Assessment and feedback are essential activities in student learning and there are many e-learning tools available to assist staff in this area.

Here we focus mainly on tools for assessment and feedback which are available within QMplus, the university’s online learning environment. However, there are several other tools outside of QMplus which can be used to assess student learning – such as audience response systems.

What tools are available?

Online Assessment

Assessment can be diagnostic, formative or summative.

Diagnostic testing is typically used before the learning takes place and formative testing is used to give  feedback – this type of testing can be used to help the teacher to identify any gaps in learning and also help students to identify areas where they need to improve. Diagnostic and formative testing do not normally carry a heavy weight in the students grade and as such there are many activities within QMplus which can be used to assess students this way.

The most common tools used in QMplus for assessment are:

1. The assignment activity, and
2.  The quiz activity

The assignment activity within QMplus can be optionally used in conjunction with Turnitin, which is used to assist with detecting signs of plagiarism, but can also be used to educate students and assist with improving their coursework citation. The assignment activity in QMplus is used for both summative and formative assessment. For more help with the assignment and quiz tools, please visit the assessment and feedback section of our help and support pages.

Alternatively, you can get started using some key guides below: 

• Creating a standard QMplus assignment (Moodle Doc)
• Creating a Turnitin assignment in QMplus
• Creating and marking a video assignment
• Setting up a group assignment (Moodle Doc)
• Detailed instructions on how to create & manage a Quiz (Moodle Doc)
• See all assessment and feedback guides

Organising Assessments in QMplus 

Once you have set up your assessments in QMplus, you will need to organise them for your students to be able to find and complete them. We recommend using the Assessment Information Block as an effective way to organise your assessments so that it is clear for your students to know what they will need to do and how to easily find their assessments.  

See our Assessment Information Block guide: Using the Assessment Information block to organise assessments 

Online Grades and Feedback 

QMplus allows for feedback to be given as text, audio or video and also allows teacher to make comments online. 

Once you have set up your assessment in QMplus, you will want to be able to view your students’ submissions, mark them and provide feedback. There are different ways to do this, depending on which assessment method you have chosen to use.  

Some key guides for marking assessments: 

• Marking an assignment in QMplus (standard or Turnitin) (Moodle Doc)
• How do I bulk download assignments? (Moodle Doc)
• How to bulk upload feedback files (Moodle Doc)
• Using a CSV file to upload grades and feedback to QMplus (Moodle Doc)
• Granting extensions to students (Moodle Doc)

Other ways to set up Assessments in QMplus 

There are also other QMplus activities that are used for diagnostic and formative assessment, such as:

1. Discussion forums – The teacher can set up a Q&A forum where they post a question (or a video or an image) and get students to make comments or post answers. Forums can also be set up so that students can’t see what someone else has posted until they have added their own post to the discussion; or students can grade or comment on someone else’s post as part of their assessment. See our guide – Using Module Announcements and other Forums
2. Workshop activity – This is a powerful peer assessment activity. Students submit their work and then receive a number of submissions from other students, which they must assess according to the teacher’s specifications. It is primarily a student-focused activity; however, as the academic you may guide the students by providing example submissions for them to try out before assessing their peers. See the guide – Adding a Workshop Activity (Moodle doc). For a working example of a workshop activity, see the Celebrating Cultures course in the School Demonstration site. with the username teacher and password moodle.
3. E-portfolios – the QMplus Hub area allows teachers and students to set up an portfolio page which can be shared with others. See our QMplus Hub guides – Introduction to QMplus Hub
4. There are tools that are also handy in allowing for student collaboration, such as blogs and wikis, as well as the glossary and database activities. See the section on Student Collaboration for more information on these tools.