This article reports on the development, implementation and qualitative evaluation of an innovative and authentic learning environment in a higher education setting. The changeover of a course of study from internal students only to include both internal and external mode has many ramifications, not least the necessary redesign of a group project and presentation assessment task.

Analysis of the student demographics, the learning environment and the pedagogical underpinnings, together with the requirements of the task led to a redesign to enable virtual collaboration between group members culminating in the creation of a set of communal resources in a wiki.

The researchers were particularly interested in the student perception of an innovative application of collaborative software (a wiki) in an authentic learning and assessment task with diversity of outcomes. The wiki is considered to be one of the emerging technologies with a real-world relevance and will have a major impact on teaching and learning yet is one least used amongst students.

Concerns about the digital divide between digital natives and second wave adopters were shown to be unfounded. Student comments are interspersed throughout the article to reflect their lived experience relating to the process which seamlessly integrated learning with the task. Descriptions by them show how they became embedded in a collaborative social practice. They were empowered to examine information from a variety of perspectives as they articulated, reflected upon and shaped content in an iterative manner.

Implications and recommendations for improvement in future practice are made.

Keywords: authentic assessment, psychology, wiki