17th Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference, 5-6th January 2017

1. Can electronic
marking help to
engage students with
assessment and
feedback?
DR ALISON GRAHAM
SCHOOL OF BIOLOGY
ALISON.GRAHAM@NCL.AC.UK
DR SARA MARSHAM
SCHOOL OF MARINE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
SARA.MARSHAM@NCL.AC.UK
17th Durham
Blackboard Users’
Conference
5th - 6th January
2017
@alisonigraham
@sara_marine

2. Aims
of
Project
 Initial aims: To engage students in the
entire marking process from the setting
of marking criteria through the receipt
and feed-forward application of
feedback
 To write/design effective marking criteria
that are specific to pieces of work
 To engage students in the process of
using marking criteria in preparation for
an assignment
 To provide feedback on coursework
that links directly to marking criteria
 Use GradeMark to develop libraries of
feedback comments that can function
much like dialogue with students
Implicit questions in our
original proposal:
1. Can we involve students
in writing marking
criteria?
2. What do students
already know about
marking criteria?
3. Can typed (even
repeated!) comments
work like a dialogue? Will
students recognise this?

3. Aim 1: Write new marking criteria
Understand
students’ prior
knowledge/create
new assignment
Write new
marking criteria
(based on
student
knowledge)
Engage
students
with
criteria

4. Aim Two: Engaging students with
marking criteria
Objective #1 - to help
students understand the
wording in the marking criteria
Objective #2 - to encourage
students to start differentiating
between the descriptions of
different grade boundaries
and spotting what will help
them to achieve high marks
Objective #3 - to engage
students in the practice of
peer marking (marking existing
student work against the set of
criteria)

5. Aims Three and Four: Use
GradeMark to provide feedback
linked to marking criteria
GradeMark is:
• Part of Turnitin software, accessed at Newcastle University through VLE
(Blackboard)
• A platform through which students submit coursework online as Word
document or PDF (or in other file formats)
• A platform through which markers can provide three types of feedback:
o In-text comments: Bubble comments, Text comments, QuickMark
comments
o Rubric
o General comments: Voice comments and Text comments

6. GradeMark
 Go to Assessment inbox
 See submissions, similarity score and
marks (once graded) for the whole class
 Check if student has viewed their
feedback

7. Library comment
Text comment
Bubble comment
Using GradeMark: Types of Comments
Make Library
comments
individual

8. QuickMarks

9. Highlighting/colour-coding

10. Mark against a rubric
Add
assignment-
specific,
module-
specific,
School or
Faculty-wide
marking
criteria
Mark each
piece of work
according to the
rubric; use
qualitatively or
quantitatively

11. Turning criteria into comments
S/T
A
R
1 2 3 4 5 6

12. Creating own library
 Each comment linked to one of the criterion with
letter and number
For each component, comment on:
 How student meets criterion
 What student could have done to achieve next
grade boundary
R 4
R 5

13. Mark work using criteria and
general comments
 Voice (up to three
minutes)
 Text (up to 5,000
characters)

14. Final mark

15. Student feedback - marking
criteria session

16. Student feedback - marking
criteria session

17. Student questionnaire

18. Activity
 Using the example assessment and the
comment library provided, ‘mark’ the example
assessment with the library comments
 Try to make library comments individual to the
student
 Practice adding bubble and text comments
 Assign each criterion a grade using the rubric
 Consider including final comments using either
text and audio

19. Activity
Using either the marking criteria
provided, or your own criteria, create a
series of assessment-specific comments
Include comments to show:
How the student has achieved a grade
boundary for a specific criterion
What the student needed to improve to
achieve the next grade boundary

20. Our final reflections &
questions for you
Continued development of marking criteria and integration of criteria into
additional modules.
Further thought on what information/activities help students engage with
the assessment process.
Managing the challenges of staff and student engagement.
Are there ‘good practice’ guidelines for writing marking criteria?
Can students be engaged to write the marking criteria themselves? If so,
what strategies can be used to engage students with criteria?
What is the balance between in-class time and independent
engagement?

21. Thank you for
your participation
Any questions?
Our thanks to all
of our students
who took part
and shared their
opinions Thanks to
Newcastle
University
Innovation Fund
for funding the
original work &
ongoing support
DR ALISON GRAHAM
SCHOOL OF BIOLOGY
ALISON.GRAHAM@NCL.AC.UK
DR SARA MARSHAM
SCHOOL OF MARINE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
SARA.MARSHAM@NCL.AC.UK @alisonigraham
@sara_marinehttp://www.slideshare.net/SaraMarsham/presentations
http://www.slideshare.net/AlisonGraham15