following the inductive-deductive criteria (Kuchartz, 2019) as we first used con-
cept-driven development of categories retrieved from the current theory and then, data-driven codes
to collect as much information as possible related to the main categories (co-creation process, co-cre-
ated product, benefits, and limitations).

2.3. Participants and a brief description of the context

Three Post-Covid19 cases at the Balearic Islands University were chosen to implement assessment
co-creation processes in TELE. All cases had to adapt their learning style because of the pandemic.
Also, all subjects are related to educational technology and their audience are future teachers. In the
first case, six students, from the third semester of Primary Education Bachelor’s degree, co-designed
a rubric that would be later used to assess their assignment in the adapted e-learning (100%) course
(see table 1). In the second case, grading percentages and the criteria to assess their assignment in-
cluding the weight each item would have were co-designed by two students from the third semester of
Primary Education Bachelor’s degree and their professor in adapted e-learning (100%) subject. In the
last case, the whole group (14 students from the first semester of Early Childhood Education Bach-
elor’s Degree) co-designed with their professor the criteria of the main tasks of a blended learning
subject (50% face-to-face and 50% online). It is remarkable to understand that in the first two cases

Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento 1155

professors also use learning itineraries as a pedagogical approach. Considering the above, the co-de-
sign process was only developed in one of the itineraries offered within the subjects: in the first case
“Design of a didactic sequence enriched by ICTs” and in the second one “Research and present good
teaching practices”. Professors did not know how many students would choose each itinerary, so they
thought of the pathway that would benefit the most from the co-creation process before beginning the
course. Taking the former into account, all participants involved in the selected pathway of the first
case contributed to the product co-created whereas in the second one only two (out of five) decided to
participate in the co-design process. Nonetheless, all students within the pathway benefited from the
result of the co-creation process.

Table 1. Multiple cases general information.

Students
Bachelor’s involved in ICT used to co-crea-
Subject Campus Semester Learning modality
Degree assessment te assessment
co-creation
Technological Ibiza Primary 3 6 Traditional set- To communicate:
means and Education tings (face-to-face Zoom and Forum
resources teaching) before To prototype:
for teaching- Covid19 Google Docs
learning E-learning in post-
in primary pandemic situation
education
Technological Mallorca Primary 3 2 Traditional set- To communicate:
means and Education tings (face-to-face Zoom, Forum, and
resources teaching) before message
for teaching- Covid19 To initiate the co-
learning E-learning in post- creation process:
in primary pandemic situation Jamboard
education To prototype:
Google Docs
Audio-visual Mallorca Early 1 14 Blended learning To communicate:
and multimedia Childhood (75% face-to-face Zoom and Forum
communication Education teaching and 25% To prototype:
in Early online learning) Google Docs
Childhood before Covid19
Education Blended learning
(50% face-to-face
teaching and 50%
online learning)
in post-pandemic
situation

In addition, it is relevant to clarify that 63,6% of the participants (14 out of 22 students) that an-
swered the survey identified themselves with the feminine gender. Their age ranged from twenty to
twenty-five years old, except for a forty-four-year-old student. Another important detail is that none
of them had had the opportunity to co-design their assessment, except for one student who did so at
the university level in a different course.
Finally, it is remarkable to highlight the importance of the usage of ICT tools since they facilitated
the assessment co-creation process in all subjects. To communicate, they used ZOOM, Moodle fo-

1156 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

rum, and Moodle Message, to initiate the co-creation process they used ZOOM and Jamboard, and to
prototype Google Docs (see Table 1).

3. RESULTS
3.1. Students’ perspective of the co-creation process
On the one hand, concerning students’ perspective of the co-creation process, most students valued
positively the learning that they have acquired during the co-creation process (see figure 1, items 1 to
9). Accordingly, 87% of students stated that they had developed practical skills, whereas 80% stated
that they had developed reasoning ones. Regarding students’ beliefs on the guidance of the professor
as well as the dynamics offered, almost 90% of students perceived it positively. However, only 53%
of them strongly agreed with the fact that guidance was responsible for their capability of participat-
ing effectively in the co-design process. In contrast, almost 70% of students valued positively the
steps given by their lecturer to achieve their product. Finally, students felt generally heard by their
professor (53% strongly agreed and 27% agreed with item 9) whereas only slightly more than half of
the students developed empathy with the teacher when it came to evaluation processes.

Figure 1. Students’ perception of the co-creation process and its product

Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento 1157

 Regarding the qualitative data collected to analyze students’ perceptions of their learning through-
out the co-design process, students believe it was a positive experience. Some students thought so
since it allowed them to acquire knowledge. Others thought it gave them assessment literacy and
therefore they had clarity on the evaluation process. Some others (3 students) indicated that their
learning performance had improved and that was linked with another student’s idea about the effort
that was needed within the process. Furthermore, some students said that it was a useful strategy and
this was associated to some other students’ ideas of the opportunity to be involved in their own assess-
ment process. Consequently, a student thought that this kind of methodology should be implemented
frequently. Besides, a small group of students stated that they were heard and therefore professors and
students could reach an agreement. Nonetheless, some inconsistency aroused when talking about the
process itself, as one student stated it was a simple process since they were meant to think individual-
ly and bring some ideas to the meetings to reach agreements. Finally, another student expressed that
due to her absence the co-creation process became rather difficult.

3.2. Students’ perspective of the co-created product

On the other hand, students’ perception of the product co-created is quite positive (see figure 1, items
10 to 12). 80% of them believed that it reflected the work developed for the construction of the rubric/
criteria of evaluation and 87% thought that it was useful for their teaching-learning process. Finally,
73% of the students expressed their satisfaction with the product co-designed but 13% of them re-
mained neutral and 7% strongly disagreed.

Figure 2. Categories and subcategories of students’ perception of the co-created product

Regarding the qualitative data (see figure 2), all students stated that they had a positive perception
of the product co-created, except for one student who declared that she did not consider the product
co-created to be useful to carry out her assignment. In contrast, another student expressed that the
product co-created had been useful to her due to its practicality. Also, another student stated that
the rubric facilitated the assessment process and another one declared that having the assessment
knowledge helps them with their tasks. Due to the above, another student pointed out that the product

1158 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

co-created was a good instrument to assess their assignment in this course but also in other subjects.
On the other hand, another student explained that it was a challenge at the beginning as they did not
have the knowledge to do the task. Nonetheless, she believed that they co-designed a good product in
the end. Related to the foregoing, another student thought it was hard for them to get involved in the
co-creation process because they were not used to doing these types of tasks and they did not really
get what they had to do at the beginning. However, she also stated that they developed a great assess-
ment instrument. Finally, some students expressed that they believed that the product was the result
of an improvement process that required several meetings, constant work, and time.

3.3. Benefits of assessment co-creation

Most students (80%) thought that co-creating assessment was a creative and original pedagogical
approach and more than 70% of students had a positive response to being involved in their evaluation
process (see figure 3). Also, assessment co-creation allowed 80% of the students to set achievable
goals that meet their educational interests, to have tools to manage their learning, and to improve the
quality of their assignments. Besides, more than 70% of students believed their engagement within
the subject increased due to this learning process as well as the relationship between staff-student
and student-student. Furthermore, 60% of students thought that co-designing made them feel more
motivated in their teaching-learning process. Nonetheless, almost 30% of students remained neutral.
Finally, it is noticeable that one of the surveyed students strongly disagreed with all the statements,
giving the impression that this person did not find any benefits to this pedagogical process.

Figure 3. Benefits of co-creating assessment according to students.

Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento 1159

 Furthermore, regarding the qualitative data, students expressed multiple benefits related to their
co-design process. Firstly, one student said that the process had allowed her to understand where she
wanted to go and how she was getting there, enabling students to set goals and achieve them. Secondly,
some students pointed out as a benefit the fact that both professor and students had to make decisions to
come to an agreement in terms of assessment. They also claimed that their motivation increased as they
felt they were heard. Besides, two students’ valued that communication between peers and staff-stu-
dents had improved and therefore, a closer relationship among the group was built. This contributed to
students’ engagement since they felt they were working collaboratively (both peers and staff-student)
as equals and respecting each other’s ideas to create new content. In addition, some students believed
that assessment co-creation had enabled them to acquire the knowledge they required to do their tasks
properly. They also stated that they committed to both the subject and the assignment due to this process.
Some of them also perceived that they were able to improve their assignments by recognizing their mis-
takes, enabling them to be more critical. Likewise, two students indicated that they had developed, on
the one hand, empathy towards their teacher and, on the other, professional skills. Finally, some students
found that assessment co-creation had allowed them to manage their learning process.

3.4. Limitations of assessment co-creation

On the other hand, the biggest limitation found by the students was the collaborative work (see figure
4) since some students thought that working collaboratively with their classmates (40%) and with their
teacher (20%) during the co-creation process was complicated. Controversy, around 50% of students
disagreed or strongly disagreed with these statements. Also, 13% of students would have preferred to let
the teacher decide on the evaluation process in contrast to 60% who either disagreed (7%) or strongly
disagreed (53%) with this fact. It has come to our attention that whereas 73% of students did not find it
difficult to defend their arguments during the process as well as felt that they were heard by their profes-
sor during the process, only 7% thought the opposite and 13% remained neutral. Similarly, 60% of stu-
dents did not find co-creating their assessment with their professor a tense, uncomfortable, or complex
process, and only one thought otherwise (7%) and four remained neutral (27%).

Figure 4. Limitations of co-creating assessment according to students.

1160 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

 In addition, three students felt that giving their opinion and reaching agreements was a difficult
process (see figure 5). Another student stated that this process did not make sense if the professor had
the last word. She also declared that the product co-designed did not help them to improve her grade,
finding this process useless. Another limitation highlighted by three students was that the process was
time-consuming and one of them expressed that it delayed the assessment process itself. Furthermore,
one student pointed out that the student’s absence could be a limitation since she could not attend all
the meetings. Nonetheless, half of the students believed that there were no disadvantages to assess-
ment co-creation. One student stated that there were challenges, but she explained that those chal-
lenges were also the ones that helped them mature. Another one expressed that she found the process
to be creative and innovative. Nonetheless, some of them raised the need for some requirements to
co-design the assessment. For instance, three students highlighted the importance of professors’ role
connected to the idea of enabling a good communication environment and the relevance of listening
to students’ voices as well as providing proper guidance. To close, another student considered that
students’ commitment and motivation are required if we want the process to succeed.

Figure 5. Categories and subcategories of students’ perception of the limitations of assessment co-creation.

4. DISCUSION
In this research, the student’s perception of learning co-designed, specifically in assessment co-cre-
ation of both rubrics and evaluation criteria, has been analyzed. Firstly, students declared their per-
spective on how they had experienced the co-creation process. Secondly, they evaluated the product
they prototyped with their professor. Thirdly, they expressed the benefits that they experienced during
the co-design process. Finally, they stated the limitations encountered in the process and established
some requirements to be met for assessment co-creation.
In this sense, we have seen there are certain similarities regarding other authors’ results. For in-
stance, there is evidence, on the one hand, of acquiring practical and reasoning skills as well as

Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento 1161

professional ones (Blau & Shamir-Inbal, 2018) and, on the other, of improving their learning and be-
lieving it was a significant one (Deeley & Bovill, 2017). Also, students appreciated the chance to par-
ticipate in this initiative since they could control their learning processes (Gros & López, 2016), even
showing surprise when they were offered the opportunity (Bergmark & Westman, 2016). Similarly,
they stated that thanks to this academic process they were able to set achievable goals and manage
their learning, giving them the possibility of improving the quality of their task (Blau & Shamir-Inbal,
2018), since they also stated they became more critical (Deeley, 2014).
We also infer, from our results and the current literature, that one of the biggest benefits of the
co-creation process is the sense of learning community that is developed since closer relationships
arise in decision-making moments (Bovill, 2020) and so, communication between both student-stu-
dent and professor-student increase (Deeley, 2014). Because of that new relationship, it has been
claimed that students are more engaged and motivated in their learning processes (Deeley and Bovill,
2017). Some students indeed stated that it was difficult to reach agreements and this idea was asso-
ciated with the fact that they had to work collaboratively with both professors and peers. However,
approximately half of students in this multi-case study stated the opposite, showing they found it easy
to work collaboratively within the process as in Bergmark and Westman, (2016) and Deeley and Bo-
vill’s (2017) investigations. As for limitations, and related to the above, a student pointed out that the
process was pointless if the professor had the last word, bringing to light the struggle a teacher may
face in giving up power within co-creation (Bovill, 2020). Another challenge that has arisen in learn-
ing co-design is related to the requirement of constant work and time (Bovil, 2020). Finally, students
felt that in order to accomplish co-creation some conditions should be established: (1) professors
should enable good communication (Deeley & Bovill, 2017), (2) they should offer proper guidance,
(3) they should listen to their students (Dorta et al., 2016) and (4) students need to be committed
and motivated. We would complement these requirements with Cook-Sahter et al. (2014) ones; both
teachers and students should share responsibility and reciprocity. Overall, we infer that students had
a positive impression of the co-creation process otherwise, they would not be willing to implement it
in other subjects (Bovill et al., 2016).

5. CONCLUSIONS
Co-creation is becoming an appealing methodology for those who truly believe in student-center
learning in TELE, where students must be active and contribute to their learning. Also, those who
see students as acknowledgeable agents within the teaching-learning process and not as subjects
that remain passive in receiving information. XXI century education has moved towards this kind
of learning approach and therefore, learning co-design seems to be gaining traction in the past few
decades. Nevertheless, assessment co-creation has not yet been fully explored to our knowledge.
Consequently, there is plenty of research to conduct in this area.
This study describes the particularities of three specific cases to contribute to the scarce literature
on assessment co-creation in TELE but it does not seek to generalize the results presented. In partic-
ular, this research has examined the phenomenon of co-designing the evaluation instruments, both
rubrics and assessment criteria, under the lens of students’ perceptions. On the one hand, students
reflected on the process of co-creating and the product that they prototyped together with their class-
mates and the professor. On the other hand, they declared the benefits and limitations they perceived
from this process as well as suggesting some requirements in order to co-create.
In summary, in this multi-case study, we have discovered that students found that the process of
assessment co-creation had more benefits than challenges and they also had positive feedback on

1162 Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

the product designed collaboratively with their professor. As for benefits, students highlighted: (1)
improvement of their learnings and assignments, (2) acquirement of practical, reasoning, critical,
professional, and communicative skills, (3) opportunity to be involved as active learners in their
assessment process, (4) sense of learning community and (5) enhancement of engagement and mo-
tivation. On the other hand, students found that assessment co-creation became rather difficult in
terms of working collaboratively. They also found the requirement of extra time and constant effort
a limitation. Furthermore, students declared that to co-create assessment certain conditions should
be fulfilled: the professor should provide good guidance and enable good communication, including
listening to students’ voices. In addition, all participants, especially students, should be engaged and
motivated. Nonetheless, due to the nature of this study, the information given should be understood
as the description of the phenomenon that occurred in three specific cases with a limited and homoge-
neous group of students, being this our biggest limitation. Therefore, we do not attempt to generalize
our results. However, we believe that our contribution amplifies the limited literature on assessment
co-creation, specifically in co-designing rubrics and assessment criteria.

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