Friday, 29 March 2024, 10:34 AM
Site: learn@inasp
Course: General (General)
Glossary: Moodle tips

Check your submission

Whenever you upload a document on a website - whether it is a journal submission system, INASP Moodle, or something else - it's always a good idea to try to download and open that document to make sure it has been uploaded properly. Errors sometimes happen during the uploading stage because of which your document may have been uploaded incompletely or may not have been uploaded at all!

Phases of a peer assessment activity

1. Submission phase: This is the phase in which you have to prepare and submit your work.

2. Assessment phase: The system will randomly allocate some of your course colleagues' submissions to you, and you have to evaluate these using an assessment form.

3. Closure: Once the above two phases are completed, the course moderator will close the activity. You can then view the assessments you have received from your course colleagues.

Related: Completion credit for a peer assessment activity

Completing a peer assessment activity

The completion check mark for an activity that includes a peer assessment phase will appear once the activity is closed. It will NOT appear immediately after the submission and assessment phases.

  1. Submission phase: This is the phase in which you have to prepare and submit your work. Read the instructions on the activity page to find out what you should submit.

  2. Assessment phase: This is the phase in which you have to evaluate the submissions that have been allocated to you. When the activity moves to the assessment phase, the activity page will contain instructions on how you should carry out the assessments.

Once the above two phases are completed, the course facilitator will close the activity. You will see a completion check mark after the closure phase IF (1) you have submitted your work and (2) you have received at least one assessment. If you have submitted your work but you have not received any assessments, you will not see a completion check mark, but the course moderator will ensure that you get credit for this activity -- as long as you have assessed all the works allocated to you.

Remember: To receive completion credit for a peer assessment activity, you should take part in BOTH the submission and assessment phases.

Email copies of forum posts

Posts made on forums within a course are sent as email copies to people who have subscribed to those forums. You may be subscribed by default to the forums in the courses you are participating in.

If you don't wish to receive the email copies, you can unsubscribe from any or all the forums. Just click the "unsubscribe from this forum" or "unsubscribe from all forums" link in any email copy of a forum post. You can also visit the forum and click "unsubscribe from this forum" in the "forum administration" block on the left.

If you unsubscribe from the forums, please make sure you visit your course regularly to check the forum posts, for there might be a lot of great discussions going on!

If there is a "news forum" in your course, you might not be able to unsubscribe from this forum because important announcements are made here by the course facilitator.

Time zone for deadlines

The default time zone on this site is West Africa Time (WAT).

Why the time zone matters

In your online course, there may be events that are time-based (such as live sessions) and activities that have deadlines (such as writing activities). For such events and activities, your Dashboard on this site and the time alerts on activity pages show times in WAT by default.

Changing the time zone

To see mentions of times in your local time zone, edit your profile and change the time zone in the Timezone field. We also suggest you add reminders in your calendar about upcoming events and deadlines. If you would like to compare WAT with your local time, use this link.

Why we use WAT

We use WAT as the default time zone because a large number of our course participants are based in West Africa.

Trouble opening documents in the assessment phase

If the submission is in DOC or DOCX format, please use Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer to open the document. LibreOffice is free and open source software, so it's a good choice if you don't have Word. If you are not able to open a submitted document with such software, or if you open the document and find it to be blank, please do the following: (1) complete a dummy assessment for this submission (eg, write 'could not open document' in each aspect of the assessment form), and (2) report the issue on the Technical Support / Technical Queries Forum.

User profiles

You can see the profiles of your fellow course participants by clicking on their names in the forums, in the participants list, the online users block, etc. So write something about yourself in your profile so others can get to know you smile When you edit your profile, you can set your email address to be visible to your course colleagues, to everyone on INASP Moodle, or to no-one. We recommend that you use the first setting so that your course colleagues can get in touch with you to discuss collaboration or interesting opportunities.

Seeing the peer assessments you've received

If you've submitted your work as part of a peer assessment activity, visit the activity page after the assessment phase to read the assessments you've received. When you visit the activity page, you can view your assessments by clicking the link to your submission. This link appears before the links to the assessments you have given to others. Once you click the link to your submission, you will see a page with a list of all the assessments you have received. Make sure you read all your assessments closely, and make notes on how you can improve your work.

What to do if you've not received any assessments

There's a small chance that none of the people who have been allocated your work completed the assessment. This is an unfortunate outcome (but hopefully rare). If you don't see a "grade for submission" when in fact you have submitted your work, we will award you credit for the activity as long as you have assessed the submissions allocated to you. We will be looking at the course logs to determine who has done what. So don't worry!

Check/edit your profile

To edit your profile, click your name or photo in the top right hand corner of this site, click "Profile" and then "Edit profile". We recommend that you add a photo of yourself in your profile and write something about yourself in the "description" field. This way you'll contribute to making the course a friendly learning environment :) When editing your profile, you can also change your personal details (including your password), set your time zone, etc.

Having trouble enrolling in a course?

If you receive enrollment instructions for a particular course, you'll need to follow the instructions carefully. Don't rush through this process. In particular, you have to locate the right course (and the right batch number, if relevant) and enter the enrollment key exactly as given in the instructions. It's a good idea to copy the key from the instructions and paste it in the box where you have to enter it.

After entering the enrollment key, you can "unhide" it to see if it matches the key given to you. Make sure there are no extra spaces or other inessential characters.

If you can't join your course AND you're absolutely sure that you have tried enrolling in the right course with the right enrollment key, you may email the course facilitator to seek help. Please mention in your email the full name of the course you tried to join and the enrollment key you used.

Related: Enrollment deadline

Who can take part in the assessment phase

Only those participants who have submitted their own work will get others' work for assessment. If you have not submitted anything, you will not be assigned any submissions to assess.

When you will see peer assessments

You will see the assessments you've got from your peers only after the assessment deadline. You will not be able to see them before the deadline even if the assessments have been done. Please be patient :)

See phases of a peer assessment activity

Open peer assessment activity

In an open peer assessment activity, the people getting assessments can see the names of their assessors. So when you do an assessment, you need to keep in mind that your name will be seen by the person receiving the assessment. Please do not let this affect your objective assessment of their work.

Note: Peer assessors can always see the names of the people whose work they assess.

Related: Single-blind peer assessment activity

Single-blind peer assessment activity

In a single-blind peer assessment activity, the people getting assessments cannot see the names of their assessors.

Note: Peer assessors can always see the names of the people whose work they assess.

Related: Open peer assessment activity

How grades are calculated for a peer assessment activity

There are 2 grades for a peer assessment activity: grade for submission and grade for assessment. In many cases, a full score is awarded for both if you submit your work and assess at least one submission allocated to you. The grades don't matter in a peer assessment activity, unless stated otherwise. It is important to submit your work and assess all the submissions allocated to you. If you do this, your work in the activity will be considered complete.

Why the assessment phase is crucial

In a large online course such as this one, it's not feasible for a small group of teachers or facilitators to provide personalised feedback on each participant's work. Peer assessment is the only practical way to provide participants with feedback on their work.

A survey of participants who took part in a peer assessment activity in one of our previous courses indicated that...

  • Most participants found the different aspects of the peer assessment activity to be a useful learning experience.
  • Some participants were happy with the feedback they got from their peer assessors, but some were disappointed.
  • Getting overly brief assessments without useful or practical suggestions was the most common cause for disappointment.
Now please read this: how to be a good peer assessor

How to be a good peer assessor

Follow the Golden Rule. Treat the people you assess as you would like to be treated yourself. Would you be happy with brief remarks in the assessments you get from your course colleagues, or would you like to see detailed comments and suggestions that actually help you improve? We assume it's the latter -- so please give such assessments to others :)

Need help? Please read this first.

  • Make sure you have gone through all the information given in the course induction section.

  • Read the posts made in the announcements forum.

  • If your question is about an activity, read the instructions given for the activity.

  • See the calendar block on the course homepage to note important deadlines. We do not offer deadline extensions, as explained in the learning agreement (you can find this in the course induction section).

  • If you'd like to leave the course, see this: Unenrolling from the course

If your doubt or query persists after you've done the above, please make a post on the technical queries forum.

What to do if you get disconnected while taking the pre/post quiz

You can make only one attempt on the pre assessment and post assessment quizzes. If you get disconnected while taking any of these quizzes and can't complete your attempt, please write to Ravi - rmurugesan@inasp.info - and mention the name of your online course / learning space and the name of the quiz.