3 Configuring the Coursework Tool
Introduction
This chapter will cover the basics of setting up the coursework tool. It will discuss the various configuration options and then move on to some of the more advanced concepts behind the tool.
Most of the configuration options you need for setting up the tool and then creating assignments are on the 'Assignment' tab but it is a valuable exercise, when accessing a coursework tool for the first time, to click on the settings tab and become familiar with the current setup and make any changes as required, particularly if the module has been rolled over from a previous year. This chapter will only consider the configuration of the coursework tools itself, to find out about creating assignments see Chapter 4: Creating Assignments.
As with previous chapters from this guide sections marked (advanced) will extend your knowledge of MMS but are not necessary for a simple setup.
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To access the configuration page click the Configuration Icon in the toolbar in the top right of the coursework tool. The coursework configuration page is split up into a number of tabs:
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Settings Tab
As mentioned in the introduction when creating assignments you will primary be on the 'Assignment' tab and the settings tab is used when you wish to make changes that effect the whole tool, such as how student's are displayed and the type of marking used.
Below is a list of all the options on the settings tab, these are usually the same for all modules in a department but do occasionally need to be changed on a per-module basis:
- Student identification: deals with how student names are displayed on the coursework and assignment overviews. There are two options: ’Show only student IDs’ (for anonymised marking) and Show student names and student IDs
- Single/doubling marking: two options: single marking and double marking. Single marking gives one space for a mark to be entered and the double marking provides two spaces for marking, one space to each marker.
- Summary statistic visibility: the Summary statistics are presented in the form of a bar chart showing the frequency in which the current overall average of visible coursework grades falls into the usual grade buckets. This option controls the visibility to students but even if the summary statistics are set to visible 'hidden' marks will not be included in the calculations. To view summary statistics like the 'Graph' icon in the coursework toolbar.
- Coursework marking scale:dictates how, and out of what value, marks are entered. There are seven options:
- UStAndrews20PointMark — This is used in the majority of modules. marks can be entered as a mark out of 20, which is then used to calculate a percentage and then converted into a grade
- 100 point mark — marks can be entered as a mark out of 100, marks can be entered as a mark out of 20, which is then used to calculate a percentage and then converted into a grade
- 40 point mark — marks can be entered as a mark out of 40, marks can be entered as a mark out of 20, which is then used to calculate a percentage and then converted into a grade
- 50-point mark — marks can be entered as a mark out of 50, marks can be entered as a mark out of 20, which is then used to calculate a percentage and then converted into a grade
- PercentageMark — marks can be entered as a percentage, marks can be entered as a mark out of 20, which is then used to calculate a percentage and then converted into a grade
- Traffic lights - the student is awarded a grade of red, amber or green indicating the status of module progression. This is most commonly used for tracking PHD students.
- Module default — this is the default as defined on the module overview and is typically the 20 point scale
- Lateness policy: MMS can penalise students based on recorded lateness. Most units have a default for the whole unit based on the new Lateness Policy
- Default assignment due time: used to auto-populate the ’time’ field on the assignments tab which will be covered in the next subsection.
- Default feedback window: will be used to auto-populate the ’feedback window’ field on the assignments tab which will be covered in the next subsection.
- General guidance: This will allow you to enter generic information to your students that will be displayed on their coursework submission page.
Result Script Tab (advanced)
MMS has configuration options that can handle calculating the simple 'weighted mean' or the slightly more complex 'mean of x best marks', but occasionally a more complex calculation is required, for example in the case where coursework is made up of 'one long essay OR two short essays'. In cases such as these we create a 'Result Script' which is just a short piece of Javascipt that outputs the calculated result.
For example in the case mentioned above where the assignments have the short names 'longEssay', 'shortEssay1' and 'shortEssay2' the script would be:
if (longEssay.isMarked) {
longEssay.mark;
} else if (shortEssay1.isMarked || shortEssay2.isMarked) {
(shortEssay1.mark + shortEssay2.mark) / 2.0;
} else {
0;
}
This will test if the longEssay has been marked, if it has then it will return the longEssay mark. If the longEssay has not been marked but either shortEssay1 or shortEssay2 have been marked then it will calculate the mean between the short essay marks. If none of the Essays have been marked then it will return a 0.
In addition to the essay.mark and essay.isMarked syntax you can also use the essay.isExcused to test if the student has been excused from an essay.
Staff are welcome to write their own result script but please contact the MMS team if you would like any assistance.
Mark-to-Grade Maps (advanced)
It can be noted that most modules do not display the Mark-Grade Map tab
Once you have selected the required options on the tool tab you may wish to create a mark to grade map, depending on which marking scale you have selected. If you have selected a marking scale that requires a mark to grade map a new tab will appear, entitled ’Mark-Grade Map'. Put simply a mark to grade map is used by MMS to calculate the grade of an assignment based on the mark. A mark is entered into MMS, MMS translates the given mark into a percentage of the total available marks (this is defined by the coursework marking scale) and then locates this percentage position on mark to grade map to determine the grade. In schools which mark out of 20 this is not required as the majority of the time a mark of 20 will correspond to a grade of 20, however the mark to grade map for this would therefore only have two points as defined in table 1. Mark to grade maps are, however, typically used when there is not a linear correspondence between a mark and a grade. For example a mark of 50% may correspond to grade of 8 and not 10. We would therefore have to create or select a new map.
When travelling and trying to find a location using a normal map it is necessary to have landmark points marked on the map and an indication of the route between these points. This is also the case with mark-to-grade maps. When defining a map to grade map in MMS you have to let the system know if it should use a linear interpolation between the points on the map or step interpolation
With a linear interpolation there is a smooth transition between different marks, the step interpolation is very different. A stepped mark-to-grade map with three points, for example 0=0, 10=10, 20=20, will mean that a student that received a mark of zero will get a grade of zero and they will still receive a grade of zero until they achieve a mark of ten, in which case they will receive a grade of 10. Similarly they will then have a grade of 10 until the achieve a mark of 20.
To select a pre-written map click on the ’Mark-Grade Map’ tab, and from the ’Replace Mark Map’ section select the required map from the drop down and click the ’Replace Map’ button. To create a new map decide on any key landmark points in the map and then enter these as a percentage in the table on the Mark-Grade Map tab. In the above example a landmark point would be Percentage = 50% and Grade = 10
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