eSubmission

A look at the eSubmission and eAssessment options at the University of Plymouth. Including Moodle, PebblePad, Turnitin and Grademark.

In an institution where sustainability is key, we should be trying to move away from printed assessments wherever possible. In addition, we all live and work in an ever-growing digital world, and using eAssessment aligns assessment practices with the increasing normality of life online and gives students important opportunities to widen their digital capabilities.

eSubmission through Moodle

Most eAssessment at the University is done via Moodle eSubmission. The Assignment activity in Moodle allows tutors to set up online submission areas that enables students to submit their coursework electronically. A digital copy of their work can then be reviewed and graded by academics in one convenient place.

Features of the Assignment activity include anonymous marking; group submissions; marking guides and rubrics; marker allocation; and Turnitin integration for originality checking.

Benefits include:

Master copy of the students work and feedback is permanently stored
Ability to set and easily access media based assignments
Anonymity

PebblePad

We have a number of programmes that use PebblePad (the University’s ePortfolio system) for summative assessment. PebblePad’s assessment system, ATLAS (Active Teaching Learning and Assessment Space) can only be used when student submissions are created directly from activities within PebblePad, e.g. assessment ePortfolios and workbooks.

Benefits include:

Generic and bespoke templates to scaffold reflection
Online: no need for heavy paper portfolios that could get lost or damaged
Easy access for tutors, placement tutors and external examiners

Turnitin (Originality Checking)

Turnitin is the originality checking service used by students and staff at the University. It enables students to develop best practice for using and citing other people's written material in their work. It is described as "a series of algorithms to turn textual information into a 'digital fingerprint' that can identify matching patterns, including those from texts substantially altered by paraphrasing or word substitution.”

The work is matched against billions of web pages, pdf files, paper mill essays, an increasing number of articles and books from online subscription databases, and a growing archive of previously submitted student papers. It then produces an "originality report”. It will highlight any 'suspect passages' and lists links to web sites or contact information for previously submitted papers, from which content appears to have been taken.

Benefits include:

Access to Turnitin originality checking software through Moodle
Anonymity
Matched against billions of web pages

Online exams

 A pilot is currently underway to explore using Moodle Quizzes for summative online exams. Currently Moodle can only be used for in-class tests, but we are hoping to expand the use of Moodle Quizzes after the pilot. More information to follow.

Feedback Studio (Turnitin)

Feedback Studio allows academic staff grade and add feedback to students’ submitted work online via a grading overlay on their Turnitin originality report.

Benefits include:

Options to use marking guides and rubrics in Feedback Studio and create bespoke feedback
Banks of commonly used feedback remarks make bulk marking quicker, leaving time for more learner specific marking and feedback
Ability to Provide written or verbal feedback.