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Multiple Markers

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Revision as of 19:02, 14 March 2012 by Giannis Potamitis (talk | contribs)
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Note: This article is a work in progress. Please use the page comments or an appropriate moodle.org forum for any recommendations/suggestions for improvement.


Description

This extension supports:

  • Creation of assignments that can be graded by two different markers. A supervisor and a second marker
  • Manual and automatic allocation of each student to two markers.
  • Three grades per submission. Two individual grades per marker and a third (final) agreed grade.
  • A special view where markers can check the current status of the marking procedures.
  • An enhanced feedback to students by reporting the markers as well.
  • Integration with Multiple Grading Categories extension in case it is installed too.


This extension is a deliverable for "COMP30040: Third Year Project" course at University of Manchester --Giannis Potamitis

How to install

  • Download the required files from here
  • Copy markers directory inside xxx/local/ where xxx is your main Moodle directory
  • Copy assignment directory to xxx/mod/assignment (overwrite existing one - see later)
  • Copy markeradmin directory inside xxx/blocks/
  • Copy profile.php file to xxx/user/ (overwrite existing one)
  • Log in as administrator to your Moodle site and follow the instructions to install the new plug-in
  • Setup the Markers administration block (see later)

Overwriting assignment module

I needed to add some extra code to assignment module so as it can make use of my plug-in. In case you do not wish to overwrite the existing assignment files you should manually include (eg copy) all the changes I made in my own version of those files to your own version. The assignment files that contain extra code are:

  • /mod/assignment/mod_form.php
  • /mod/assignment/lib.php
  • /mod/assignment/locallib.php
  • /mod/assignment/type/upload/assignment.class.php
  • /mod/assignment/type/offline/assignment.class.php
  • /mod/assignment/type/online/file.php
  • /mod/assignment/submissions.php

You can easily find my changes to those files by looking for blocks of code that have the following form: /* ------------------------ Giannis --------------------------- */ ... my extra code here ... /* ------------------------------------------------------------ */

In other words my extra code is surrounded by the above pair of comments.

Setup Markers administration block

This block provides links to important pages of this plug-in. You can setup it as follow:

  • Log in as administrator
  • Using Settings block select Front page settings → Turn editing on
  • Using the “Add a block” list which appears either at the left or right side of page, select Marker administration.
  • The Marker administration block should now appear either at the left or right side of page. Now click to the configuration icon of this block and configure the settings as here:

categories blocksetup.png

How to use

Multiple markers assignment

In creating/modifying an assignment form you can now check “Allow Multiple Markers” box which is found in the Markers section. This allows the assignment instance to make use of the markers plug-in.

markers setassignment.png

Allocate markers

Once you have created an assignment with multiple markers you should allocate markers to all students that are enrolled in the course. First click to “Allocate Markers” under Marker administration block. Then you can either manually allocate a supervisor and a second marker to each student or you can click to “Automatic Allocation”. Automatic allocation will balance the load of each marker to students.

markers allocation.png

Markers are all the enrolled users that are either editing or non-editing teachers to that course. You need to have at least two markers (either editing or non-editing teachers) enrolled in the course in order to proceed in markers allocation. This is mainly because a student cannot have the same supervisor and second marker.


Individual and Agreed Grades

Each marker must first provide an individual grade. This can be done via the submission table which is already provided by the assignment module. The submission table can be found as following:

  • The marker should navigate to the main page of the assignment s/he is interested in
  • Under Settings block navigate to: Assignment administration → View n submitted assignments (where n is the number of submitted assignments aka submissions that this marker can grade)

The table looks slightly different than the original one:

markers tableview.png

In this example we are logged in as Marker 1 and according to the Status column Marker 1 has not provided an individual grade yet since we can see a “Grade” link. For Student 4, Marker 1 has already provided the individual grade but Marker 5 no. Thus Marker 1 is only allowed to update the individual grade. For Student 7 we can see an “Agreed Grade” link since both markers have already provided their individual grades and thus we are ready to proceed to the agreed one.

The following screenshot illustrates the form of providing an individual grade. This is identical to the form which provides a normal grade with the only difference that the individual grade will never be showed to the student since it is an intermediate grade and not a final one.

markers individualnocats.png

Since Multiple Markers extension can be integrated with Multiple Grading Categories when both are installed, we can have an assignment with multiple categories and multiple markers. In that case individual grading will have a similar view as grading a normal submitted assignment with multiple grading categories:

markers individualwithcats.png


Agreed grading includes details for the individual grades of each marker. This is illustrated by the following screenshot:

markers agreednocats.png


The following screenshot illustrates an agreed grading over an assignment with multiple grading categories:

markers agreedwithcats.png


An alternate view

Each marker can handle the grading of each student via an alternate view. This view is accessible via the “General Status” link under Marker administration block. Although the information provided is similar to submissions table view we can also filter by different courses, assignments and students. This allows the marker to view the grading details of one or more students regarding one or more courses/assignments. An example of this alternate view follows:

markers alternateview.png


The three lists in the “Filter by” section will only contain information that are available to the current marker. For instance the “Student” list will only contain the students of this marker (similarly for “Course” and “Assignment” lists)

Privilege mode

Administrators and editing teachers of courses have access to a privilege grading mode. It mainly allows them to grade students on behalf of the actual markers, update or delete individual/agreed grades and allow/disallow any further grading updates. This mode is accessible via the “Privilege Mode” link under Marker administration block. An example of this mode follows:

markers privilegemode.png


Student Feedback

The feedback of student is now enhanced by reporting the two markers who provided the final, aka agreed, grade:

markers feedback.png


How to uninstall

The plug-in can be uninstalled by an administrator with the same way as the rest of the plug-ins. Using settings block, the administrator should navigate to: Site administration → Plugins → Local plugins → Manage Local plugins and delete the Markers plug-in. After the deletion you should remove the xxx/local/markers and xxx/blocks/markeradmin directories where xxx is you main Moodle directory to avoid plug-in re-installation.

See also