7. Assessment tasks will be submitted online, through Blackboard, by the published deadline date and time (unless otherwise specified). Feedback and / or grades* on assessment tasks will be made available to students online, through Blackboard.

*subject to ratification by Department Assessment Boards

7.1 Coursework assessments (CW)

Online submission of coursework assessment is mandated for all levels of study. However, there may be some specialist coursework or assessment types which cannot be submitted online, such as exhibitions, installations, or physical artefacts. Further information around the submission of coursework online and other ways of submitting coursework can be found in Submission of Work on Assessment Essentials. Several case studies are included in the Formats section (Assessment Essentials) which covers online submission in practice. For more information on what tools are being used for portfolios in your College, and to discuss what may be best for your requirements, please contact the Digital Learning Team. For information and resources around portfolios, please refer to Portfolios (Assessment Essentials).

7.2 Scheduled assessments (PR)

Materials relating to scheduled assessments would normally be submitted online via Blackboard except where this is not applicable.

7.3 Invigilated assessments (EX)

Exams may be submitted on paper or online, depending on the agreed delivery format.

7.4 Group Assessment Submission

Module Leaders should specify to students that when submitting group assessments, they should be submitted by one member of the group (all group members will receive acknowledgment of the submission if work is submitted via Blackboard). The design of group work assessments must ensure that students are allocated an individual grade reflecting individual achievement along with a ‘group mark’.

7.5 Submission Arrangements

The University’s expectation is that submissions are made to a single submission point. Where multiple submission points are required, the Digital Learning Team should be consulted for guidance.

Module Leaders are responsible for providing students with clear guidance on how submission points operate. A single submission point is used for first sit assessments to allow submission of work up to the deadline as well as submission of any late work or work with approved extensions. More information can be found in Submission of Work on Assessment Essentials. Submission points will be created in Blackboard module sites for summative CW and PR tasks (including non-electronic assessments) automatically. These will be created based on the assessment task information held in SITS including due date, task name and assessment type, as provided by the course/module teams.

Submission points are created based on information provided during the Assessment Data Collection process, which is completed prior to the start of an academic year. Task information held in SITS is used to generate corresponding submission portals in Blackboard module sites. Once these submission points have been created, dates are published to students via the Assessment Statement, and it is imperative that they are not altered.

Coursework submission points will be set up in Blackboard in the following way:

• as individual submissions (but can be modified to manage group submissions later if required).
• with unlimited submission attempts, allowing students to re-submit if there is a problem with their submission or there is a need to make changes.
• to remain open for 7 calendar weeks (49 calendar days) after the published deadline date to allow for submission of late work due to extensions.
• set as 'available' at the point of creation to allow information to be visible to students.

Turnitin, PebblePad and formative Blackboard submission points will not be automatically created. These must be created by the Module Leader. Online exam submission points (where applicable) must also be created by the Module Leader.

A coursework reassessment submission point will be automatically created in a separate hidden content area at the start of the academic year. This will not be available to students until the Module Leader makes it available closer to the time of reassessment. Module Leaders will have the responsibility to make this available to students as appropriate.

7.6 Release of feedback

Once feedback for the main cohort is released, markers need to be aware that any further feedback created after this point will be immediately available to students i.e. for those students with extensions. (To control the release of feedback, staff can use the 'save as draft' functionality which allows online feedback to be published to the student at a chosen date and time.). All Blackboard module sites remain active while there are students enrolled on the site. Once there are no students enrolled on the module site, the site is automatically archived for a minimum period of 24 months and then manually deleted. During that time a ticket can be submitted via IT Help for the module site to be made available again. If colleagues wish to retain copies of feedback provided this should be saved and stored on their OneDrive.

7.7 Large Files and Media Submissions

Large files: any non-media files exceeding 250 MB in size or media exceeding 2 GB in size can be submitted electronically via alternative mechanisms including third party cloud-based solutions (e.g. Google Drive or Onedrive) or the University's Q Drive. To discuss what may be best for your requirements, please contact the Digital Learning Team

Media submissions: any media-based file (audio/video) not exceeding 2 GB in size should be submitted to Panopto.

Please refer to this article on managing file size when submitting online. This article provides guidance on how to manage the size of files and should be provided to students to help make files more manageable and smaller in size. The document is written for academic staff who are setting assessment tasks that require students to submit work with a file size that exceeds 250MB.

7.8 File Formats

Module Leaders are responsible for stipulating how work is presented for online submission (e.g. font
size, word limits, electronic file type, etc.) for each assessment task. This must be clearly articulated to students in the module assessment brief published via the module guide and on the Blackboard module site. Blackboard places no restrictions on the file formats that students can submit therefore it is important that the acceptable and accessible file formats are clearly stated. This is to ensure that students only submit formats that the markers are able to open, e.g. formats support by the University's provided software.

The inline marking tool in Blackboard, Bb Annotate, can display a variety of commonly used filed formats. The University has subscribed to Microsoft Office 365, providing Microsoft Office to all staff and students free of charge. This means staff and students have access to the latest version of the full Office productivity suite (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and more) available for offline and online use. For more information, please visit https://go.shu.ac.uk/office365. Please note that if you are using the Print to Mark service, this does not accept Open Office and mac OSX files such as Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Documents containing mathematical notation should be saved in PDF format before being submitted for Print to Mark.

It is considered good practice for each course/department to agree a consistent approach to assessment format where possible. Students must take reasonable steps to:
• adhere to the required format as stipulated by the Module Leader.
• submit legible assessment.
• submit accessible work, i.e. not password protected and not corrupt files.

7.9 Receipting

Students receive an electronic receipt from Blackboard for all work submitted online. Physical work can also be receipted by helpdesks or in class by tutors where determined by the Module Leader. This will generate an electronic receipt for the student and an attempt is recorded in a Grade Centre column, enabling feedback to be provided. For scheduled (PR) assessments, Module Leaders can choose an approach and will need to confirm this when validating their assessment data to enable a submission point that allows for receipting to be set up.

7.10 When Systems are Offline

Should Blackboard be unavailable for the submission of student work, or marking or provision of feedback by academic staff, a business contingency plan will take effect. Details on the agreed processes can be found in Storage and System Issues on Assessment Essentials.

7.11 Originality Checking/Turnitin

Turnitin is a text-matching service integrated with Blackboard. Originality reports generated by Turnitin show the percentage of a text-based submission that matches other sources, including the internet, a range of electronic journals and its database of existing student papers from subscribing UK institutions. The main value of Turnitin lies in its use as a formative educational tool to help raise awareness and educate students about plagiarism, and to provide a source of formative feedback on their writing. If staff suspect contract cheating or the use of artificial intelligence, they should follow this guidance on Academic Misconduct. Use of originality checking can maximise the potential for students to improve their academic writing and referencing skills whilst enabling academics to objectively assess the proportion of a student's work that is original and identify possible plagiarism or collusion.

Turnitin and Summative Assessments
Module leaders who want to use Turnitin should enable it in the Blackboard Ultra Assignment settings. This means the submission is stored in Blackboard but also a report will be generated in Turnitin for any files submitted in the last submitted attempt. Students must be informed:

• That they have unlimited opportunity to upload work
• When originality reports will be generated
• Where there is an unlimited opportunity to upload work to Turnitin, the first four times that a student uploads a file, the originality report will start to be generated immediately. Any files uploaded afterwards (fifth and onwards) will be subject to a 24-hour delay before the report starts generating

Formative use of Turnitin
Where Turnitin may be used to support the judgement on the originality of summative work, students must be offered a formative opportunity to upload draft work to Turnitin and make use of their originality report prior to submission of their final work. Guidance is available in Assessment4Students in understanding Turnitin originality reports. Where used specifically for the upload of formative work, the upload link for Turnitin should include the word(s) ‘draft’ or ‘NOT final’ in the name and must not contain any reference to 'submit' or 'submission'; the use of the term ‘formative’ may not be understood by students. For further guidance about the use of summative and formative text-matching, and the setting up and managing of Turnitin please refer to Originality Checking/Turnitin on Assessment Essentials.

7.12 Technical or user-error issues with submission

We expect students to take all reasonable steps to adhere to University submission arrangements and instructions for individual submissions. However, there could be occasions where there is a technical or user-error issue with a student's online submission. The general position in these circumstances is to find in favour of the student and aim to have a consistent approach which is not punitive towards the student, for example if a student fails to upload their assignment to Turnitin as well as submitting it, they would not be referred. A judgement on the appropriate action should be made on the basis of:

• how clear the instructions are which have been provided to the student regarding how to submit
• whether the student concerned has a disability which may affect their ability to follow written instructions
• whether the student has been advised previously about incorrect submission attempts.

Colleagues should seek guidance from School/Institute or College Assessment leads if needed.

7.13 Provisional Grades

The Blackboard Gradebook is used to record and display all provisional grades to students. Grade columns for all summative tasks will also be created as part of the automated submission creation process in early September. This means that each submission point will have a corresponding grade column. Instructions on how to set up the Gradebook for your Blackboard module site are available via the Blackboard Ultra guides. Please note that provisional grades and feedback for work that cannot be submitted online, e.g. artefacts, should still be recorded in Gradebook. For further guidance on entering grades online, marking deadlines and missing grades, please refer to Recording and Returning Marks and Feedback on Assessment Essentials.