Category: News

Dr Geoff Taggart Dr Geoff Taggart is a lecturer in the Institute of Education and Programme Director for the Early Years Practice programme at Reading. As part of his secondment to the EMA programme, Geoff decided to run a case study with students from the IoE to gather perspectives on electronic feedback and grading methods. Read Geoff's Case Study....

One year ago the Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) Programme secured full agreement to proceed. Significant progress has been made over the last 12 months and this update outlines what has been achieved and what colleagues can expect over the coming year. You may also like to view the new screencast on the Resources page, which provides some visual examples of the new capabilities that are being introduced. Rad more about the EMA programme one year on....

Rob Playfair On the pre-sessional English (PSE) course, in the summer of 2017, the course leader suggested that tutors chose between using e-feedback (Turnitin and Grademark), to mark students writing, or pen and paper. Rob chose to try e-feedback: 'I was interested in improving the efficiency of my marking, and liked the idea of having a digital record of written feedback to students'. Read Rob's Case Study....

The eSubmission, Feedback and Grading (eSFG) Work Stream ran a briefing today for all Teaching and Learning Deans, Heads of School and School Directors of Teaching and Learning. The session was opened by Gavin Brooks, Pro Vice Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) before Emma Mayhew (Academic Director of EMA) discussed the aims of the Programme and broad range of programme deliverables. Adam Bailey (TEL Team) then explored some of the principles underpinning the eSFG work stream and the process that will be worked through with schools to support the wider adoption of online assessment, before Alan Howard (SDTL, SAGES) outlined their experiences as an Early Adopter School since the Summer of 2017. He highlighted some of the significant benefits felt by colleagues as well as a number of challenges and how the School has responded. We then heard from Rebecca Harris (SDTL, IoE) who described their experience as a ‘Special Project School’ that has significantly increased the adoption of online marking and grading...

Dr Madeleine Davies This Case Study outlines the use of Learning Journals and online marking tools on a Part 3 module in English Literature. The discussion considers the relationship between this assessment format and improved student engagement, and it reflects on the opportunities to ‘personalise’’ online marking tools to produce an enhanced marking experience. Read Maddi's Case Study....

Emma Mayhew (Academic Director, EMA) and Maria Papaefthimiou (Senior TEL Advisor) headed north this week to the Blackboard Users’ Conference at the University of Durham. This is one of the most popular events attracting a large number of learning technologists and some academic colleagues across the sector. Emma and Maria presented to 65 colleagues in a session entitled ‘Small and Medium Go Large: Electronic Management of Assessment at the University of Reading’. This presentation outlined EMA adoption across the sector, key challenges faced by institutions moving from pocketed to institution wide online assessment practices and some of Reading’s own experiences from the PEAR Project to the EMA Programme, from pocketed adoption through to staged Early Adopters and fuller roll out. Some of the key messages outlined in this presentation seemed to be really thought provoking given the long queue of colleagues queuing up to ask Emma and Maria questions at the end of their session. This conference also gave some colleagues within...

After 7 months of preparation, development and testing, the Core Systems workstream celebrated the go-live of sub modular marks for UG Modules with the first mark-entry training session for Programme Administrators. The sessions, led by the Core Systems workstream, are being held throughout December, January and February in order to support Programme Administrators with the new mark entry processes in RISIS. Now that sub modular marks are in RISIS, the Core Systems team can continue the roll-out of a number of new screens for staff and students. The student mark screen, which will be available on the RISIS portal, gives students access to an online summary of all summative assessment marks during the course of the year. Until now, students have only been given an overall mark for a module at the end of each year, but with this new screen they will also be able to see the breakdown of how the overall mark was achieved; this includes marks for essays,...

Jonathan Smith is the School Director for Technology Enhanced Learning in ISLI. He is also a Pre-sessional English Course Director and Teacher of English. Jonathan is a seasoned user of TurnItIn for electronic submission, feedback and grading. Listen to his chat with Academic Partner Pilar Gray-Carlos to find more about when he started, some of the difficulties he encountered as well as the benefits he found from using e-assessment and marking. You can also visit our EMA Case Studies page and learn about other colleagues experiences. Listen to the interview with Jonathan....

Professor Will Hughes Professor Will Hughes has extensively used rubric grids within Grademark across of all of his modules to significantly enhance student engagement with his feedback, student understanding of his marking criteria and student attainment in subsequent essays whilst making his own experience of marking more efficient. Read Will's Case Study....

The Core Systems Work Stream held a fourth breakfast briefing for all Programme Administrative colleagues today. Nearly 60 members of staff from across the institution were able to join us for breakfast cake and coffee to hear Kat Lee, Project Manager for the Core Systems Work Stream, outline progress during this enormously busy period. Kat and team have been working hard to implement new functionality in RISIS. Supported by Programme Administrators and Exams colleagues, all final testing has been completed and we are now ready for the go-live of sub-modular marking in the last week of November, covering undergraduate modules. A ‘Turn Around Time Tracking’ screen for 15 day feedback and marks return is now live for undergraduate summative assessment and will be accessible to SDTLs via reports shortly. We are in the very final stages of creating the updated extenuating circumstances workflow, allowing students to submit ECFs online via RISIS much more easily. We are now using the RISIS helpdesk...