Digital badges, safety online and other posts for students

Our blog has been running since 2010, and moved into this blog platform in 2020. We’ve had two Advent Calendars and a Summer of Moodle, and published posts hopefully of use to both students and staff. Some of the posts which may still be of interest to students (and of course some staff) include: How …

Writing questions for quizzes in Moodle and ExamSys

In our recent “iTeach: Engaging Students” webinars [Link to Moodle: sorry UoN only], we discussed in the final webinar the difficulty of writing questions, such as multiple choice questions, for quizzes and tests. If questions aren’t properly written, it’s possible to score well just by knowing how the questions work. It’s amazing how many online …

New resource: Digital Learning Frequently Asked Questions for staff

I’ve been asking around my colleagues in Learning Technology in order to find out the questions that have been most repeatedly asked over the years. We’ve then created a Digital Learning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Staff resource to help members of staff to find the answers quickly.  Perhaps one of our top questions at …

How students can change account settings in ExamSys

ExamSys is the University’s e-assessment system used for online assessment, including formal summative exams, taken under exam conditions, and informal formative self-assessment quizzes. ExamSys is used for some but not all modules. If you are a student your ExamSys account is set up with your usual University username and password. Each year, you will automatically …

Speed up your Turnitin marking with pre-populated or custom QuickMark sets: Advent Calendar #17

QuickMarks is a feature in Turnitin’s Feedback Studio marking interface that enables you to insert comment bubbles for common errors such as ‘Awk’ for awkward phrasing or ‘Improper citation’ for referencing errors. You can create a library of feedback that could be re-used on multiple occasions, for groups and cohorts of students across different assignments. …

Quiz review options in Moodle: Advent Calendar #9

Here are five top tips for getting the review settings right in Moodle Quizzes to allow your students to review and amend their answers, or not, depending on your needs. If you’d like your students to be able to review their answers once they’ve submitted the quiz and be able to amend them before the …

Timed document release in Moodle: Advent Calendar #7

Here’s a new feature in Moodle you might not have noticed, Timed Document Release. This resource was developed in direct response to the needs of students during take-home online exams. It allows anyone with an Editing Teacher role in Moodle to make a document (or set of documents) available to students, on or after a …

Training and drop-in sessions including online marking and face-to-face drop-in

Learn something new, or come for a refresher – we’ve got lots of training courses on offer this autumn. They’re aimed to provide you with the support you need at the right time of year. As assessment season hots up (unlike the real season…) there’s new training in marking online. These have been organised with …

Rebranding of Rogō to be called ExamSys

The university is rebranding its online e-assessment and examination system, currently called Rogō. It will become known as ExamSys. This will happen on Wednesday 9 November 2022, between 1pm and 4pm, UK time. There may be a small amount of downtime during this period.  The system will be upgraded to the latest version 7.5 – …

How staff can prepare for ExamSys assessments for the new academic year

ExamSys is the University’s online assessment system, written within the University, for both informal formative self-assessment quizzes and formal online summative exams. It is used for assessment when a quiz-type format is appropriate. In ExamSys, there are 15 question types. Reports on student performance can be accessed and exported, enabling staff to assess the value …