Two years ago we started the First Year Writing Requirement to assess the writing of first year students. They’re required to submit a portfolio of three writing samples:
- A paper from their FYE course
- A paper written for a course after their FYE
- A reflective piece
I was asked to help come up with a system to allow students to hand in their portfolios online and receive electronic feedback on their portfolios. Thankfully, our installation of Moodle (we call it PROWL) allows for online submission of documents, in addition to allowing the grader to submit feedback to the student. Combined with Google forms to collect grader/reader feedback, we’re able to gather feedback from around 30 professors who volunteered to help assess the portfolios.
Unfortunately, moving the feedback into PROWL so the students get the feedback is troublesome and proofreading the submitted feedback is time-consuming. Because it takes so long and human error creeps in, we could move to an online service which handles more of these tasks for us.
At least two such services exist:
Turnitin.com is of course known for checking for plagiarism in student work. I’ve personally had experience using Taskstream as a student to submit assignments. It’s not beautiful, but it works and allows me to receive feedback from graders.
Using an online system for homework submission makes sense for several reasons:
- For large groups of students, I think it’s important to have some kind of system in place to give them feedback and manage the “paperwork.”
- Doing so electronically saves printing and handing back physical files and as most students create their assignments digitally, why make them hand them in on paper?
- One can submit assignments and receive feedback from anywhere there’s an internet connection: travel doesn’t have to be an excuse anymore (if it was in the first place).
