Assessment and Feedback

Recommendation  

Silver standard:

Clear assessment guidance:

Ensure the Assessment information in the module template is populated.

Provide exemplar materials (i.e. past papers). 

Set online activities encouraging students to engage with success criteria.

Exemplar materials can help set expectations and, coupled with an activity, can help build familiarity with assessment criteria.

 Silver standard:

Turnitin:

All formal written assessments (summative) should be submitted via Turnitin.

Allow students to see the similarity report and use Turnitin as a learning tool to help students improve on their referencing.

Turnitin helps academic staff assess for plagiarism, and helps students see how well they have referenced the writing of others (via the similarity report).

 Silver Standard:

E-portfolios: 

Use Mahara if students need to build an e-portfolio of work showing development and reflection of learning over time. This is especially good for submitting multiple documents of varying media types that might constitute an assessed portfolio.

Mahara can be used to showcase work, skills and achievements with peers, tutors and potential employers.

 Gold standard:

Regular formative    assessment points: 

Set up quizzes, polls, and reflective activities.  

Encourage students to take charge of their learning via self-assessment and self-reflective assessment opportunities.

 Gold Standard:

Video reflections and  assignments:

Set-up quizzes inside Panopto videos to help learners check their understanding of key content. 

Utilise Microsoft’s Flip to offer informal video reflections.  

Set-up Moodle Assignments to help students submit non-written assessments.  

Video assignments can improve the variety of assessment types offered to students. For some Programmes this might support the development of key professional skills; a recommendation from the OfS Blended Learning regulation.  

Student-created content on platforms such as Flip is a great way to build online student communities and to promote peer and self- reflection. 

 Gold Standard:

Automated peer  assessment:

Automate the sending of assessments to students via Turnitin (Peermark). This can include rubrics and structured forms within which students can comment and assess one another's work. 

Although fiddly to set-up, this can give students increased amounts of feedback, and can be a great way to draw attention to marking and success criteria.

 Gold Standard:

Feedback for collaborative  design:

Use Vevox asynchronously to gather feedback on student experiences of online learning. Use this feedback proactively to inform and amend learning in future weeks.

Make student feedback a more direct and immediate process. Collaborative design can empower learners.