This resource brings together guidance, policy and research on how we prepare for the upcoming marking periods as module leaders leading marking teams, and as markers assessing student work. The resource will chiefly be organised to these two purposes, before recommending some additional sources of relevant professional development and educational research. You can use the live table of contents below to navigate to the section you need.
- Section 1: Module leaders: Preparing Marking Teams for Success
- Setting modules up for marking
- Submission Point Creation & Setup Guides
- Developing a Rubric
- Calibration
- Feedback approach
- Student Assessment Guidance & Finding feedback
- Academic and Study Skills Team
- Section 2 - Markers: Assessing student work
- How to use different feedback types
- Marking In Moodle using Turnitin
- Marking in Moodle with the Coursework marking tools & The Quiz Tool
- Interpreting Originality Reports
- Preparing for Generative AI
- Section 3 - Further Professional Development
- Going further with your Marking and Assessment practice
- Section 4 - Further Research
- Overview
- Calibration
- Feedback (including some conducted at Manchester Metropolitan University)
Section 1: Module leaders: Preparing Marking Teams for Success
Setting modules up for marking
Submission Point Creation & Setup Guides
Setup of Summative submission points: The assessments team is responsible for creating coursework submission points. You can find more information on the Coursework Intranet Page. To determine which settings you can change and which require assistance from the assessments team, refer to the guidance on the default Moodle settings. Submission points are typically located at the top of the Moodle page under a section named "Assessment Information and Submission". Please ensure the submission point is clearly signposted and not hidden. Resubmission areas will be hidden by default until the assessment group is added. Once created take a look at the How to navigate a Submission Point Video guide
Creating quizzes in Moodle: For summative quizzes you will find that a Moodle quiz has already been created for you. Please check the settings for this quiz. If the settings are incorrect, contact the Assessments team ASAP to ensure your quiz and any in person elements are setup as necessary. Once settings are correct you can then start building the questions for the quiz. If you have used the quiz tool for a summative assessment of the same module in a previous year or occurrence, then you can use the question bank to reuse previously used questions. Alternatively, if you are looking to use a quiz copied over from a previous module please do speak to the Assessments team to ensure that the setup is correct, please hide the quiz until this has been confirmed. The quiz tool can also be used for formative assessment, guidance on how to use the Moodle quiz tool can be found on the DigiEd Moodle for Formative assessment Intranet page under the Quiz section.
Allocating Assessors: If you are looking to allocate assessors to student submissions you can use the Allocating markers section on intranet and the How to use assessor allocation in Moodle Video guide.
Developing a Rubric
When creating your rubric for your assessment, the Example Standard Descriptors webpage from UTA will be helpful in helping you to understand how to differentiate across your rubric. Standard descriptors sketch out in broad terms what is expected of students at a particular level. They are too generic to support making grading decisions for individual assignments, and so need to be interpreted into specific marking criteria for each task. We would recommend that when you create your marking criteria rubric, that you sense-check this with your colleagues delivering the module and those colleagues who will be marking to ensure internal consistency. University Teaching Academy have lots of resources that will help you to explore your assessment rubric such as our Assessment Management and Design Toolkits (Please see the Assessment Design Toolkit, section ‘Marking Criteria’ specifically).
Setting up Rubrics for Marking: Rubrics can be added directly into TurnItIn, the Setting up a TurnItIn Rubric video guide will help guide through this process as well as more information in the Marking In Moodle using TurnItIn resource. If you are using the Moodle tools for marking instead of TurnItIn we would recommend using the rubric as an upload file for feedback. There is an option for rubrics in the Moodle options however this is currently very restrictive and we would not recommend using it for summative assessment.
Setting up QuickMarks for the marking team: You can find out more on how to use QuickMarks in the 'How to use different Feedback types' section of this resource. You may though wish to setup a QuickMark set in advance for the marking team to consistently use, the Setting up a QuickMark set video guide can help take you through this process.
Calibration
All calibration activity should follow the university’s Verification, Marking and Moderation Policy. The policy details that Module Leaders should ensure that a calibration activity (also referred to as standardisation in some departments) is undertaken prior to marking. University Teaching Academy have produced a resource to guide this calibration activity: UTA Calibration Resource. Sometimes teams call this process ‘standardisation’, but we prefer the term calibration. In the assessment literature, standardisation refers to normalising grades across an agreed curve, whereas calibration refers to developing and maintaining one’s ability to make assessment judgements. Calibration activities are designed to build confidence in the consistency of marking and feedback across the marking team. Calibration involves independent marking of a limited number of shared pieces of work with a follow-up meeting to discuss the outcomes and any actions which the team would like to take as a result.
Feedback approach
Once you have completed the calibration activities above, you should establish some common expectations for your marking team so that students can expect a broadly similar and equitable experience across markers. This will involve discussing the form of feedback and the amount of feedback. You may also wish to consider the purpose of your feedback as a module team, thinking about the culture around feedback you wish to create. Recent research from Winstone (2022) showed that student-facing documentation concerning feedback more often focused on transmission, teacher-focused information, rather than being focused on learning. UTA’s Assessment Design Toolkit has some sections exploring different types of feedback and their uses and considerations.
Student Assessment Guidance & Finding feedback
Further advice around assessments can also be found for students in the Student Resource Area on Moodle, specifically in the section Assessments Advice and Support (Moodle, TurnItIn & Video). Students often don’t know where to find their feedback in systems like Moodle and Turnitin. This video from the Digital Education team outlines how to find feedback in Moodle and can be shared with students when you release grades: Accessing your Online Summative Assessment Feedback.
The university has created a helpful guide that you could signpost students to when releasing feedback that explores Getting the Most out of Your Assignment Feedback .
Academic and Study Skills Team
Manchester Metropolitan has a superb team who can help students to understand and make use of the feedback you provide. They have some brilliant online resources in the Academic Study Skills Moodle Area, specifically the Academic and Study Skills Learning Hub (These both require a Manchester Metropolitan ID and for you to self-enrol on these Moodle Areas). Additionally, the Study Skills team can provide some developmental feedback before submitting an essay, assignment or dissertation. They can help with a range of queries and show you where to go for further support if required. Encourage your students to work with this wonderful team before submitting their work: Study Skills Writing Feedback.
Section 2 - Markers: Assessing student work
How to use different feedback types
Marking In Moodle using Turnitin
The majority of text based submissions will have TurnItIn enabled, this is provided within the standard Coursework tool. This provides you with advanced grading tools such as QuickMarks, audio feedback, in text comments, rubrics, overall comments as well as the generation of originality reports all in one space online, meaning you don't have to download anything, but you will need network access throughout. The grade information is synced to Moodle on closing each submission in TurnItIn, please ensure you allow the Moodle submission list to reload once you have marked and closed a submission.
For much more detailed information and guidance from the Digital Education team visit the following intranet page - Managing Summative Assessment in Moodle - Manchester Met Intranet where there is the Marking in Moodle using TurnItIn guidance, this includes information on; Setting up rubrics in Turnitin; how to access Turnitin, how to set up and use in-text and bubble comments, QuickMarks, overall text feedback, audio feedback, weighted rubrics, adding grades, and closing, saving and syncing with Moodle.
Marking in Moodle with the Coursework marking tools & The Quiz Tool
For those submissions that TurnItIn is not being used for, such as; video submissions, event based, physical submissions, and complex project submissions made up of multiple files you will have the 'Add final feedback' option available. This provides the functionality to add grades, overall text feedback, and to upload feedback files. For further information, please view the Digital Education page on Managing Summative Assessment in Moodle and use the resources in the Marking in Moodle with the Coursework marking tools section.
If you are using the Quiz tool for summative assessment, you can find the setup advice earlier in this document in the Submission Point creation and setup guides section. The marking processes are the same as the formative assessment processes in this tool, further information can be found on the Moodle for Formative assessment Intranet page under the Quiz section.
Interpreting Originality Reports
Originality reports check for similarity in the submitted work against others TurnItIn has stored that have been previously submitted, as well as websites, journals, books and periodicals. When a student submits to Turnitin a check is carried out which will highlight any sections of the submission that are similar to items in the Turnitin database. The amount of the submission that matches this is presented initially in Moodle as an overall similarity '%'. The results also produce a further detailed originality report.
All reports should be handled on a case by case basis, there is no percentage that can confirm that academic misconduct has or has not occurred.
Further detail on this is available on the Managing Summative Assessment in Moodle Intranet page, including the TurnItIn Originality Reports section.
Preparing for Generative AI
Manchester Met's position on Generative AI is to embrace it responsibly, with the majority of assessments adopting a position of permitting assistive use of Generative AI within assessments. As such, students will be able to use Generative AI for specific purposes within many of your assessments. For more guidance on this see LEED guidance Embracing generative AI responsibly - Manchester Met Intranet, specifically the sections on ‘Designing Authentic Assessments’.
Detection of Generative AI misuse in assessments
Like the overwhelming majority of UK HEIs, Manchester Met has opted out of enabling this software as a means of detecting generative AI for the foreseeable future.
This guidance from JISC on use of AI detectors shows why Manchester Met has adopted a position of not using AI Detectors: AI Detection and assessment - an update for 2025 - Artificial intelligence.
Many AI detectors still return false positives, meaning that students who had not misused generative AI would be incorrectly accused of doing so.
If you have any concerns regarding student use of Generative AI in assessment, you must follow the Academic Misconduct Policy and work closely with your module lead. Please refer to the Academic Misconduct and Integrity intranet page for further information about what to do if you suspect a student of academic misconduct.
Marking with Generative AI is not permitted currently
It is not permitted to use generative AI for marking and assessing student work, even CoPilot.
Additionally, colleagues must not put student data (in this case assessments) into any third-party platforms which are not institutionally supported or vetted.
However, colleagues may use generative AI to assist in the formatting and phrasing of feedback.
Section 3 - Further Professional Development
Going further with your Marking and Assessment practice
Once you’ve navigated the assessment period, consider engaging with the following to help you further improve and develop your practices around marking and assessment:
- Authentic and Flexible Assessment Community of Practice – Consider joining this cross university MS Teams community DETAIL led by LEED Innovation Scholars. This community of practice is will be led by Lesley Raven and Alice Graeupl until 2027.
- Assessment in HE network - AHE is an independent network focused on developing research-informed practice in assessment and feedback in higher education. The AHE network and events bring together academics across the full range of subject disciplines and professional fields who are evaluating, researching and developing theory, research, policy and practice in assessment and feedback.
- Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Journal – Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is an established international peer-reviewed journal which publishes papers and reports on all aspects of assessment and evaluation within higher education. Its purpose is to advance understanding of assessment and evaluation practices and processes, particularly the contribution that these make to student learning and to course, staff and institutional development.
- Advance HE Professional Development Course for External Examiners - This course is free of charge, takes place online and contributes to the maintenance of degree standards and their reasonable comparability across the UK higher education systems by providing training for external examiners. This is the only training course for external examiners in the UK. It has been developed in collaboration with a range of HE providers.
Section 4 - Further Research
Overview
- Impacts of higher education assessment and feedback policy and practice on students: a review of the literature 2016-2021: Overview of contemporary educational research. Covers a broad range of areas, such as: High-impact practices; Authentic assessment; Time-dependent assessments; Feedback policies and practices; Peer assessment and feedback.
- Quality Assurance Agency Collaborative Enhancement Projects - Assessment: Cutting-edge, funded educational research covering a broad range of areas, such as competence-based assessment, assessment literacy, compassionate assessment and belonging, and inclusive assessment.
Calibration
- Hill, J., Walkington, H., Page, B. and Wyse, S., 2024. The need for calibration in the disciplines: A case study from geography. In Academic Standards in Higher Education (pp. 202-216). Routledge.
- O’Connell, B., De Lange, P., Freeman, M., Hancock, P., Abraham, A., Howieson, B. and Watty, K., 2016. Does calibration reduce variability in the assessment of accounting learning outcomes?. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(3), pp.331-349. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1008398
- O’Donovan, B., Sadler, I. and Reimann, N., 2024. Social moderation and calibration versus codification: a way forward for academic standards in higher education?. Studies in Higher Education, 49(12), pp.2693-2706. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2321504
Feedback (including some conducted at Manchester Metropolitan University)
- Little, C. and Thomason, C., 2025. Enhancing student feedback engagement: Implementing and evaluating three inclusive teaching strategies. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.56433/tejvqc79
- Thompson, D., 2018. Lights, camera, action research! Engaging filmmaking students in feedback. Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.21100/compass.v11i1.711
- Winstone, N.E., 2022. Characterising feedback cultures in higher education: an analysis of strategy documents from 134 UK universities. Higher Education, 84(5), pp.1107-1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00818-8
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