Skip to main content
Technology Enhanced Learning Team
  1. Technology Enhanced Learning Team
  2. Archives
  3. Web Content Archive
  4. Items

Assessment and Feedback

Published:

Assessment and feedback are essential activities in student learning and there are many e-learning tools available to assist staff in this area.

Here we focus mainly on tools for assessment and feedback which are available within QMplus, the university’s online learning environment. However, there are several other tools outside of QMplus which can be used to assess student learning – such as audience response systems. 

What tools are available? 

Assessment can be diagnostic, formative, or summative. 

Diagnostic testing is typically used before the learning takes place, and formative testing is used to give feedback - this type of testing can be used to help the teacher identify any gaps in learning and also help students to identify areas where they need to improve. Diagnostic and formative testing do not normally carry a heavy weight in the students grade and as such, there are many activities within QMplus which can be used to assess students this way. 

The most common tools used in QMplus for assessment are: 

  1. The Assignment activity,
  2. The Quiz activity.

The assignment activity within QMplus can be optionally used in conjunction with Turnitin, which is used to assist with detecting signs of plagiarism, but can also be used to educate students and assist with improving their coursework citation. The assignment activity in QMplus is used for both summative and formative assessment. 

For more help with the assignment and quiz tools, please have a look at the Assessment and Feedback section of our QMplus guidance area. 

Alternatively, you can get started using some key guides below: 

Organising assessments in QMplus

Once you have set up your assessments in QMplus, you will need to organise them for your students to be able to find and complete them. We recommend using the Assessment Panel as an effective way to organise your assessments, so that it is clear for your students to know what they will need to do and how to easily find their assessments. 

Online grades and feedback

QMplus allows for feedback to be given as text, audio or video and also allows teacher to make comments online. 

Once you have set up your assessment in QMplus, you will want to be able to view your students’ submissions, mark them and provide feedback. There are different ways to do this, depending on which assessment method you have chosen to use. 

Some key guides for marking assessments: 

Alternative assessment

There are also other QMplus activities that are used for diagnostic and formative assessment, such as: 

  1. Discussion Forums - the teacher can set up a Q&A forum where they post a question (or a video or an image), and get students to make comments or post answers. Forums can also be set up so that students can't see what someone else has posted until they have added their own post to the discussion; or students can grade or comment on someone else's post as part of their assessment. Have a look at our Forum guides. 
  2. Workshop activity - this is a powerful peer assessment activity. Students submit their work and then receive a number of submissions from other students, which they must assess according to the teacher's specifications. It is primarily a student-focused activity. However, as the academic, you may guide the students by providing example submissions for them to try out before assessing their peers. Visit our Workshop guides for more information. For a working example of a Workshop activity, why don't you have a look at the Celebrating Cultures course in the Moodle Demonstration site - just log in at the top right using 'teacher' and 'moodle' as the username and password. 
  3. E-portfolios - the QMplus Hub area allows teachers and students to set up a portfolio page which can be shared with others. See our QMplus Hub guidance area for more information. 
  4. There are tools that are also handy in allowing for student collaboration, such as blogs and wikis, as well as the glossary and database activities. Have a look at the Student Collaboration article for more information. 

 

 

Back to top