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This guidance is bound to evolve in line with policy, technologies and ideas from departments. You are invited to contact ELE with any questions or suggestions - ELE will keep the E-Learning Champions informed of important changes improvements as they arise. |
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- Anonymous marking: see below for a definition and explanation.
- Bulk-download: downloading the contents of a submission inbox for marking outside Turnitin.
- Combinations of blind/open, full/sampled second marking: refer to the UCL Marking Policy Currently draft*.
- External examining: refer to the UCL Marking Policy.
- Grademark: Turnitin's own marking environment.
- Intermediary: somebody without marking responsibilities, perhaps in an administrative or technical role.
- Markings: all notes, specific and general comments, and numeric marks made by markers.
- Moderating: refer to the UCL Marking Policy.
- Moodle Assignment: Moodle offers a separate online assessment environment. Its marking and feedback possibilities currently differ from Turnitin's. Only Turnitin offers an Originality Report, and Turnitin's suite of online annotation tools is slightly more developed.
- Paper ID: a numeric identifier unique to each paper, generated Turnitin, but currently irrelevant outside Turnitin.
- Post Date: point at which marks and feedback are released, necessitating the lifting of student anonymity.
- Proxy identifier: see below for a definition and explanation.
- Submission filename: the name of the file(s) submitted; this becomes important in cases where students' work is downloaded for marking outside Turnitin.
- Submission title: the title students type into Turnitin when submitting their work. This displays in the Turnitin inbox and can be used to allocate submissions to subject specialist markers.
- submit.ac.uk: allows access (where there are existing permissions) to a Turnitin submission inbox independently of Moodle; affords downloading of Grademarked work and - though only after the Post Date - original unmarked work.
- Window of opportunity: a phrase used in this guidance to refer to a period just after Grademarking (if used) is complete and just before the Post Date de-anonymises students. During this window the still-anonymous, Grademarked submissions, complete with markings, can be downloaded from submit.ac.uk for distribution to other markers outside Turnitin after the Post Date. The window of opportunity is negotiated by course leaders, markers and intermediaries.
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After considering a range of possible definitions, the Board of Examiners has settled on the following definition of anonymous marking on Moodle, Turnitin or other online environment: student names are absent from their submissions at the point of marking.
Instead of each student their name, students are instructed to use a unique proxy identifier. There is no expectation that student work remains anonymous after marking.
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What proxy identifier should be used instead of the student name?
Why is a proxy identifier needed at all? Because multiple markersstaff, sometimes working offline with downloaded files, need a robust, convenient way to refer to the same student and to ultimately be able to any given student, reconcile their various markings and contribute to with those of other markers, and update the student's record in the absence of a name.
Until a technical solution becomes available, students should be instructed to include this proxy identifier in both the title and file name of their submission.
The recommended proxy identifier is the Candidate Number. The Student Record Number (SRN) may be used instead, if preferred.
The proxy identifier isn't included generated automatically, so students need be instructed to title their submission and file name so as to include it (more on this below).
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Unsure which whether to use the SRN? Some E-Learning Champions have commented that the SRN it is less anonymous, longer and therefore easier for students to mistype, and requires an intermediary stage to match it with the Candidate Number used in Portico. |
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Where Grademark has been used and second marking happens after the Post Date, an intermediary accesses the inbox via submit.ac.uk. For instructions see https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/MoodleResourceCentre/Staff+Turnitin+FAQs#StaffTurnitinFAQs-HowdoIbulkdownloadTurnitinassignments%3F. Note that submit.ac.uk only allows Grademarked work to be downloaded before the Post Date i.e. not original unmarked work. and sorts it to identify a sample which is then downloaded and securely passed, outside Turnitin, to the second marker. If a brief window of opportunity can be made to download this sample after marking is complete but before the Post Date de-anonymises student work, this both potentially saves a great deal of time for whomever carries out this task and enables a marker to do it. Otherwise, an intermediary needs do it, manually re-anonymising all submissions by removing the student name Turnitin appends after the Post Date.
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The guidance is similar to that for full 'Full blind second marking', except that it is on selected submissions. So markers would either need to be instructed as to about how to sort the inbox to take a the sample, or an intermediary would need to download and re-anonymise the original submissions and send these securely to the blind second marker outside Turnitin, along with any marksheets required.
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Blind second marking after the Post Date
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Doesn't reuse of the Candidate Number compromise anonymous marking? Technical limitations oblige us to balance competing Doesn't the appearance, after the first Post Date of the first assignment, of the Candidate Number alongside the student name compromise anonymous marking?
Not according to the definition of anonymous marking in use here - as long as the student name does not appear on any piece of anonymous work still to be marked.
Technical limitations oblige us to balance competing goods of anonymous marking and assessment feedback. A more defensive view of anonymity would seek a technical solution which treated assessors as if they were deliberately intending discrimination, rather than simply subject to unconscious bias. Since there is a grievance process for students who wish to allege intentional discrimination, it is considered sufficient here to take measures to disrupt unconscious bias. Since the Candidate Number changes each year, it serves the purpose of disrupting unconscious bias. There is a recognition on the part of the Board of Examiners that the Candidate Number may be used on multiple occasions over the year , and that since (because of technicalities of updating each student's record) its repeated use may be the only feasible means of communicating assessment feedback to students in circumstances of anonymous marking.
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Not according to the definition of anonymous marking in use here. By default Moodle course areas allow staff in a Tutor role access to logs, and these incidentally include records of student names and dates and times of submission. As above, it is possible for Administrators to remove access to the logs from Tutors, and as above this is a blunt and potentially resource-intensive measure with far reaching side effect of preventing the Tutor from seeing any logs at all.
Doesn't the appearance, after the first Post Date of the first assignment, of the Candidate Number alongside the student name compromise anonymous marking?
Not according to the definition of anonymous marking in use here - as long as the student name does not appear on any piece of anonymous work still to be marked.
Wouldn't it be better to gather all assignments into a single Moodle area and exclude markers after the Post Date?
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