New: Late Feedback Notifications
While the institution performed well generally, results from the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS) indicated that improvements could be made regarding timeliness of feedback for assessed work. The AVP Dean of Learning and Teaching held a meeting with Directors of Teaching, Directors of Postgraduate Taught Studies and other key School role holders to discuss how we can improve our performance in this area in the future. One of the top recommendations was to introduce additional notifications in MMS.
On the 11th of September 2023 ‘Late feedback Notifications’ were released for staff. These notifications take the form of emails and will list, by module, the number of students who have submitted a file, and the number of students who have not yet had either feedback or mark uploaded.
The notification will take the form of a list, ordered by module, and will contain the following information:
- the module details,
- the assignment details,
- the feedback date,
- the number of students who have submitted work,
- the number of students who have no marks or feedback entered who have submitted work.
MMS generates the notifications and then passes them to the University email server, so emails may be received in staff inboxes slightly later than 4:00am.
Late feedback
Feedback is considered late if an assignment has passed it’s ‘Feedback date’ and:
- An assignment has been set for electronic submission,
- Students have submitted a file,
- No marks or feedback have been entered into MMS,
- The assignment has a greater weight than 0.
Feedback is not considered late if it has been entered but not yet been made visible to students. Marks are considered feedback.
The feedback date can be set for a coursework assignment when the assignment is being configured. This is usually done by school or module admins. To configure an assignment:
- Access the MMS coursework tool using the links in MMS or via MySaint (https://mysaint.st-andrews.ac.uk).
- Select the Configure link in the navigation panel on the left.
- Select the Add Assignment button to create a new assignment.
- Locate the new assignment in the table and complete the fields:
- Assignment name: The name that will be displayed to students.
- Short name: The name that will appear on the Coursework overview and be used in any coursework scripts.
- Due date: The default due date for the assignment (extensions and per-group deadlines can be set on the Extensions page).
- Feedback window: The number of days after the due date until students can expect feedback (this includes weekends).
- Relative weight: The relative contribution the assignment mark makes towards the overall coursework mark compared to the other assignments in the tool.
- Style: The style of the assignment, usually ‘Single Upload’ for large assignments that cannot be uploaded to Turnitin, or ‘Turnitin’ for when a Turnitin report is needed.
- Feedback and Grade Visibility: The default setting is ‘Hidden (marks & feedback)’ and it is recommended that this is not changed until the school is ready to release the marks to students[1].
- Allowed types: by default MMS allows submission of all file types. Staff can add a restriction by entering the extension of allowed file types. If restricting to multiple file types, the extensions can be comma separated. Note that this option is only available for Single Upload.
- Select the Save Assignments button to save the details.
[1] In MMS students will only see marks and feedback associated with their own submission.
It may be necessary to change the feedback date for an existing assignment. This is usually done by school or module administrators.
To change the feedback date:
- Access the MMS coursework tool using the links in MMS or via MySaint (https://mysaint.st-andrews.ac.uk).
- Select the Configure link in the navigation panel on the left.
- Locate the assignment in the table and adjust the Feedback window.
- Select the Save Assignments button to save the details.
Notification recipients
The new Missing Feedback Notification Recipient role has been created in each school and academic related unit in MMS.
Unit Administrators can assign a user (or users) at the school or module level to this role using standard school procedures.
Once a user has been assigned to the Missing Feedack Notification Recipient role they will start to recieve the notification in their St Andrews account email inbox. The notification is generated daily and the recipient will usually only recieve one email every day that their is missing feedback.
As with all roles in MMS, the Missing Feedback Notification Recipient role can only be assigned to a ‘user account’ and not generic email addresses.
The role Missing Feedback Notification Recipient will receive the missing feedback email notification. Users can be assigned to this role at the school level by School administrators.
To add a user to a school level role:
- Log into MMS to be directed to the Modules page: https://mms.st-andrews.ac.uk/mms/user/me/Modules
- From the drop-down lists at the top of the page ensure the school is selected and not the ‘Show All’ option.
- Select the View School button to be directed to the School overview page.
- Locate the People section in the top left.
- Select the Assign staff roles
- Locate the user in the Staff Roles table (If the user is not listed in the Staff Roles table they are not connected with the school in MMS. Any School administrator can add a user to the school.
- In the same row as the user, select the check box in the Missing Feedback Notification Recipient Hovering the mouse curser over a check box will display which row/column the checkbox relates to.
- Scroll to the bottom of the table.
- Select the blue Update Roles button to save.
Late feedback dashboard
In addition to the late feedback email notification, a new dashboard has been added to MMS that displays the current state of late feedback. This dashboard is accessible from the School overview (in the Assessment section) and is accessible to any user with the Coursework view privilege at the school level.
To view the late feedback dashboard:
- Log into MMS to be directed to the Modules page: https://mms.st-andrews.ac.uk/mms/user/me/Modules
- From the drop-down lists at the top of the page ensure the school is selected and not the ‘Show All’ option.
- Select the View School button to be directed to the School overview page.
- Locate the Assessment section in the top left.
- Select the Coursework missing feedback link.