Category: Virtual Learning Environment(VLE)

Update on Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign Pilot

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Since September 2024, Information Services (IS) have been running a pilot of Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign to evaluate the use of SafeAssign. This is part of our commitment to making sure that we are using the best tools available. The purpose of this blogpost is to summarise the outcomes of our pilot.  

18 staff volunteered to use Blackboard Assignment for submission and marking, and SafeAssign for text-matching. These staff were based in seven different departments and taught a range of UG and PG modules. All staff were offered training and provided with written guidance on using both Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. The training sessions provided an opportunity for staff to discuss different assessment scenarios with E-learning staff and to ascertain the suitability for Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. We also sent out surveys to staff on their use of e-marking and feedback tools. 

A big thanks to all the staff and students involved in the pilot and all those who completed the surveys.  

Outcome

AU will continue to use our current suite of e-assessment tools: 

  • Turnitin 
  • Blackboard Assignment 
  • Blackboard Tests  
  • Assessed Blackboard Tools 

The pilot allowed us to reflect on the requirements for an e-assessment solution. It was clear from this that we need a combination of different solutions for different assessment requirements.    

We would recommend Blackboard Assignment be used for: 

  • Multi-part assignments 
  • A Welsh language interface for marking and submission 
  • Panopto submissions  

One of the main purposes of the pilot was to investigate the efficacy of SafeAssign and its functionality as a text matching solution. Over the next few months, with input from stakeholders, we will decide whether we leave SafeAssign switched on and we’ll communicate this decision after Easter.  

Survey Results

As well as taking part in training, staff in the pilot were asked to complete a survey before and after using Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. The first survey was about their use of Turnitin, and the second one was about their experiences of using Assignment and SafeAssign. 

We also sent out the first survey to all staff asking for their feedback on Turnitin, and use of Turnitin tools that have no equivalent in SafeAssign. This survey was designed to help us understand whether any of the features in Turnitin are essential to the AU marking and feedback process.  Overall, 71 staff took part in these first surveys.  

Some of the most frequently used and important features in Turnitin are not currently available in Blackboard and SafeAssign. Two of these were ranked as regularly used:  

  1. Timed and automatic release of marks and feedback (78% of respondents)  
  1. Seeing whether students have viewed marks (60% of respondents)  

Three features ranked as essential from an e-assessment solution:  

  1. Timed release of marks (66% of respondents)  
  1. Submitting on behalf of students (51% of respondents)  
  1. Revealing individual names whilst marking anonymously (51% of respondents)  

The key finding from the survey was that timed release of marks is considered both important and used frequently by staff, making it an essential requirement for any AU marking and feedback system.  

The second survey was sent to just the pilot group and asked them about their use of the tools in Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign, as well as their recommendations for changing submission and marking tools. 6 staff responded to this survey.  They generally found it easy to use Blackboard and SafeAssign and didn’t report many problems for either them or their students. However, they highlighted limitations in functionality, which meant that some of the pilot group didn’t end up using Blackboard and SafeAssign at all: 

  • Issues navigating the marking interface 
  • File size upload limit (SafeAssign will only check files less than 10Mb) 
  • Lack of automated marks release  

Anthology Ideas Exchange

Anthology Ideas Exchange allows all Blackboard institutions to request and vote on functionality enhancements to the product.  As a result of training sessions and staff feedback, we made 21 suggestions via the Anthology Ideas Exchange. These were a mix of Turnitin functionality that doesn’t have an equivalent in SafeAssign, as well as changes to existing SafeAssign functionality. Some examples include: 

Enhancement Request Ideas Exchange Status 
Schedule grade posting 3052 Future consideration 
See if students have viewed feedback 1612 Planning to implement in the next 6+ months 
Anonymous marking switched off before grades released 1685 Follow up 
Annotate comment library export / import 1751 Future consideration 
Submit on behalf of students 164 Planning to implement but this will initially only be to submit in draft attempts made by students. 
Scheduled Grade Posting 3052 Future consideration 
Increase file size limit for SafeAssign 5711 136 Future consideration 

If you have suggestions or changes for any part of Blackboard on that you would like us to add to the Ideas Exchange, please email elearning@aber.ac.uk. You may also be interested in the new section in our monthly update blog which highlights any Ideas Exchange ideas that we have added or voted for which have been added to Blackboard.  

Accommodations and Exceptions

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Blackboard Logo - Blackboard by Anthology

Blackboard has some options that you can use make sure students get any individual assessment arrangements they may need.

Accommodations are applied to a student on a course level and will apply to any Blackboard Assignment or Test in the course. However, it does not apply to Turnitin assignments. Accommodations are good for students who have an ongoing arrangement that does not vary between assignments on the same course.

Students can have a Due Date accommodation or Time Limit Accommodation.

With a Dute Date Accommodation, work will never be marked as late in gradebook, although you are able to see when it was submitted. A Time Limit Accommodation gives the student extra time on any assessment with a timer.

Students with accommodations have a flag which is visible only to staff in the Grade Book, Roster, and on the Assessment. If a student with an accommodation is part of a group assignment, all students in the group will have the accommodation applied for that assignment.

Exceptions are made for students at a course level for individual assignments. Again, they do not apply to Turnitin assignments. Exceptions are good for students who may have a deadline extension for an individual piece of work. Exceptions can be used for additional attempts, rescheduled due dates, or extended access. Exceptions can only be applied to non-anonymous submissions – this means that they are useful for multiple choice tests that don’t require manual marking.  They are visible only to staff through the Gradebook or Test Submission page.

All the information about Accommodations and Exceptions is available on the Blackboard Support site.

Ally AI Alt Text Assistant

WordPress User [kaw] Accessibility, Blackboard, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

If you are stuck for ideas for the alternative text on your images, the Ally AI Alt Text Assistant can give you suggestions.

Screenshot of the ALT Text screen with Auto-generate description highlighted

You should always check the suggestion provided by the AI Assistant as it may not always provide an accurate description of the image. You can edit any the AI generated suggestions.

Have a look at the accessible learning material guidance to find out why Alt Text is important. The Poet training tool provides guidance on how and when to use Alt Text as well as online tools to practice creating useful Alt text for images (please note that the Poet web site is an external site and is not available in Welsh).

Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign Pilot

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A big thank you to all the staff who have signed up to the Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign pilot. There’s still time to volunteer if you are interested (email elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Since the last blog post, we have made SafeAssign available for use in Blackboard Assignments. We have also held the first two training sessions. More training sessions will be organised for semester one – visit the Events and Training page to book a place.

We’ve been exploring some of the options for marking in Blackboard Assignment that staff might find useful:

  1. Delegated marking allows staff to mark essays by group. If you divide up marking in your modules between several members of staff, then delegated marking will help you.
  2. Parallel marking allows two staff to mark a piece of work independently without seeing each other’s comments or marks.
  3. Anonymous comments. By default, marking comments in Blackboard Assignment contain the name of the staff member marking. If this is not appropriate for your marking, you can make them anonymous (see below).

Please note that deleted Blackboard assignments can be recovered for up to 30 days after deletion. If you need deleted assignments restored, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk as soon as possible, providing details of module and the assignment name.

Anonymous Comments

When you create a comment, click on the anonymous marking icon

Screenshot of a Blackboard Assignment comment box with the anonymous marking icon highlighted

You can edit existing comments to make them anonymous by clicking on the comment.  Click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the comment and then click on Anonymous.

Screenshot of a Blackboard Assignment comment box with the three dots and Anonymous option highlighted

For further information on the marking tools available in Blackboard Assignments, see Blackboard Annotate Guidance.

Supporting your students

To help your students use Blackboard Assignment to submit their work and find their feedback, we strongly recommend that you include the following FAQs in Assessment and Feedback Learning Module in your Blackboard course:

SafeAssign

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

We are looking for volunteers to evaluate an alternative to Turnitin for text-matching and marking. This alternative is called SafeAssign. SafeAssign is part of Blackboard.

Training will be provided, and support will be available during the semester from e-learning support staff. We will ask everyone taking part in the evaluation to complete a short online survey before and after the trial. We will also invite you to a meeting at the end of the semester to share your experiences. 

Please read the information below about this evaluation which will help you decide whether you would like to take part. If you want more information or would like to volunteer, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk

What is SafeAssign?

SafeAssign is a text-matching tool provided by Blackboard. It is included in our main Blackboard licence. SafeAssign is an alternative to Turnitin.

Why are we evaluating it?

AU used SafeAssign before we started using Turnitin. As part of our commitment to making sure that we are using the best tools available, we would like to evaluate whether SafeAssign would be appropriate for text-matching. This evaluation has been approved by the Academic Enhancement Committee (May 2024).

What will be different if I use SafeAssign instead of Turnitin?

Some aspects of marking and submission will be changed:

  • New submission, marking and text-matching tools
  • A different database of assignments and sources for text-matching. This database won’t include previous years’ submissions from AU.

You’ll see some new features:

  • Text highlighting
  • Welsh language interface for submission and marking
  • View and retrieve previous student submissions

And some features will not be available:

  • You will need to post marks manually rather setting a release date and time. However, this will give you a little more control over when marks are made available to students.
  • Submit on behalf of students
  • Switch off anonymous marking for individual students
  • Rubrics and quick marks can’t be exported from Turnitin, although similar tools are available in Blackboard.

Full details of the features of both Turnitin and SafeAssign are available.

Welsh language

All elements of this evaluation will be available in both Welsh and English. This includes help guides, training, support, and evaluation. SafeAssign itself is translated as part of Anthology’s commitment to Welsh. Welsh language text is including in the text-matching service.

What will I have to do if I volunteer?

We strongly recommend that modules included in the evaluation use SafeAssign use the tool for all e-submissions during the duration of the module. This helps both staff and students become familiar with SafeAssign rather than swapping between multiple submission and marking tools.

All staff involved in the submission, marking and moderation for the module will have to use SafeAssign (note that this includes external examiners). If you volunteer a module that has multiple staff marking on it, please make sure that they are all aware, and have all received appropriate training (see below). We will provide all external examiners with information about the evaluation.

We strongly recommend that you provide a practice submission for your students before their first assignment. This will make sure that they know how to use SafeAssign correctly. We will provide guides and FAQs for students which you can link to from the Assessment and Feedback area of your Blackboard course.

What training and support will be available?

We will publish guides and FAQs for staff and students on the LTEU website. We will also run training sessions on how to create submission points and how to mark. Full support will be available to staff and students throughout the term.

How will it impact my students?

Submission will be different for students; one advantage of using SafeAssign is that students will get an email receipt. Students will also see their feedback in a slightly different way. We will provide full support for students.

Can I talk to someone about this?

Contact elearning@aber.ac.uk for information and to discuss whether SafeAssign is appropriate for your module.

What’s New in Blackboard Learn Ultra – February 2024 

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The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is excited to share with you details of the new Forms and the new Linkert question type which were introduced in the February update. 

Forms 

Instructors frequently need to survey their class to gauge student interests or opinions on a range of topics from field excursions to course feedback. Now, instructors can create a Form for these use cases. 

The following items are supported in a Form: 

  • Essay question 
  • Likert question 
  • Multiple choice question 
  • True/false question 
  • Text 
  • Local file 
  • File from cloud storage 
  • Page break 

By default, a Form is not graded. Questions in a form don’t have correct or incorrect answers. Forms are currently not anonymous, this functionality will be included in a future update. 

Image below: An example ungraded Form used for a clinical teaching placement 

Example of ungraded Form used for clinical teaching placement

Some instructors may choose to grade a Form to encourage participation. When this is the case, instructors must manually enter a grade for each submission. 

Instructors may view Form submissions by student or by question in the new grading view. 

Image below: Ungraded Form submissions by question 

Ungraded Form submissions by question

Image below: Graded Form submission by student  

Graded Form submission by student

Instructors may download the Form results from the Gradebook and Submissions page as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file. 

Image below: Download Form results from Gradable Items view 

Download Form results from Gradable Items view

Image below: Download Form results for Submissions page  

Download Form results for Submissions page

In the Gradebook grid view, student submissions for an ungraded Form appear as “Submitted.” Graded Forms display the manually entered grade or appropriate grading status. 

Likert question type 

Likert questions help provide a quantitative measure of opinions and attitudes. The responses often range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. This question type is now available in the Form assessment type. 

Image below: Set up a Likert question

Set up a Likert question

The scale range defaults to three options, with suggested labelling for options one and three as strongly disagree and strongly agree. Instructors may select a range of three, five, or seven options and label the poles as desired. Instructors may also choose to include a “not applicable” option. 

Image below. Example Likert question in an end of unit survey  

Example Likert question in an end of unit survey

Note: A Likert question in a survey created in the Learn Original course view converts/copies to a Form in the Learn Ultra course view. The scale range default is three. 

Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, E-submission, Events and Networks, Online Teaching, Panopto, Teaching Continuity, Training and Support, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.

All the information that you need is on the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit webpages. We have recently worked intensively with academic colleagues to develop solutions in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. Our Supporting your Teaching webpages will help you with various teaching solutions.

We write a blog full of the latest updates, details on events and training sessions, and resources.

If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so using one of two email addresses:

lteu@aber.ac.uk (for pedagogical and design questions, or to arrange a consultation) or

elearning@aber.ac.uk (for technical queries regarding our e-learning tools listed below)

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What is a well-designed Blackboard module? – Student Learning Ambassadors Project

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Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (LTEU) is looking for a number of Student Learning Ambassadors to work on a ‘What is a well-designed Blackboard module?’ project. Issues with consistency and navigation of Blackboard modules are frequently raised in the feedback received from students (e.g., via the Information User Survey or the JISC Digital Insights survey). We would like to gather a small community of students who, through various User Experience methods, will work on this question. As part of this role, students will participate in focus groups, build their own Blackboard module and work collaboratively to report on the findings.

We are looking to recruit 8 students. This project will run between 05th and 17th of July 2021. Depends on the group, Ambassadors will be required to commit approximately 13 hours of work either in the first or in the second week of the project.

Please consider encouraging your students to apply for this role via the AberWorks  portal where more information is available. The closing date is 21st of June.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 13/4/2021

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As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.  

Mini-Fest: Assessment – 17th May – 21st May

WordPress User [jbw] Academy Forum, Blackboard Tests, E-submission, Events and Networks, External Speakers, Feedback, Marking, Online Teaching, Panopto, Rubrics, Tests, Training and Support, Turnitin, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

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The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce its first mini-festival. The aim of the mini-fest is to bring together training sessions and workshops offered by LTEU around a particular topic with an external speaker. For this first mini-fest, we’ll be looking specifically at assessment. The mini fest will run from Monday 17th May until Friday 21st May and will be taking place online via Teams. Please book on the sessions that you wish to attend on our online booking system.

We are going to be joined by Professors Sally Brown and Kay Sambell to talk about assessment design post covid on Monday 17th May for a 2-hour workshop at 10.30am. Their paper Writing Better Assignments in the post Covid19 Era has been widely discussed across the sector since last summer:

Improving assessment and feedback processes post-pandemic: authentic approaches to improve student learning and engagement.

This workshop is designed to build on lessons learned during the complex transitions academics made last year when face-to-face on-campus assessment became impossible. A whole range of approaches were used by academics globally not only to cope with the contingency but also to streamline assessment and more fully align it with learning.

We now have an important opportunity to change assessment and feedback practices for good by boosting the authenticity of our designs to ensure they are future-fit.  Drawing on their work undertaken throughout 2020, https://sally-brown.net/kay-sambell-and-sally-brown-covid-19-assessment-collection/ the facilitators of this workshop Professor Kay Sambell and Professor Sally Brown will argue that we can’t ever go back to former ways of assessment and will propose practical, manageable approaches that fully integrate assessment and feedback with learning, leading to improved outcomes and longer-term learning for students.

Professor Kay Sambell is an Independent Consultant widely known internationally for her contributions to the Assessment for Learning (AfL) movement in higher education. A 2002 National Teaching Fellow (NTF) and Principal Fellow Higher Education Academy (PFHEA), she is President of the vibrant Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) conference series, ( https://ahenetwork.org/) and Visiting Professor of Assessment for Learning at the University of Sunderland and the University of Cumbria. Kay has held personal chairs in Learning and Teaching at Northumbria University, where she co-led one of the UK Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning which specialised in AfL, and, more recently, at Edinburgh Napier University.   

Kay.sambell@cumbria.ac.uk

Website: https://kaysambell.wordpress.com

Professor Sally Brown is an Independent Consultant in Learning, Teaching and Assessment and Emerita Professor at Leeds Beckett University where she was, until 2010, Pro-Vice-Chancellor. She is also Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University and formerly at the Universities of Plymouth, Robert Gordon, South Wales and Liverpool John Moores and at Australian universities James Cook Central Queensland and the Sunshine Coast. She is a PFHEA, a Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Senior Fellow and an NTF. She is widely published on learning, teaching and particularly assessment and enjoys working with institutions and teams on improving the student learning experience. 

S.brown@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Website: https://sally-brown.net

In addition to Sally’s and Kay’s workshop, LTEU will be offering sessions and workshops over the course of the week:

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