Category: Turnitin

Peer Assessment Tools available in our virtual learning environment

WordPress User [ksg2] Blackboard, E-submission, Interactive Tools, Turnitin Leave a comment

We recently ran our E-learning Enhanced: Using Turnitin for Peer Assessment training session and wanted to highlight the different tools that are available for Peer Assessment across our Digital Education Platform.

Peer Assessment activities have several benefits to students:

  • Allow students to invest in and manage their own learning
  • Shared learning experiences
  • Reflect on learning
  • Consider communication and constructing feedback
  • Develop conversation and collaboration skills
  • Improve academic achievement
  • Share responsibility for learning
  • Develop employability skills around feedback
  • In group scenarios, identify participants’ contributions
  • Quick feedback
  • Building a learning community

For Liu & Carless (2006), “peer assessment and peer feedback … enables students to take an active role in the management of their own learning” (280). 

If you are interested in exploring this topic further, we recommend:

Liu, N.-F. & Carless, D. (2006) Peer feedback: the learning element of peer assessment. Teaching in higher education. [Online] 11 (3), 279–290.

Lynch, R., Mannix McNamara, P. & Seery, N. (2012) Promoting deep learning in a teacher education programme through self- and peer-assessment and feedback, European Journal of Teacher Education, 35:2, 179-197, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2011.643396

Zhu, Q. & Carless, D. (2018) Dialogue within peer feedback processes: clarification and negotiation of meaning. Higher education research and development. [Online] 37 (4), 883–897.

We have several peer assessment tools that are available:

Blackboard Assignment for Peer Assignments

You can add a Rubric to the assignment – student will see this as part of their submission.

Workflow

  1. Create Assignment and set Peer Settings (see Peer Review for Qualitative Peer Assessments)
  2. Students submit their work as normal (see Blackboard web site)
  3. After Due date and time has passed, students review submissions see Blackboard web site
  4. After the Peer Review Due Date, staff complete marking (see Blackboard web site)
  5. Student view staff feedback, peer feedback and final mark

Note that:

  1. Students won’t be allocated any reviews if not enough assignments are submitted.
  2. Late submissions will be allocated to students. Late submission is allowed automatically as part of the peer assessment process.
  3. Students do not see any names as part of the review process. You should advise all students not to include personal information on their documents.
  4. Students can provide written feedback in the review process but can’t assign a mark (unless this is included in the text feedback box)
  5. You can add a Rubric to the assignment – student will see this as part of their submission and can refer to it while reviewing. However, they can’t use it to mark work.
  6. You can hide peer reviews if you feel the content isn’t appropriate

Turnitin PeerMark

Workflow

  1. Create a Turnitin Assignment and enable PeerMark
  2. Go back into Turnitin Assignment to set up Peer Mark Settings
  3. Students submit to Turnitin submission point
  4. After PeerMark start date, students are able to view another student’s assignment and leave feedback / scores to questions
  5. PeerMark feedback is visible to students immediately
  6. Lecturer needs to allocate a final mark manually

Guidance:

Overview of PeerMark: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/instructor/peermark/about-peermark-assignments.htm

Creating a PeerMark Assignment: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/instructor/peermark/creating-a-peermark-assignment.htm

Student guidance on Using PeerMark: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/student/student-category.htm#peermark

Discussions

Discussions are available in every course in Blackboard – these are a great way for students to engage asynchronously with their peers; they can post comments and respond to each others’ posts.

Workflow

  1. Instructor creates a Discussion
  2. Students contribute to the Discussion
  3. Students respond to other Discussion posts

For further advice on creating discussions, please see below for Blackboard guidance:

Journals

Workflow

  1. Instructor creates a Journal (private between instructor and student)
  2. Students reflect weekly on their contributions to project
  3. Instructor has overview and monitors
  4. Can be used for students to give an idea on group contributions throughout process of peers

Create Journals: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Interact/Journals

Guidelines for students

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1469787416654794 – contains guidance for students. Suggests providing a session for students on how to write feedback.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02602938.2019.1697424

“For peer review in the classroom to be effective, there is clear evidence that the process needs structure, clear and accessible assessment criteria and appropriate scaffolding sessions for students (Mangelsdorf Citation1992).”

https://www.ctl.ox.ac.uk/peer-feedback – includes some useful questions and prompts that could be used to structure feedback.

Peer feedback has been used widely within group assessment work, for example, when it comes to ascertaining student participation, and factoring in group contributions. For an example of a group peer marksheet, see this sample template from Carnegie Mellon University.

Our Academy Forum handout on Peer Assessment provides further information and Aberystwyth University Case Studies.

Turnitin App Retirement

WordPress User [jbw] E-submission, Technical Updates, Turnitin Leave a comment

Turnitin has announced the retirement of their Turnitin app at the end of the year, December 2025.

The Feedback Studio iPad app will be retired and no longer available. Instructors can continue to access Feedback Studio as usual through Blackboard. This includes mobile devices and tablets.

Turnitin are working on developing a New Standard Assignment, so instructors can review and provide feedback on student work from tablets without needing a separate app. We will release comms regarding this new service in due course.

If you have any questions or concerns about this, please don’t hesitate to contact us (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

E-learning Training Series: Semester 1, 2025-26

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Discussion Boards, Blackboard Journals, Blackboard Tests, E-submission, Exemplary Course Award, Interactive Tools, Panopto, Training and Support, Turnitin, Vevox Leave a comment

We are delighted to announce our training series for the forthcoming semester.

All training can be booked online using your Aberystwyth username and password. Our training booking system is now automated, so you will receive your calendar invitation within an hour into your calendar. Please join these sessions from your Outlook calendar.

If you have any questions, please contact us: elearning@aber.ac.uk.

As usual, our training sessions are grouped into 3 series:

  • E-learning Essentials: designed for colleagues new to the university, teaching, or who would like to get a refresher. The aim of these sessions is to ensure that colleagues can meet the university’s digital learning and teaching policies.
  • E-learning Enhanced: designed to build on the skills gained in our e-learning essentials series, colleagues will create an activity or assessment unique to their learning and teaching contexts.
  • E-learning Excellence: designed to offer colleagues the opportunity to create exemplary learning and teaching opportunities – often unique and sector leading.

In addition to the usual offerings, we also wanted to highlight the new sessions that we have introduced for 2025-26:

New sessions for 2025

E-learning Essentials

Using Microsoft Co-pilot for Learning and Teaching Activities

This session will introduce colleagues to Generative AI and offer the opportunity to think about ways in which you can incorporate Generative AI into your learning and teaching practice.

You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Essentials series via this link.

A reminder that all Essentials sessions are strongly recommended for any new members of staff in your department.

E-learning Enhanced

Become a Blackboard Document Pro

Blackboard Documents have had a complete overhaul in Ultra. This 30-minute pro session gives an overview of the new features and allows you to give it a go in your course.  

Blackboard Interactive Tools

We’ve combined our Discussions and Journals session into one. We’ll go through activity design for our interactive tools to help maximise student engagement.

Measuring and Increasing student engagement using Blackboard Tools

We will look at the analytical tools available in your Blackboard course to help monitor student engagement. We’ll use this to tailor messaging as well as creating other activities such as knowledge checks and learning module progression to help keep your students engaged with their learning.

Peer Assessment with Turnitin

One of the features of Turnitin is PeerMark which allows you to create peer assessment opportunities for your students. This is great to allow students to provide formative feedback on each other’s work.

Using the advanced features of Panopto

Want to spruce up your recordings? This session will showcase different ways in which you can use Panopto: from inserting quizzes mid recording, to give students the opportunity to get creative and use Panopto themselves. This session is great for those adopting a flipped classroom approach or who want to make use of Panopto beyond Lecture Capture.

Other sessions include the Blackboard AI Design Assistant and Advanced Vevox polling software design.

You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Enhanced series via this link.

E-learning Excellence

We’ve designed 4 new workshops for colleagues based on the 4 areas of the Exemplary Course Award. Looking at each aspect, colleagues will reflect on how their own courses can be developed.

The 4 sessions are:

Exemplary Course Design

Exemplary Assessment Design

Exemplary Interaction and Collaboration

Exemplary Learner Support

You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Excellence series via this link. Other sessions include Submitting an Exemplary Course Award.

If there are any other training topics that you’d like us to consider for Semester 2, please contact us.

E-learning Policies Review (2025-26)

WordPress User [kaw] Accessibility, Blackboard, E-submission, Panopto, Training and Support, Turnitin, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

We revisit and revise all the policies relating to e-learning tools annually. All the changes are approved by the Quality and Standards Committee. The new policies are now available, and here are the details of the main changes. If you have any questions about the new policies, please get in touch with us using elearning@aber.ac.uk

Blackboard Required Minimum Presence (RMP)

The RMP outlines to staff and students the minimum standards for a Blackboard Course.

Two of the changes in the RMP are designed to improve the accessibility of course materials:

  • All courses should have an Ally score of 70% or above (see the Ally Score information)
  • Requirement for materials to be uploaded 1 working day in advance of the session (see the Uploading Material in Advance information)

To help staff managing courses:

E-submission Policy

The E-submission Policy outlines that all text-based word-processed work is submitted, marked, and has feedback released electronically.

To improve student access to marks and feedback:

To improve the consistency of e-submission across the university:

  • Requirement for research postgraduate work being submitted electronically include Graduate School Research Training assignments.

For staff who want to use SafeAssign as part of their Blackboard Assignments:

  • Addition of information about SafeAssign

Lecture Capture Policy

The Lecture Capture Policy outlines that all transmission style presentations are recorded electronically for students to access.

The most significant change in the Lecture Capture policy is designed to improve the accessibility of recordings:

  • Automatic captioning will be turned on for all recordings made after 1st September 2025 (see our blog post)
  • Recommendation that summaries are made for sessions that are not recorded

To help staff managing courses:

  • The Blackboard template will include centrally provided information about Panopto, including a statement that recording will take place, information about what is and isn’t recording, and information about the quality of captions (see our Course Creation information).

Organisation Policy

All departments make use of their Organisations to provide access to key administrative information. To make sure that materials are accessible and up to date, we have developed an Organisation RMP, based on the Blackboard RMP. This does not apply to staff Practice Courses.

All other Organisations should include:

  • Contact Information.
  • Information about the purpose of the Organisation and how participants are expected to use it.
  • Content is organised clearly, and all materials are named clearly and consistently.
  • Content is up to date.
  • Clear instructions for participants on what to do with materials 
  • All materials must be as accessible as possible.

Ally Score

For the first time, our Blackboard Required Minimum Presence includes an Ally score. This recognises and builds on the work that staff have already done to make sure that teaching materials are as accessible as possible.  

The RMP sets an Ally score of 70% – the good news for both staff and students is that 87% of all 2024-25 courses have a score of 70%. And overall, the Ally score for 2024-25 is 72.5% which is 3% higher than last year. 

Making Blackboard content as accessible as possible benefits all our students.  Having materials in a format that students can use easily means that they can focus on their learning rather than struggling with inaccessible formats. The choices that staff make to design accessible materials, as well as the Ally Alternative Formative tools, help us to make sure that all students can engage with their studies. 

It’s particularly important here at AU, as the latest HERA data show that over 28% of our students have a declared disability (compared to 16.7% nationally).  

To check your course Ally score, have a look at the guidance on the Blackboard help pages.  And you can find out more about designing accessible materials with our online training materials.  

Ally will give you help and guidance to address common issues. One of the most common issues at AU is handwritten documents that have been scanned. We’ve written some guidance to help staff who do use this type of material. And if you wanted to use scanned articles in your course, contact the Digitisation Service.

Uploading Materials in Advance

Giving access to teaching materials in advance of a session makes them more accessible for students. It gives students a chance to prepare before attending so that they can concentrate on the content of the lecture when they attend. For sessions that include discussion or group work it can allow students to consider how they may engage with these activities. A research paper from Oxford Brookes provides information about the value of making materials available in advance,

Feedback from students over the last few years has asked for this change, and the issue was discussed at Academic Board in summer 2024. And it’s standard in a number of other universities, for example at Edinburgh University and Oxford Brookes.

AU has decided that teaching materials should be released at least one working day before the event takes place:

  • For a session taking place on Thursday, materials should be available by Wednesday morning
  • For a session taking place on Monday, materials should be available by the previous Friday morning

You can use the Blackboard release conditions to make sure that materials are available at the right time. If you already make all your materials available at the start of term, you are welcome to continue with this.