Firstly, it’s not magic!
The LX.lab are going to help you tackle this task with a series of upcoming workshops commencing 4th December. You can look forward to Christmas with a new set of skills in your goody bag!
You might be confused about which application does what and which ones you ought to use. The UTSOnline help pages have excellent and provide easy to follow steps but here is a quick run down of what you can expect:
Turnitin is used for student assignment submission and does a similarity check each time. This is essentially a check for plagiarism. Turnitin can also be used for marking submissions and has rubric capabilities but it can also be used along with REVIEW for marking.
REVIEW is an application used for marking assessments online. It allows for group marking (for group assignments) and also handles partial grades better than Turnitin. REVIEW also provides functionality to enter your rubrics. Overall, the user interface is clean and easy to use but, unlike Turnitin, the scores do not go straight into your Gradecentre in UTSOnline.
As the name suggests, Gradecentre keeps student grades, but has also been used for attendance. The application helps you keep track of data, grades and monitor student performance. Grades from Quizzes that you create in UTSOnline can also be transferred into Gradecentre. Quizzes can be used as formative or summative. They are a handy way to assess students but also a good way to help students practice theory or concepts prior to finals. They are easily self marked, saving you time.
It can be difficult to keep track of how groups are working together but we have that little challenge sorted too. Spark has lots of uses but it is most commonly used for peer review where teams can grade each other’s performance and contribution to the work. It can also be used for benchmarking so that students get a good idea of the standards expected of them.
Workshops
For more helpful pages on how to digitalise assessments, come along to one of these workshops designed specially for this purpose. They are bound to get full quickly, so register today!
Monday 4th December
1.00pm – 2.00pm – Engaging students with Authentic Assessment and feedback
2.00pm – 3.30pm – UTSOnline Assignments
Tuesday 5th December
2.00pm – 3.30pm – How to Turnitin
3.30pm – 4.30pm – New Assessment Policy Overview
Wednesday 6th December
10.00pm – 11.30pm – How to REVIEW
12.00pm – 1.00pm – New Assessment policy Overview
Thursday 7th December
1.00pm – 2.00pm – Feedback that feeds Forward
2.00pm – 3.30pm – UTSOnline Quizzes
(You can also have a look at the list of events on our What’s On page)
Resources
If you’re drowning under your to-do list, here is a simple checklist to help you get on top of everything. You can also check out the 7 habits of efficient markers. There are also blog posts that tackle the Review vs Turnitin question, with a part 2 focused on marking.
Finally, download the online marking tools quick guide for the above links and more.
Now you’ve definitely got those super powers…
