Rationale

Beyond my teaching philosopy philosophy of providing a clear, fair and transparent assessment criteria for all coursework and assessment, a number of specific issues provided the rationale for this intervention:

• Students were expressing specific feedback that they were unsure as to what the assessment criteria were and how feedback and grades related to clearly these.
• Copies of all final (4^th and 5^th) year course work must be kept by Department for review by the external examiners.  This resulted in students being able to see coursework for only a limited period and not able to review feedback at times when requried required – e.g. not at exam time.
• Academics do not generally keep a copy of the submission and was unable to refer to previous feedback provided if further feedback was requested by students.
• Students did not often refer to previous coursework assessments and feedback when producing the next assessment.

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• Student feedback was very positive on clarity of assessment criteria and relevance of both general and specific feedback.  The also appreciated keeping copies of feedback for timely use.
• The quantity of hard copy marking material was significantly reduced, along with the environmental benefits of less paper use. 
• Marking could be achieved anywhere with access to the internet (usually my iPad on the train). Backing up to the servers must be regular but this is done automatically.

Other coleagues colleagues have observed success of this and broader across the department has begun.

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Challenges still arise from student invovlement involvement and engagement.  A level of familiarity with the software/technologies is required and some students are not as experienced as others.  A solution is to run demonstration/training during lectures and to make help guides available on my place.  A particular issue still arises from students not engaging with the information provided in advance and in reading feedback afterwards – this can be monitored via the online tools but you cannot compel the student to access the information with tools!  There is a requirement to motivate students to do this.

There are a number of technical issues that arose during each year (particualrly in particularly in terms of “how do I do this now on MyPlace” following software upgrades…).  The first and immediate port of call should be the Learning Technologies Team (Alistair Campbell ext 3770). 

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