TEL me about…Turnitin

HELLO!We are the TEL team:Phil, Emma and Rosie

Today’s workshop we will:› Look at the assessment lifecycle

› Go through the uses and benefits of turnitin for marking

Assessment

Lifecycle

Assessment Lifecycle:1. Specifying

2. Setting

3. Supporting

4. Submitting

5. Marking & Production of

Feedback

6. Recording Marks

7. Returning Marks &

Feedback

8. Reflecting

Specifying (Academic)

Specifying means determining the details of a course or programme of study and consequently specifying the assessment strategy within it. Specifying takes place following a new course proposal or when an existing course undergoes periodic review.

1. Specifying

Setting (Academic)

Whilst the overall assessment strategy and approach is specified very early in the life-cycle, there is a process of setting assignment details that needs to occur each time a group of students takes a module. These details usually take the form of an assignment brief, which includes information about precise topics, deadlines, learning outcomes to be assessed, marking criteria and arrangements for feedback.

2. Setting

Supporting (Academic)

Supporting students between the setting and submission of assessments is no more than what you already do – planning and delivering a series of structured sessions and activities, and a range of independent study tasks in order to prepare them for assessment – in other words ‘teaching’! Although it may also involve signposting students to appropriate support services (Study Development, Digital Training etc.)

3. Supporting

Submitting (Student)

This part of the life-cycle refers to the process of students handing over assignments to be marked. Assignment submission methods depend entirely on the type of assessment being carried out and Moodle has a variety of settings/options which help to determine how the assignment works and which features are enabled, or not.

4. Submitting

Marking & Production of Feedback (Academic)

This is a key stage in the lifecycle when student work is formally evaluated against a set of predefined assessment criteria with marks and feedback provided. There is a difference between marking and feedback, and staff should regard them as distinct entities with different purposes. Quality assurance is also important for protecting and promoting fairness and consistency in assessment.

5. Marking & Production

of Feedback

Recording Marks (Academic)

This stage of the life-cycle is intended to show students how their marks were arrived in relation to the assessment criteria. Given the complexity of marking processes, it is unsurprising that there are considerable variations in the process by which a definitive grade is stored against a piece of work. We propose that Administrators are responsible for recording final grades in the Student Record System.

6. Recording Marks

Returning Marks & Feedback (Admnistrator)

A key issue for students is clarity about deadlines for the return of marks and feedback. This stage is about informing students of the outcomes of their assessments. Marks and feedback can be returned together or separately, and may be returned in a variety of formats. In line with University policy, students should receive their marks and feedback three weeks after the assignment deadline. They should be made aware that marks are always subject to final approval by the assessment board.

7. Returning Marks & Feedback

Refelcting (Academic/Administrator/Student)

This is one of the most important components of the life-cycle because it is where the real learning takes place - students engaging with their feedback and using it to improve their future performance - and yet it is one of the areas which is supported least well in existing frameworks. Both students and tutors should reflect on each assignment task they are involved in: students should reflect on their own performance and make themselves a personal action plan for the future, and tutors should reflect on the effectiveness of each part of the assessment cycle, from specifying to returning marks and feedback. It can be difficult to make time for this, with assessment usually coming at the end of a busy year, but it is worth making the effort. Administrators should also reflect as part of an ongoing effort to improve processes.

8. Reflecting

Assessment Lifecycle FrameworkThe lifecycle offers a ready means of mapping business processes and potential supporting technologies against the key academic stages. It provides a framework to gain a holistic picture of institution-wide activity and a means of encouraging dialogue between different types of stakeholders who may have a silo view of only part of the lifecycle.

It is a framework to stimulate discussion and can be used for many purposes such as:

› A means of helping individual stakeholders take a holistic view of assessment and feedback activities

› A prompt to support academic decision making during curriculum development

› A starting point for process review and improvement› A starting point for a technology roadmap› A means of clarifying requirements to system suppliers.

How do you currently do your marking?

Using GradeMark

Isn’t it just a plagiarism checker?

Over time Turnitin have developed the product to include a number of features to help with marking, including:› Comments› Quick marks› Highlighting› Text comments› Audio commentsIt will address stages 5, 6 and 7 of the assessment lifecycle

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DESKTOP This session will mainly focus on the desktop version. This is accessible via your Turnitin submissions

QuickMark› The QuickMark comments are

commonly used or standard editing marks that instructors can use when editing and grading papers. 

› These marks are stored in sets found in the QuickMark Manager.

› The marks are added to a student paper from the QuickMark Sidebar.

QuickMark› The GradeMark system automatically

provides four QuickMark sets consisting of commonly used editing marks and standard corrections.

› Instructors can use these sets, create sets of their own, access a set shared by the Turnitin account administrator, upload a set provided by another teacher, or draw from a combination of sets.

QuickMarks are found at the right hand side and can be dragged onto the assignment.

The QuickMarks are grouped in categories and can be changed from the dropdown menu

Highlighting & Comments› You can highlight words or portions of the

student’s text to draw attention to it. › You change the colour of the highlight,

allowing you categorise why it has been highlighted. For example; pink highlight might indicate poor paraphrasing, green to indicate good paragraph structure.

› You can drag and drop comment bubbles onto the student’s paper and enter a feedback comment. When the student hovers over the bubble icon, your text appears.

To add a coloured highlight: highlight the text and click on it to bring up the colour selector and the

space to add a related floating comment.

To add a floating comment click anywhere on the submission and then type the

comment.

General Comment› Tutors can type a general comment alongside

the paper. The general comment space allows for longer, less area-specific feedback to be provided to the student.

› This might be to tie together and summarise shorter, inline comments, or it may be that close-marking is not appropriate and an overall comment is the only type of feedback required.

To add a general comment click on the speech bubble button at the bottom and then free type

your comment in the text comment space. This is for an overall comment about the submission.

Audio Comments› Tutors can leave a voice comment of

up to three minutes. › Just like the written general comment,

the voice comment allows the tutor to leave an extended, overall comment about the paper.

› You will need a microphone or headset for your computer if it doesn’t have an inbuilt one.

To add a voice comment click on the speech bubble button at the bottom and then record the

comment using the recording tool at the top

Advanced Marking – Using a Rubric› Turnitin has an inbuilt Rubric feature which

allows you to attach a feedback grid to an assignment you are marking.

› The TEL team have created a rubric template based on the University’s Generic Assessment Descriptors grid.

› This template is available to all tutors from within the GradeMark interface (in the Rubric Manager section) so you can attach it to any assignment and select the appropriate descriptor squares on the rubric to provide feedback to a student.

To add a rubric click on the rubric button at the bottom of the screen,

then click on the spanner button at the top.

You will see the YSJ generic assessment

descriptors, click on the chain links to link it. To

link a different rubric click on the menu (top left)

and select from the drop down

The rubric appears on the right hand side, the marks can be

selected, and can be expanded by clicking on the button.

Turnitin & Students› Whether you as a tutor use Turnitin or not

students have a right to be able to check the originality of their work in Turnitin.

› On the minimum standards template (in Assessment Information) is a link to the Develop your writing…student Moodle:

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iPad AppYou can sync your Turnitin marking to the iPad app Turnitin Feedback Studio.

Want to know more…Some useful blog posts:› 5 Days of EMA using Turnitin Intro › 5 Days of EMA – Marking and Feedback› 5 Days of EMA – Advanced Marking› Using Rubrics

THANKS!Any questions? Want any more help?

Contact: tel@yorksj.ac.uk

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