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Grademark is the name of an Electronic Submission/Marking/Feedback system. It has been made by Turnitin, the same company who provide the plagiarism checking system. Submissions are made online. They are marked online and feedback is returned online.
The university is moving towards 100% Electronic marking and feedback to deliver commonality in submission processes and receipt of feedback throughout the university whilst maintaining standards of feedback to the student.
In part this is in reaction to a common thread of criticisms throughout the NSS for universities right across the UK.
One of the main student complaints is that handwritten feedback they receive is not always legible.
There is no compulsion at University level for marking or feedback to be provisioned through Grademark, but there is to be providing your feedback electronically.
Having said this, some colleges have adopted Grademark as their sole or primary method of feedback provision, so if you are looking to use something else, it would seem prudent to check locally that you are working within your college policy.
There are two main centrally supported marking tools at Swansea University; Grademark and the Blackboard marking tool, but, as things stand you may use any form of electronic feedback, so long as you can show that you are not disadvantaging your students by adopting your own method.
SALT supports the use of either of the above systems, but are also happy to try to help with other methods on a best efforts basis.
At the time of consideration, Grademark was chosen above other marking and feedback tools for a number of reasons, some of which are briefly outlined below:
- It was the only marking tool reviewed allowing for comments to be inputted directly into the script, thereby preserving the direct connection between the comment and its point of relevance.
- It has the functionality to build up a repository of stored comments, “Quickmarks”, for markers to reuse, conceivably providing big time savings during marking. To answer the criticism that the use of prepopulated comments means you are only giving generic feedback, each time a Quickmark is used there is the option of adding to it to personalise the comment to the paper.
- A vast majority of assessed papers at Swansea are already being submitted to Turnitin as a plagiarism checking tool. As Grademark is produced by the same manufacturers there is only a need for the student to make a single submission both for plagiarism checking and for Grademark.
Having both tools within the same system also means that a marker can click directly between Originality reports and Grademark, or even to show the two simultaneously as overlain images. - There is a direct integration available between Blackboard and Turnitin, making access to the system very easy for users, without the need for a separate login or password for either student or marker.
Training is available from SALT for those who wish to have it. Group sessions are often held within colleges, or you can receive one to one tutorial sessions upon request. These are usually given in your office.
If you wish to ask for training, or if you have any queries regarding Grademark, e-mail should be addressed to blackboard@swan.ac.uk
If you are having problems with or have queries regarding the use of Grademark your first port of call should be IT support in ISS. The support desk can be found in the main catalogue hall of the library building, alongside the issue desk.
Alternatively, they can be reached by phone on (29)5060 or by e-mail, itsupport@swan.ac.uk
If the support team do not have the answer that you need, they will either make enquiries on your behalf, or pass you on to the appropriate person to deal with your problem.
