Abstract:

Students often complain that their tutors do not provide sufficient feedback on their work. Online submission and marking provides the opportunity to improve the quality of feedback. Most VLEs provide some form of digital drop box for the submission of assignments but marking and feedback features are limited. We are developing an institutional system for submission, marking and feedback of comments on open ended assignments in which improvement in feedback is one of the main objectives. The feedback process can begin with the submission stage where students can be asked to describe the key features of their assignment, their perceived strengths and weaknesses of their work and ask the marker to focus their feedback on certain aspects of their submission. Markers can be provided with specific criteria to assess the work and select from graded descriptors. They have the option to provide individualized comments and upload a document which could be an annotated version of the original submission or an audio file containing verbal feedback. When viewing feedback students can be asked to read the markers comments and respond to them before their grade or mark is released to them. Therefore online processes can be used to move from paper based assignments where, in the worst case scenario, all the feedback a student receives is ‘Good B+’ to a system where feedback is of much higher quality.