sakai assignment grading

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Gregory Guthrie

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Dec 31, 2020, 4:40:17 PM12/31/20
to sakai-user, samir shrestha

One of our faculty had a comment on using Assignments tool for grading, and a comparison to using a quiz instead.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for him/us on how to get the same navigation efficiency in Assignments?


Subject: sakai assignment grading

 

In my last 2 courses I have been using the Tests and Quizzes tab in Sakai to have students submit their daily assignments.  I find that I can review 20 – 30 assignments in 20 – 30 minutes (or less).  These courses are the first ones in a long time that I have been able to grade most or all of the homeworks each day.  It makes a big difference for knowing who is keeping up and the kinds of errors they are making.

 

In contrast, if I use the normal Assignments page to grade submissions it takes me at least 3 times that long – an hour to 1.5 hours for the same grading, and when teaching those hours are precious—usually a difference of doing the grading or not.  The difference is that on the Assignments grading page you have to open each submission to a new page, review it, scroll around to assign the grade and comments, and then return to the list of all the students to open the next one in the list.  Every new page opening takes around half a minute.  It gets really slow if you want to go back and look at previous comments or submissions for comparison.  With the Test/Quiz page the answers are all on the same page for the grade and comment.  There is no going back and forth, and everything is always visible on the same page. 

 

There is extra overhead in setting up a quiz in addition to each assignment, so it would be really nice if the Assignment grading had the option to display everything on one page like this.  It is also more awkward for the students to have another extra link to deal with each day.  Other LMS’s have this as their standard option.  If anyone knows how to do that please let me know.

 

 

Dr. Gregory Guthrie

Maharishi International University

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Stull, Tiffany (tls6u)

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Jan 4, 2021, 3:45:41 PM1/4/21
to Gregory Guthrie, sakai-user, samir shrestha

Hi Gregory,

 

I can’t think of a more efficient way to do this in Assignments short of developing an entirely new grading option that works like the Questions grading pages in Tests & Quizzes, displaying all submissions on a single page.

 

However, I wonder if the instructor could do something to improve the efficiency of using Tests & Quizzes as opposed to Assignments to create the homework.  Some related questions/suggestions:

  • I’m not sure I understand this: “There is extra overhead in setting up a quiz in addition to each assignment.” Why would he create both an assignment and a quiz for each assignment?  Or is this more a question of using both tools for different types of activities and students not knowing where to go to submit their work?
  • If he always uses similar settings for his homework (e.g., same feedback and layout settings), would it improve efficiency of authoring for him to create an empty “template” quiz with the desired settings and no questions that he could duplicate to create new homework quizzes?
  • If he’s only using Tests & Quizzes for homework, would it make the navigation for students easier if he renamed the tool to “Homework”?  I know some instructors who do that.
  • If he uses Assignments for different kinds of assignments, and Tests & Quizzes for the homework quizzes, could he hide the Assignments tool and organize the links to assignments/quizzes on pages in Lessons to make navigation for students easier?  I know Samigo can’t be hidden in the menu if he wants to make feedback comments available there, but he could place the links to any assignments/homework/quizzes for a particular day on the same page so the students only have to interact with Tests & Quizzes for feedback on the homework.

 

Tiffany Stull

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Gregory Guthrie

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Jan 5, 2021, 9:17:24 AM1/5/21
to sakai...@apereo.org
Tiffany,
Thank you for the analysis and ideas.

I think the bottom line is;
“I can’t think of a more efficient way to do this in Assignments short of developing an entirely new grading option that works like the Questions grading pages in Tests & Quizzes, displaying all submissions on a single page…”

So perhaps this is basically a feedback note from faculty that there could be a more efficient way to organize grading in the assignments tool.
I think his observations are good, and indicate a better workflow could be created in assignment grading.

Your ideas & suggestions could make some interim usage easier - thanks!

Dr. Gregory Guthrie
Maharishi International University
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Hi Gregory,
 
I can’t think of a more efficient way to do this in Assignments short of developing an entirely new grading option that works like the Questions grading pages in Tests & Quizzes, displaying all submissions on a single page.
 
... 
Tiffany Stull
 
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Subject: [sakai-user] sakai assignment grading
 
One of our faculty had a comment on using Assignments tool for grading, and a comparison to using a quiz instead...
 

Stull, Tiffany (tls6u)

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Jan 5, 2021, 9:54:45 AM1/5/21
to Gregory Guthrie, sakai...@apereo.org, Adrian Fish
Gregory,

I agree; we often get requests from instructors to have a better workflow for assignment grading (at least one instructor at UVA recently requested this very thing - display and grade all inline submissions on a single page). An option to enter grades for all students on a single page (e.g., the student list page, without needing to navigate to each student's page) has been frequently requested by our instructors.

It might be helpful to create a jira ticket outlining the desired feature request and behavior. I suspect that it would have to be restricted to certain assignment types so that the page wouldn't be too hard to load. Some pagination might also be required for a large number of submissions, or lengthy content in submissions.

I know Adrian Fish, whom I've copied here, has been working on improving Assignments grading. Adrian, is anything like this suggestion planned for the new grader?

Tiffany
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From: sakai...@apereo.org <sakai...@apereo.org> On Behalf Of Gregory Guthrie
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