Comparing Moodle Assignment and Turnitin for assessment criteria and feedback

Elodie Douarin (Lecturer in Economics, UCL School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies) and I have been comparing how assessment criteria can be presented to engage a large cohort of students with feedback in Moodle Assignment and Turnitin Assignment (report now available). We took a mixed methods approach using questionnaire, focus group and student screencasts as they accessed their feedback and responded to our question prompts. Here are some our key findings.

Spoiler – we didn’t get a clear steer over which technology is (currently) better – they have different advantages. Students said Moodle seemed “better-made” (which I take to relate to theming issues rather than software architecture ones) while the tutor appreciated the expanded range of feedback available in Moodle 3.1.

Assessment criteria

• Students need an opportunity to discuss, and ideally practice with, the criteria in advance, so that they and the assessors can reach a shared view of the standards by which their work will be assessed.
• Students need to know that criteria exist and be supported to use them. Moodle Assignment is good for making rubrics salient, whereas Turnitin requires students to know to click an icon.
• Students need support to benchmark their own work to the criteria. Moodle or Turnitin rubrics allow assessors to indicate which levels students have achieved. Moreover, Moodle allows a summary comment for each criterion.
• Since students doubt that assessors refer to the criteria during marking, it is important to make the educational case for criteria (i.e. beyond grading) as a way of reaching a shared understanding about standards, for giving and receiving feedback, and for self/peer assessment.

Feedback

• The feedback comments most valued by students explain the issue, make links with the assessment criteria, and include advice about what students should do next.
• Giving feedback digitally is legible and easily accessible from any web connected device.
• Every mode of feedback should be conspicuously communicated to students and suggestions on how to cross-reference these different modes should be provided. Some thoughts should be given to ways to facilitate access to and interpretation of all the elements of feedback provided.
• Students need to know that digital feedback exists and how to access it. A slideshow of screenshots would allow tutors to hide and unhide slides depending on which feedback aspects they are using.

Effort

• The more feedback is dispersed between different modes, the more effortful it is for students to relate it to their own work and thinking. Where more than one mode is used, there is a need to distinguish between the purpose and content of each kind of feedback, signpost their relationships, and communicate this to students. Turnitin offers some support for cross referencing between bubble comments and criteria.
• It would be possible to ask students to indicate on their work which mode (out of a choice of possibilities) they would like assessors to use.
• The submission of formative assessment produced with minimal effort may impose a disproportionate burden on markers, who are likely to be commenting on mistakes that students could have corrected easily by themselves. Shorter formative assessment, group works, clearer statements of the benefits of submitting formative work may all help limiting the incidence of low-effort submissions.
• If individual summary comments have a lot in common, consider releasing them as general feedback for the cohort, spending the saved time on more student-specific comments instead. However, this needs to be signposted clearly to help students cross-reference with their individual feedback.
• As a group, teaching teams can organise a hands-on session with Digital Education to explore Moodle Assignment and Turnitin from the perspectives of students, markers and administrators. This exposure will help immeasurably with designing efficient, considerate processes and workflows.
• The kind of ‘community work’ referred to by Bloxham and colleagues (2015) would be an opportunity to reach shared understandings of the roles of students and markers with respect to criteria and feedback, which would in turn help to build confidence in the assessment process.

 

Bloxham, S., den-Outer, B., Hudson, J., Price, M., 2015. Let’s stop the pretence of consistent marking: exploring the multiple limitations of assessment criteria. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 1–16. doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1024607