Peer Review Mechanism Seminar Held At GCTU
The Ghana Communication Technology University (GCTU) has held a seminar on Peer Review Skills for Faculty members from the 30th to 31st October, 2023 at the Eva Von Hirsch Auditorium.
The two days seminar, which was held on the theme: “Academic Peer Review,” aimed at evaluating the quality and sustainability of teaching and learning activities of the University’s faculty members to prepare students for the labour market.
Giving his remarks at the seminar, the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Robert Ebo Hinson, urged all staff members to utilize the knowledge they would acquire through the seminar seriously, as it was a tool to enhance a good and healthy Student-lecturer relationship.
The Director of Human Resource and Organizational Development, Dr. Emmanuel Adjepong, who was the MC said that all the workshops organized by the University are in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 4(SDG). He added that, the University’s Strategic Plan provides for students experience as well as workshops to enhance teaching and learning and therefore the workshop was appropriately set.
In his seminar presentation, the Facilitator and Head of Quality Assurance, Ho Technical University, Dr. Kofi Ashiboe-Mensah, emphasized that “Academic Peer Review” is a self-regulation activity conducted by faculty members within relevant fields through the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies. This exercise is used to improve performance, maintain quality standards and provide credibility to the assessed. He indicated that the essence of “Teaching Observation” is to seek feedback from an informed colleague for the purpose of improving one’s practice (formative assessment) and/or evaluating it (summation assessment). The Facilitator observed that the exercise required multi-faceted approaches in which Clarity, Validity, Practicality, Efficiency and Fairness constitute the criteria for undertaking peer review observations.
On the issue of internal moderation of examinations, Dr. Ashiboe-Mensah said that the essence is to identify and correct the percentage of errors to improve the quality of examination questions and marking schemes and to also satisfy moderation requirements. He added that, the requisite materials for moderation of examination questions are: examination paper, marking scheme, course outline, specific time-table.
The event, which was simultaneously held virtually and face-to-face, was attended by senior officers including the Registrar, Mr. Emmanuel Baidoo, the Dean of Business, Prof. George Ampong, the Director of ICT, Prof. Stephen Asunka and the Ag. Dean of Engineering, Dr. Ruhiya Abubakar.
