Perceptions of the students’ learning and evaluation process in an e-learning course in Food Preservation Technology: a study case in a Food Consumption MSc

Food Preservation Technology is a main module within a course integrated in a Master of Science program in Food Consumption at Universidade Aberta, Portugal. The pedagogical model adopted at Universidade Aberta encourages open practices such as teamwork and participation at the forums for learning exchange. E-learning and b-learning tools are increasingly used in the actual global world, providing the students with a great opportunity to study from distance and submit their digital works or assignments for evaluation. However, in this case the distinctive evaluation of each student and classification with the respective grade may seem to be a significant problem for the teachers. During this module for each assignment topic, every student chose a different subject related to their professional or academic interests. This gives the student a chance to improve scientific knowledge within each topic and to further explore the proposed subject. Herein we have analysed how the different assignments that students completed within this module can reflect students’ commitment to study and actively seek for their own knowledge. Besides, the following points were also taken into consideration: (1) the difficulties that a teacher might have when evaluating students’ submitted assignments; (2) the tools that the teacher has to differentiate the quality of different assignments; as well as (3) the description of how grades can be differentiated between the students. The assignments were both teamwork and individual work that resulted from previous learning activities. In this paper, we have thus tried to understand the main limitations that students have to overcome while working on the evaluation assignments. The analytical data retrieved from the assignment’s forums reveal that only a very small part of information exchanged has a constructive nature and adds value to the work to be done. From the analysed data of the works presented by the students, it is evident that they did not use an accurate bibliographical state-of-the-art list. We also debate the teamwork evaluation process within the e-learning system and its relationship with the contemporary state-of-the-art of each discussed theme, namely Drying and water activity control, Chemical preservation, Curing, Pickling, Smoking, Fermentation, Modified atmosphere, High pressure processing, Ohmic heating, Irradiation, Membrane processing, Pulsed electric fields, and Microwave processing.