1

eMarking: staff and student perceptions

Liz Burd, Durham University

2

Background

• Funded under Durham internal award ‘Enhancing the student experience’

• Total of £5K TQEF• Project runs until April 2009 to cover semester 1

examinations

3

Current procedures

• The process is of long duration since double marking of paper based work must be passed for marker to marker. Consequence: students do not receive timely feedback.

• The completion of a separate feedback proforma is often challenging for staff because their comments are disassociated from the location of the issues discussed. For instance, ideally staff would be able to place comments near to the location in student work where the comment is most relevant. Such an approach is particularly problematic is non-essay based work, although even with essay based work without context meaningful feedback is more difficult to provide. Consequence: students do not find their feedback meaningful

• The retention of work means that our students may not have access to it during revision, thus departments who wish to return work must take photocopies. Students could potentially request much of this moderation material through the Data Protection Act. Consequence: students do not always have full access to their work.

4

Project outline

• scan the assignments – this will demonstrate the usability of the scanning technology, the man hours to conduct the scanning, the storage requirements of the scanned copies and any replication quality issues.

• mark assignments – this step will enable us to assess the benefits to double marking in parallel (i.e. timescales), if staff select to mark on paper or electronically, how frequently staff comment directly on student work as opposed to just the mark proforma.

• return work to students – this step will make the timed examination script, feedback and marks available to students. This will enable us to investigate how frequently students refer to the documentation provided to them as well as the time commitments of uploading the proposed documentation.

• interview/ survey students and staff – this will enable us to assess perceptions of the above process and propose enhancements etc

5

The Scanner

• Hewlett Packard HP Scanjet N9120 Sheetfed Scanner - 48 bit Colour - 8 bit Grayscale - 600 dpi Optical - USB

• Cost £2,260

6

Resource Implications

Based on 100 scripts

• Insertion of bar code and slice edge 25 minutes

• Scan 12 minutes• File writing 20

minutes• Conversion to PDF 3 hours

• Total file size 400MB

7

Script Identification

To automatically upload the scripts we need to identify the student code

• ORC was 100% inaccurate

• Barcodes were 100% accurate

8

Administration and Marking

• Significant administrative procedural issues– 1 page in every 300 failed to scan (2 pages fed in together)– 9% of scripts became split into two files– Secretarial staff struggled with process

• 50-50 split between staff preferences of electronic / paper based marking

9

Helpfulness of feedback

I found the feedback helpful on my benchtest

Very helpful

Helpful

Unhelpful

Very unhelpful

10

Using feedback to change future exam strategy

I am likely to use this feedback to change the way I prepare for exams

Very Likely

Likely

Unlikely

Very unLikely

11

Using feedback to direct future answers

I am likely to use this feedback to change the way I answer exam questions

Very Likely

Likely

Unlikely

Very unLikely

12

The Quality of the Copy

The quality of the electronic copy returned to me is

Very good

Good

Poor

Very poor

13

Conclusions

• Worth considering as useful approach to return of course work

• Administrative overhead is significant but could be improved by changing examination processes.– Barcodes– Separate pages for student answers

Students positive but are they using it…

14

The Technocafe

With link-up (I hope…)

15

The Technocafe

• Funded by CETL Active Learning in Computing• Designed as an environment to support group activity• Design re-fit cost around £250K• Free environment for personal / group study where food

and drink is allowed• Work completed 3 years ago and no significant damage

reported

16

17

18

19

20

21

SynergyNet