Parallel Session Experiences of using a peer marking system for formative assignment grading Sundari Joseph, Audrey Stephen

The module team were in nursing and taught both an undergraduate and postgraduate research module. They wanted to introduce something formative to help with summative assessments. They also wanted to raise awareness in the team of the benefits and challenges of online marking systems. They explored a range of options but settled for the option in moodle which can be used for peer assessment. They set up a rubric that could be used which was matched to the summative assessment. Each student then had to submit 800 words which appraised three research articles. The submission was as a word document which was uploaded. The marking is then by grade A – E and free comments can be added. Staff could override the student mark if needed and identify why they had done this. The team also published exemplars for grades. The formative assessment was voluntary so not all students engaged in this. Each student was allocated three peers to mark. Individual student engagement was then reviewed using learning analytics. There was a face to face meeting initially to explain this activity and how to use the rubric.

 Students found this helpful and made them think about their work more and staff said it did engage students in asking questions about their assessment.