Go to Grademark and click on the Quickmark Editor button located at the top right of the Grademark window.

The Quickmark Manager window will load. The left column shows Grademark sets. The middle column lists individual comments (Quickmarks) included in the selected set. The right column shows options for the selected set.

Click on the name of the set you wish to export (in the left column) so that it becomes highlighted. The individual comments for that set will load into the middle column for you to review/revise if necessary.

Click the small Export icon (looks like a square with an arrow) seen towards the top right of the Quickmark Manager window, then choose Export.

Choose to save the file. Save it somewhere that you can easily find again.

Click the Done button at the bottom-right  to close the QuickMark Editor window and return to Grademark.

Import an exported  Quickmark Set

Go to Grademark in your chosen unit and Assignment Submission Folder. Choose the Quickmark Editor option (as shown for Export a Grademark Set towards the top of this page ), then choose the Export icon. Choose the Import option. A new window will open. Browse for your exported file by clicking on the Browser button. Select your file (it will upload), then click Import.

Click the Done button at the bottom-right when done to close the Quickmark Editor window and return to Grademark. You should now be able to mark with your imported set.

To upload an assignment file to MyLO, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Check the assignment requirements to ensure that your file is in the correct format.

Step 2: Log into your MyLO unit and select the Assessments Menu on the toolbar. Then choose the option “Assignments” (as highlighted below).

Step 3: You will see a list of  Assignment Submission Folders (see example below). Ensure you select the correct folder, then click on the Folder name to open it. You are responsible for selecting the correct folder.

Step 4: Select the Add a File button. You may need to scroll down to see it, if a rubric is associated with the assignment you may need to scroll past the rubric also.

Step 5: A dialogue box, like the one below, will open. If your file is on MyLO in the locker (or a group locker) you can choose those options. Or you can choose to upload from your computer.

If you need to select a file from your computer you will see a dialog box where you can either drag/drop the file or click the “Upload” button to ‘Browse’ for a file.

Step 6: Once uploaded, the selected file will appear beneath the Upload button. You can continue to upload files into this area by repeating Step 5. Once you have uploaded all the relevant files, select the Add button, shown circled below. Please note: This is NOT the final step!

Step 7: You will return to the Assignment area, where you will a list of the files that you are about to submit. Check  that they are the correct files. You can click on any file in the list to preview it. You may wish to enter a note to the marker into the Comments field. Finally, select the Submit button, as shown below.

Once you have submitted your assignment, you should receive a confirmation email at your UTAS email address.

Step 8: You will see a confirmation area. Select the Done button, or you can upload more files if you need.

Back in the Assignments tool you will see a number in a column titled Submissions. To check what you have submitted, click on this number. If you cannot see any number listed, then it means that your submission was not successful and you will need to try again. If you need to upload more files, click the name of the Assignment and follow the above steps to upload further files if needed.

If you experience difficulty uploading files and/or receive error messages, you will need to contact the UTAS Service Desk (opens in new window) for assistance.

The following sample rubrics may be useful when you’re:

• sharing your expectations about discussion participation with students;
• getting students to review the contributions made by other students; and
• developing a rubric to aid marking of discussions and provide students with useful feedback.

Palloff & Pratt (2007, p. 211)

This rubric focuses on the quality on the quality of contributions/participation. It does not specify a number of posts or the timeliness of posts.

Source: Palloff, RM & Pratt, K 2002, Building Online Learning Communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom, Jossey-Bass, San Franciso.

Edelstein & Edwards (2002)

Promptness or ‘timeliness’ is included as a criteria in this rubric. This is useful, as it implies that students can’t wait until to last day of the task to post. Instead, it encourages students to post early and keep checking back, helping to ensure a more even flow of conversation.

Source: Edelstein, S & Edwards, J 2002, ‘If you build it they will come: Building learning communities through threaded discussions’, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol.  5, no. 1, n.p., viewed 11 June 2009, <http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/edelstein51.html>

Lai (2012)

This is a set of criteria focuses on the demonstration of critical thinking skills in discussions. Levels are not described, with a general description of each criteria provided instead. The following levels are stated: Developing; Competent; Advanced; and Exemplary.

Source: Lai, K 2012, ‘Assessing participation skills: Online discussions with peers’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, vol.  37, no. 18, 933 – 947, viewed 17 October 2016, <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=anh&AN=83369751&site=ehost-live>

This useful Preparing Essay Questions workbook from Reiner, Bothwell, Sudweeks and Wood (2002) at Brigham Young University (United States)  will help you write essay questions for use in examinations or assessment tasks.

There are a variety of online tools and software applications that you can use to help students create or perform items for assessment, and submit online. Here, we  review some of the tools supported by UTAS.

If used for formative assessment, in-class tests can be a useful means of helping students check their progress throughout the semester (as long as feedback is provided following the test). The tests can also provide you with rapid feedback about the class’ progress so that you can adapt your teaching focus accordingly. Getting all students – regardless of study mode – to use the same procedure will ensure equity and simplify marking and grades management procedures.

What am I really assessing?

Depending on the nature of the questions, in-class tests tend to assess whether students can remember, comprehend and/or apply what they have learned. As they tend to be fairly short, these tests generally don’t provide a valid assessment of students’ ability to analyse, synthesise or evaluate what they have learned.

Adapting for blended learning and electronic submission

• Online Quizzes
  
  • Use randomised questions and answer options to make collusion difficult.
  • Make the most of auto-marked questions (where questions have a definite answer). Long answer questions must be marked manually but can certainly help elicit evidence of higher order thinking from students. It is possible to combine different forms of questions.
  • Scores can be transferred to the Grades tool easily.
  • Get both cohorts to complete the Quiz online, and get feedback issued at the same time (either via the Quiz tool or via the instructor).
  • Statistics for each question can be used as the basis for teaching points (e.g for discussion in online or face-to-face sessions, or in Announcements).
• Scan and submit
  • Create an instruction document clearly indicating what students will do and when. This will need to be made available to students as far in advance as possible (preferably a minimum of one week prior).
  • Make a ‘test’ document, containing the questions, available on MyLO at a specified date and time (you can use the Special Access feature to release the sheet to students at different times if need be).
  • Students complete the test and must submit their work to an Assignment Submission Folder within a given time period (you can set an open and close time for the Folder, and use the Special Access feature to release at different times if need be). Students could submit a Word document or, where ‘workings’ need to be demonstrated, a clear scan of their written work (as a PDF or JPEG).
  • If collusion is a concern, create three different papers with slightly different questions (e.g. different amounts, business names etc). Break students into three groups (this can be done automatically with the MyLO Groups tool). One of the three tests is released to each group.
  • Mark and provide feedback using the Evaluate Submission area.

Our peers from Victoria University (VU) have put together some great sample rubrics for different assessment types, which you can see here. Just click on the thumbnail of a rubric to see it in detail.

Even better – these rubrics are actually designed to be imported into a D2L (MyLO) unit, as VU use the same learning management system as UTAS . Instructions explaining how to import the rubric are also provided here.  You may need to adjust the scoring on the rubrics to fit with your assessment task. Once you have finalised the electronic Rubric in MyLO, you can attach it to a Dropbox Folder or Grade Item.

Turnitin is a text matching service used to compare student-submitted work to the existing literature, as well as student work already stored on its database. Turnitin highlights text matches, allowing you to rapidly detect possible areas of plagiarism or collusion in a student’s writing.

Grademark/Feedback Studio, which is available when a student’s work is submitted through Turnitin, allows you to leave comments on a student’s work electronically. Click here for more information about providing feedback with Grademark/Feedback Studio.

To use Turnitin and/or Grademark/Feedback Studio, you must enable Turnitin when setting up a Assignment Submission Folder (to collect student submissions) in MyLO. Ensure that you do this BEFORE students start submitting their work. Here’s how.

PART 1: Set an End Date for your Assignment Submission Folder

To work effectively, Turnitin requires that you set an End Date in the Assignment Submission Folder’s Restrictions tab.

If you have already created an Assignment Submission Folder, you will need to choose to edit it. Do this by selecting the arrowhead to the right of the Folder name, then select the Edit Folder option. Alternatively, when viewing the Submission Folder, click on the Edit Submission Folder button. If you’re already in the midst of creating a Submission Folder, read on.

By default, the Properties tab will be open. Select the Restrictions tab.

Scroll down until you see Has End Date. Check the Has End Date option then record a date and time. We recommend that you set the End Date to a few days after final results are released for the semester.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the Save button.

PART 2: Connect the Assignment Submission Folder to Turnitin

Click on the Turnitin tab (note that you will need to have given the Folder a name before you do this).

Check the box next to the Allow Turnitin for this folder option. Wait a moment while the connection is initiated.

PART 2: Choose the right settings – VERY IMPORTANT!

The following settings are the key to making Turnitin and Grademark/Feedback Studio work the way that you want it to. Do not skip these steps!!!

Leave the Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their submission folder setting (under Display) unchecked. Under Frequency ensure that you have the Automatic originality checking on all submissions options checked. If the Identify individual submissions option is checked instead, you will need to manually click on each file submitted by students to process them through Turnitin. Not fun!

Scroll down and you should see the Grademark available to learners setting. The date recorded here is the date from which students can see the link to access their Grademark/Feedback Studio feedback. We recommend setting this date about one month following the Assignment Submission Folder due date, to avoid any students accidentally seeing their feedback as you’re marking. If you wish to release the feedback earlier, you can always come and alter this date accordingly.

Back to towards the top of the screen, you should see a More Options in Turnitin button. Click on it.

A new window will open. Locate the Allow submission of any file type option. We select you choose Yes. This is especially important if you want to mark files, such as PDFs or some image files, in Grademark/Feedback Studio, even if an Originality Report cannot be generated. 

Now click on the Optional Settings option that appears towards the bottom of the screen.

You should now see more settings. Scroll down until you see the Originality Report generation and resubmissions button. Make sure that the Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are allowed until due date) option is selected. If you do not select this option, you may find that students who submit more than one file (very common) only have the first file processed through Turnitin.

Scroll down until you see the Submit button. If you can’t see it, expand the window to full screen. You should be able to see it then.

If you use Grademark to provide comments on students’ work, you, or your students, may wish to download or print the feedback.

These instructions should work for both staff & student views in the Grademark interface (known as ‘Feedback Studio’).

First load up the assignment and go into the Feedback Studio area (either by clicking the Originality Report from the Assignment area or by clicking ‘View Feedback’ in grades).

Once Feedback Studio is loaded – locate the toolbar to the right and click on the top-most icon (shown below) – then choose which ‘layers’ you wish to download. You can choose download the grademarks, the originality report or both.

Then click the icon with a ‘down arrow’ on it, as shown below. This will give you the options for downloading. Click ‘current view’ to download the file with your current selections.

When you click an option, depending on your browser, the file with download into your default download directory or you’ll be asked where to save the file.

The PDF that is then created will contain the document with the inline comments shown, some small comments may be shown but larger quickmark comments will likely be shown annotated below the original document.