JISC

Final report

Overview

Although digital drop boxes for student submissions exist in VLEs they are often incomplete solutions.

Building on previous work by the University of Southampton to provide a web-based environment for electronic submission, marking and administration of open-ended assignments. This project aims to provide an on-line environment for administration, marking and feedback of electronically submitted open-ended student assignments (e.g. essays).

This will include linking to academic integrity software i.e. the TurnItIn service.

Aims and objectives

• To promote standardisation of the assessment process across the institution.
• To provide transparency of assignment criteria and marking descriptors in use for all assignments.
• To improve the quality and speed of feedback to students.
• To provide markers with a process that is similar to that used by peer reviewed journals with access at anytime and anywhere.
• To provide external examiners with online access enabling them to assess any aspect of the open ended assessment process.
• The checking and reporting of academic integrity of submitted assignments.

Project methodology

This project will involve extensive collaboration between the project team/developers, academic and administrative members of staff across the institution including educational policy makers.

The e-assignment demonstrator system currently in use within the Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Faculty will form a basis for the development of the institutional solution.

Schools will be engaged at key stages throughout the project to ensure the solution meets the needs of the institution.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

The e-Assignment system itself (and associated documentation) will be the primary output from this project. The use of which will result in simplified hand-in of work for students (e.g. less travelling/reliance on availability of School receptions), electronic distribution of student work for marking, greater use of accessible marking criteria and descriptors for work resulting in greater feedback to students. This will then enable potential future examinations into assessment quality and marker variance to inform University educational strategies and policies.

Dissemination of material for the wider sector in the form of source code, technical documentation, user documentation and instructional material (e.g. videos) for use.

Dissemination of our experience of using the system to promote institutional change towards a unified approach to assessment.

Technology / Standards used

The project is based on ASP.net and SQL Server using xhtml 1.0 and CSS 2 for web pages. XML will be used for inputting and outputting of datasets.

Due to the importance of security the project team intends to adopt Microsoft SDL.

Lead Institution

•  University of Southampton