ELECTRONIC ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION AND MARKING

This Policy outlines the guidelines for electronic submission of assignments and their marking.  This Policy should be read in conjunction with the Bachelor Degree Regulations, Postgraduate Coursework Regulations, Assessment Policy, Information Technology Security Policy, and OECD Information Privacy Principles (as part of Standards and Guidelines for all users of University Computing and Network Facilities).

A unit is the basic element of a program within an academic discipline which delivers educational material prescribed in the curriculum.

The submission of assignments by means of the internet.

Unit Coordinators may mandate the submission of assignments electronically.  The unit study guide and the unit web site on the Learning Management System (LMS) must accurately outline, in sufficient detail, the use of electronic submission and relevant guidelines in relation to submission, the format and naming protocols for the assignments, due dates, extensions, late submissions, marking and privacy.

The acceptable format of the assignments must be specified in the unit study guide. This may generally take the form of (but not limited to) commonly used office file formats such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and PDF.

The student’s electronic file should be named with the unit number, assignment number, the first three characters of the last name and first initial followed by student number. The naming of the file must also comply with the requirements of the submission platform. The following are two examples of the acceptable file names that John Smith (Student Number: 12345678) could use in submission of Assignment 2 for unit FDN115:

FDN115Assign2SMIJ12345678

FDN115_Assign2_SMIJ_12345678

LMS is the accepted University-wide web-based platform and is to be used as a single universal platform for electronic submission. It includes features such as notification of receipt, time stamping, integration with grading facility, and privacy and security handling.

Where Unit Coordinators wish to use an alternative platform, they need to ensure that the new platform includes features similar to those in LMS.

The electronic assignment is not considered to be submitted until the student receives a formal notification that the assignment has been received successfully. LMS is setup to provide such notification upon submission of an assignment.

All assignments submitted electronically must include the University electronic assignment coversheet as the first page of the assignment. The electronic coversheet can be downloaded through LMS. Submission of the completed electronic coversheet is deemed to be signed by the student.

Murdoch University regards most seriously any acts of dishonesty relating to assessment of University courses. It is vital that students familiarise themselves with the University’s policy on plagiarism. Students are required to tick all the plagiarism declaration boxes in the assignment coversheet.

Unit Coordinators may choose (or be requested by the University) to submit the electronic assignments to plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin.

Information regarding the assignment due dates and times is to be published through the unit study guide. Where relevant, Unit Coordinators should make explicit the applicable time zones when setting the submission dates and times, e.g. GMT+08:00 for Perth. Each student must submit by the due date/time.

The Unit Coordinators must stipulate their policy on late submissions and extensions in the unit study guide in the usual way.

An assignment is considered to be late if it is not submitted on or before the published submission due date/time. The penalties for late submissions must be published in unit study guide.

The Unit Coordinator will need to stipulate how late assignments are to be submitted. For instance, the LMS assignment dropbox may allow late submissions (which will be date stamped with the actual date and time of submission), or the Unit Coordinator may wish to create a separate dropbox within LMS to accept late assignments.

6.1.1

In general, Unit Coordinators and Tutors are expected to handle the marking of the assignments electronically if the assignments are submitted this way.

6.1.2

The decision to mark on-screen or hard copy lies with the Unit Coordinators.

6.1.3

The University/Faculties/Schools are expected to allocate resources in support of printing of electronic assignments.

6.2.1

The LMS assignment drop box tool provides the marker with:

• A textbox into which comments can be added. This does not allow for annotation of the assignment itself.

• An upload function to attach items from marker’s computer to the message to the student with their grade

6.2.2

If the assignment is in a format that has a track changes feature (such as the Microsoft Office suite), the marker can download the assignment to a computer and annotate it using ‘track changes’ or ’add comment’. It can then be uploaded into LMS and sent to the students with their grade.

6.2.3

In case of other marking styles, a separate document can be created electronically and uploaded to LMS.

6.2.4

The marker’s comments could be digitally voice recorded and supplied to the students as a file uploaded to LMS or by other means.

6.2.5

Technologies such as the pen technology (e.g. as part of a tablet PC or a drawing/graphics tablet) allow the marker to annotate the document on the screen (subject to system/software requirements). For electronic assignments, using this technology involves downloading the assignment from LMS, annotating and then uploading again to LMS for students to collect.

LMS, as the preferred submission platform system of collection and storage of assignments, complies with privacy laws. The LMS system requires each student to login, and any one student cannot access another’s submission or personal details.

Unit Coordinators should ensure that the LMS site for each unit is the repository for assignments. Any assignments downloaded to a particular computer must be deleted after grading.

Unit Coordinators should ensure that they upload and return the correct assignment, and not mistakenly send one belonging to another student. This can be avoided by including the student name in the document title.

Submission of the assignments to plagiarism software such as Turnitin could raise privacy concerns if the student did not consent to it. The University electronic assignment coversheet ensures that the student consents to the submission of their assignment to plagiarism software.

Assessment Policy
Bachelor Degree Regulations
Information Technology Security Policy, and
OECD Information Privacy Principles (as part of Standards and Guidelines for all users of University Computing and Network Facilities)
Postgraduate Coursework Regulations