Electronic Submission, Marking and Feedback via Moodle 2. Bob Ridge-Stearn Newman University College, Birmingham

1. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Electronic Submission, Marking
and Feedback via Moodle 2.
Bob Ridge-Stearn
(contact details on last slide)
MoodleMoot 2012 Dublin

2. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
MoodleMoot 2011
Implementing electronic submission and marking
with Turnitin’s Moodle Direct plugin
MoodleMoot 2012
Electronic Submission, Marking and Feedback
via Moodle 2.

3. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Background to eSMF at Newman
• Drivers
• Feedback turnaround times
• Quality / richness of feedback
• Amount of paper stored in Exams & Assessments
• Student Expectations
• Flexibility
• Uniformity of experience
• Electronic Submission Working Group
• Academics
• Student Union
• Quality Office
• Exams & Assessments
• E-learning
• Inclusion/Disability

4. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Electronic Submission Working Group
• Rejected the Moodle – Turnitin integration.
• Liked submission process
• Disliked marking process (GradeMark)
• Asked for further trials –
• Moodle Advanced Uploading of Files Assignment Activity
• Feedback via Word.
• Asked for more information about
• current practices across the University College
• Opinions and experiences of staff and students

5. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Report.
External Consultant
(Andy Birch)
commissioned to
produce a report.
Bought to our
attention the great
variety of assessment
types in use, that
many tutors already
used electronic
assessments and
submission and also
that some tutors were
apprehensive of the
idea of marking online.

6. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Some of the Report Recommendations.
1. After a system is devised, this is clearly disseminated and training
materials produced.
2. A daytime submission deadline is adopted.
3. Moodle Advanced Assignment tool is adopted as the submission method
4. Change Management approach is adopted.

7. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Learning & Teaching Committee Nov 2011.
• Proposal
• Introduce ES in Sept 2012 - not include marking and feedback
• Concerns
• Who would print off the assignments?
• Who would cover the cost of this?
• Would this have an impact on turnaround times?
• Would resources be available in Exams & Assessments?
• Use of home PCs
• Health & Safety
• Training
• Cannot separate submission from marking/feedback
• Rejected

8. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Learning & Teaching Committee Jan 2012.
• New Proposal
• A phased approach - Introduce ES in Sept 2012 in only certain level 4
modules
• Submission AND electronic feedback/marking included
• Not a roll out – a further pilot.
• Agreed.
• New working group formed - eSMF Implementation Group
• Added IT Services and Health & Safety to existing members of Working
Group. (Does not replace Working Group) Implementation Group is
focussed on delivering the goods within a timescale.

9. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
New technical procedures mean…
New policies and procedures.
• Stakeholders • Processes
affected. affected
• Quality Office • Submission
• Exams & Assessments • Marking
• IT Services • Feedback
• Academics • Disputes
• Students • Lateness
• External Examiners • Moderation
• Senior Academic Support Tutors • Second Marking

10. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Example screenshot from
the project task list.

11. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle.
• Sometimes we had to adapt the VLE to our existing policies and
procedures.
• Sometimes we had to adapt policies and procedures to the technology.
• Each time any adaptation (i.e. compromise) was required it involved
explanations and negotiations with stakeholders. Sometimes apparently minor
decisions took longer to resolve than anticipated as the context as seen by
different stakeholders was more complex.

12. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Examples of adapting Moodle to fit with
policies/procedures.
• Blind Marking / Anonymous marking.
• Create all assignments automatically with set defaults
• Standardization of experience – just one Assignment type
• Enable email receipt for students
• Provide students with uniform assessment information across all
courses/modules

13. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – Blind / anon marking. We achieved this by
changing the Moodle code
in the Assignment Module.
We didn’t need to modify
the database as we just
populated the ID # field ,
which previously contained
the student name with the
student ID number. Strictly
speaking this isn’t 100%
anonymous but we can live
with it.

14. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – Blind / anon marking.

15. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – Blind / anon marking.
Anonymizing the Reports part was
tricky so we simply removed the
reports that were difficult to
anonymize and left only the Grader
Report. This shouldn’t cause too much
inconvenience as this function isn’t
widely used at Newman as grades are
more often analyzed in SITS.

16. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle - Standardized Assignments
To standardize the way assignments are
set up we now set them up
1. Limit types of assignment automatically by having an SQL script
2. Create all assignments that takes parameters for things like
the same assignment name, deadline etc from
SITS where that info is already stored
and creates the assignment and inserts it
into the top section of each course.
Because not all courses are the same –
some need to allow multiple files to be
uploaded – module leaders complete a
form asking how the Assignments should
be set up – we’ll look at that in a minute
– and Exams & Assessments staff are
trained to EDIT the assignments once
created.

17. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle - Standardized Assignments
These are the sort of
things we wanted to
standardize because
without standardization
we have students who can
delete submitted files on
one module but not on
another, who have to
press ‘send for marking’
on one, but not etc.

18. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – email submission notifications
In our trials of Moodle
2.0 in Semester 1
2011/12 we had a big
problem with
providing a date stamp
for students . This
arose for two reasons.
1. A date stamp is
produced even if the
submission process is
incomplete.
2. Students thought
they had uploaded
because they had
chosen and uploaded
a file but the file is not
actually uploaded until
a Save Changes button
is pressed.

19. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – email submission notifications
So our solution was to
change the code to send
emails to students as well
as tutors when this
setting was changed.
The circled area is non-
standard. Normally only
teachers receive emails.
We will deal with tutors’
displeasure by educating
them about creating
email rules to filter their
inbox.

20. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – uniform information required across
courses
From next semester all our Moodle courses will carry Module, Course and
Institutional Information on them. This change was made for two reasons.
1. Last year (March 2011) we completed a QAA institutional audit. One of the
recommendations was that we should ensure a complete, consistent and synchronized
publication of programme specifications and handbooks.
2. By September 2012 all HEIs have a legal obligation under new Public Information
requirements to publish Key Information Sets (KIS) for every “course” they offer (this is
overseen by HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency)).
This information will also be available off Moodle – on mynewman (?) and available to
prospective students and existing students who need information to choose future
modules.

21. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – uniform information in iframe
Data is on SITS and
published to a static
html file in a virtual
directory on the
Moodle server.
Formatted by CSS
Editable by Staff in
Quality Office only

22. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – uniform information in iframe
We couldn’t have Module Data Sets in
every course as we have courses that
do not relate to academic modules,
e.g. Subject Areas have their own
Moodle pages.
Also meta courses that take
enrolment from multiple SITS courses
do not have their own module Data
Sets so we named all meta courses
with – META after their name and all
other non-SITS courses we named
with NO MDS and these Moodle
courses receive different info at the
top of their pages.

23. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle - uniform information - Assignment Brief
To provide consistent information about
assessment we will upload an
assignment brief to every Moodle
course. These will present the
information in a uniform way and in the
same place on each Moodle course. This
is different to information in the MDS as
it is specific to the instance of the
module – for example the deadlines will
change each time the module runs. To
collect this information we ask all
module leaders to provide it and this
process has involved a lot of negotiation
and explanations as to why it is
necessary but we have now got a form
(see left) that is being trailed this
semester. This is used whether the
module uses ES or not.

24. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle Assignment info. If, when completing the
Assignment Brief form , the
module leader says
Electronic Submission is
used, he/she completes
this Moodle Assignment
form to inform the creation
of the Moodle Assignment.
All assignments are created
automatically with defaults
so this info is only used to
edit the assignments once
created and then only if a
default is not to be used.

25. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Examples of adapting policies and
procedures to the technology
• Text box feedback. (Tutors must provide comments and a grade for
students to see response files.)
• Separate Late assignments (because Moodle doesn’t allow 2
deadlines nor can you restrict access by the hour/minute in Restrict
Access feature)
• Audio feedback process altered in Moodle 2.0 (you cannot upload a
file to a folder and embed a player. You need to attach audio file as
a response file. SoundCloud may be a solution for others who do
not need feedback file on their own server).
• 12 hr clock (cannot be altered to 24h – issue with noon/midnight)
• Moderators and External examiners now access all submissions
• External Examiners needed login ID (we have single sign-on)
• Opportunity to redesign the exisiting A4 paper feedback form.

26. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – test on each upgrade
The submission process is a
critical process.
Be careful when upgrading
Moodle to ensure that it all
works after the upgrade.
Recently we upgraded to 2.2.2
and saw this issue. ‘No
attempts’ is recorded even
with a submission. It affects
students and tutors.
A patch is available but it
reminds one to test it.

27. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Moodle – Mahara
In MoodleMoot 2012 I had no
time to talk about Mahoodle
but we are also introducing
this integration from Sept
2012.

28. EXPECT TO ACHIEVE
Bob Ridge-Stearn
= @BobRidgeStearn
= Bob.Ridge-Stearn@Newman.ac.uk