Change Management for Electronic Assignment Management - Jikke Adema and Kelly Marshall

Centre for Educational ICT

Jikke Adema/Kelly Marshall

Change Management for

Electronic Assignment

Management

Electronic Assignments?

Marked assignments

uploaded one by one

by teacher

Students uncertain

without receipt

?

No coversheet

or statement X No date stamp

Early adopters 2011: School of Nursing and Midwifery mandates

electronic submission, marking and return

Important lessons learned for Uni-wide EAM

Software Improvements

Submission

improvements

Student

submission

receipts

Student

declaration

Bulk upload

Technology

+

Now

organisational

change

SoNM

Change management (Kotter 1996)

Sense of

urgency

Guiding

coalition

Vision & Strategy

Communication

Empowering

Consolidating &

Anchoring

October 2012:

with effect from First Semester 2014,

all student assignments generated in

electronic form should be submitted

by the student and returned to the

student electronically.

Why?

• Improve feedback to students

• Enhance student engagement with feedback

• Stimulates use of text matching software

• Increased convenience for students

• Increased efficiency and security

• Improved ICT skills for staff

Guiding coalition

Champions

Decision

makers

Leaders

Experts

Steering Group

Reference Group

Working Group

Empowering The right technology

Practice run

Online materials

Support for staff

and students

Training & workshops

Actively engage

with problems

Communication

Shared vision:

Why?

Steering/Reference/

Working Groups

Newsletters

Website

Email

So, what happened?

Numbers

Semester 1, assignments submitted / day

Support for staff

• 811 staff members followed

workshops

• 45.000 visits to staff online

material Support for students

• In-lecture and in-library

sessions for students

• 2.600 - 3.000 visits to

student online material

• 2.000 paper bookmarks

handed out…

Benefits

“There can be no dispute

about the date and time

of a submission” “No papers were lost in this

process”

Communication with students

“Student complaints and

questions can be taken over

the phone and I can access

the feedback sheet, see their

grade and open their

assignment and see exactly

what they are talking about,

allowing a far more informed

conversation.”

Technology

“While students mainly

submitted their

assignments as Doc or

Docx there were some

other unexpected formats

submitted that I found

difficult to work with”

Restriction of file

types

Improvements to FLO:

• New online marking

methods: annotation &

checklists

• Easier user interface

• Resubmission

• Group assignments

• Restrict file types

• Improved online marking

methods: marking guides &

rubrics

• Better late assignment

management

• Easier download/upload

• and others….

eMarking

Decision

Tree

Benefits of eMarking

“The availability of all

assignments online

means that double

marking can be done

very readily”

“Assignments

submitted in small font

could be magnified!”

“All feedback is

legible. As legibility

has been a major

issue previously, this

is a significant gain.”

Audio marking

“The students love getting verbal

feedback via iAnnotate –the feedback

has been overwhelmingly positive. “

“It’s like you’re sitting there in his

office to have a meeting about your

assignment”

(1st year student)

Everyone happy?

Complaints

“Given this was my first experience of on-line

marking I encountered a number of unexpected

difficulties. Some of these appeared to relate to

my lack of familiarity with the system while

others were related to students’ lack of

familiarity with the system and others

seemed to related to the system.”

Complaints (!)

“eMarking allows for checks on word

count. So the academic/ marker is

sucked into an investigative process to

check on word counts more readily than

before, when it was largely casting an

eye over the paper”

“Where there was one option in the

past, e-marking offers numerous

possibilities”

“it is not easy to replicate the red pen

on the physical page. Perhaps this is

implicit in this type of marking, and

one must accept it.”

“The process of handing back (…)

shifts work to the marker. This is

because we need to re-upload all

the grades to FLO. This requires

internet, or being at work”

Benefits for all? “Electronic marking has been adopted

citing many key improvements. I agree,

there are many: ease of submission, less

carrying of paper, admin work for

professional staff, easier for students to

submit essays without travel to hand in,

etc. While these are generally good things,

it must be remembered that these are

benefits primarily for professional staff

and students, NOT academic staff. This

involves significant cost-shifting of work to

the marker.”

JISC report:

Research suggests

that students and

administrative staff are

quick to see the

benefits of

EMA whereas

academic staff have

more mixed views and

may be more likely to

resist changes to

working practices.

OH&S concerns

“My RSI symptoms

have decreased as I sit

up straight in front of

my screen, rather than

hunching over papers

for hours. “

“Emarking (…) requires very

repetitive typing commands and

mouse clicking, compounding

RSI and overuse injuries (esp

eyestrain and wrist strain).”

“One of our most experienced

markers now has a shoulder

injury which has never

happened marking on paper”

VS

Time investment “marking takes longer”

VS

“It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Once I got the hang of it,

I was marking faster.”

“I just wanted to say how much I prefer marking assignments

electronically. It took time for me to develop best strategies for myself

and put aside my own pedantry about how I wanted to give feedback,

but I now find it a much more efficient way to mark and hate it when I

get a thesis or major project to mark and it isn't sent as a pdf.”

“I thought I’d never like electronic marking. Just some

new-fangled IT thing I’d have to learn. How could it

replace the tactile pleasure of carting around “the pile” of

hardcopy assignments? The academic joy of interfacing

with students through my almost legible insights and

comments? I have been proven wrong. I really do enjoy it.

Downloading submissions and uploading the marked

papers turns out to be easy. I’m giving students more

feedback. “

Next:

Submission

Return

references References

• JISC Electronic Management of Assessment. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/electronic-assessment-management

• Kotter, John P., Leading Change. Boston 1996

Images:

• Research higher degree thesis - http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/current-students/images/bookcorner.jpg

• RHD graduation hat - http://edcabellon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/11155.jpg

• Extension please - http://cfcdn.ivoryresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/exension2.jpg

• Frustrated student: http://www.galleonnews.com/2012/10/students-plagued-by-computer-failures/

• Frustrated teacher: http://fionaevemurray.wordpress.com/responses/response-1/

• Innovation adoption curve: http://www.kentlai.com/writings/roger-adoption-curve

• Guiding coalition: http://blog.uvm.edu/capacity/2013/06/07/looking-at-organizational-change/

• Act now: http://hoganvisions.com/2012/11/08/urgency/

• Empowering: http://talentalley.com/2012/03/13/empoweringemployee/

• Change: http://www.ukperform.com/html/organisational_change.html

• Strategy: http://www.socialnetpromo.com/2012/06/13/services-description/strategy/

• Date stamp http://www.gavpugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/datestamp1.jpg

• Baby computer http://www.nadielabs.net/early-adopters-5-claves-para-detectar-a-tus-primeros-clientes/

• Communication http://centraliamomuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/meeting.jpg

• Try it now http://www.sitecues.com/wp-content/themes/twentytweleve/_ui/img/sitecues.com.try.it.now.jpg