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Here are a few tips worth bearing in mind as you prepare to mark assignments:

• When you mention the assignment, please advise your students that the course is blind-marked (the identity of students is not visible to the marker); a post in the news forum would be appropriate.
• As assignments become due, please remind students to upload their assignment without their name in the filename, or in the document properties. You can refer them to the instructions on the How to make your assignment anonymous page.
• Familiarise yourself with the guidance for markers before assignment marking begins.
• If a student is granted permission to submit late, the course administrator will notify you of the participant number and their new deadline.
• Where a participant has left an assignment in draft or submitted late without permission, please email onlinemarking@conted.ox.ac.uk giving the participant number and issue, e.g. Participant 1234 – assignment 2 – still in draft.
• It’s important that when you have finished marking the assignments, you notify onlinemarking@conted.ox.ac.uk so the administration team can release the grades to the students.

A note on blind marking and participant numbers

In line with Oxford University’s assessment policies, and to ensure impartial and unbiased marking, assignment submissions in the short online courses will be blind marked. The assignment submission system will automatically generate a ‘Participant Number’ used as an identifier for each student’s assignment.

As you work through the process of downloading, saving, grading, and uploading feedback, you will need to carefully save each document with the appropriate participant number – this will make it easier when you are ready to upload your feedback document.

Once the online courses administration team has released the grades, the participant numbers will disappear, and you will be able to see student names against their assignment in the Grades area in Moodle.

The following guidance is provided for tutors marking short course assignments for Oxford Lifelong Learning in Moodle. Use the links below to find step-by-step instructions for how to download, save, grade, and upload your feedback documents. Please note that there are multiple ways to download assignments, and upload feedback and marks. Feel free to experiment to find the way that best suits your workflow.

• Important information for markers (short courses)
• Quick guide to online marking 
• Check the status of submissions
• How to download multiple assignments to mark
• How to upload marks and feedback (short courses)
• How to mark individual assignments using the Grade functionality
• Short guide to on-screen marking
• Advanced features to aid the marking process

The quick guide to online marking is aimed at tutors who are familiar with using Moodle and provides an overview of the online marking process. If you’re new to Moodle or are marking for the Department for the first time, we recommend that you read the detailed instructions. Please note that short courses do not use numerical marks. Assignment 1 is a formative exercise (not graded), and assignment 2 is marked on a No Grade, Pass or Fail basis. It’s important that when you have finished marking the assignments, you notify onlinemarking@conted.ox.ac.uk so the administration team can release the grades to the students.

Video guides

If you would prefer to watch videos of the process you may find the following are useful.

How to download assignments for marking

[An updated video walkthrough will be added here soon]

How to upload marked assignments

[An updated video walkthrough will be added here soon]

Further help

If you need further help marking an assignment please contact onlinecourses@conted.ox.ac.uk. If you experience technical problems using the online assignment system, please contact the TALL IT Helpdesk on tallithelp@conted.ox.ac.uk.

Within the grading screen, Moodle includes a number of features which may help you manage your marking. We have listed a selection of the most useful here, but if you explore you may discover others. Please consult your course administrator if you find any other features you are interested in using.

Filter

One useful option on the marking screen is the ability to filter the assignments on certain attributes. You can search by name, or use the various filters available at the top of the screen: search users (type), filter by name or first name, filter by submission status or marking workflow stage. The submission status options (Not submitted, Submitted, Requires grading and Granted extension) can be particularly helpful when selecting individual submissions to download and grade. Note that if you choose a filter that has no matches, all assignments will disappear from the screen. You can get them back by choosing All or clearing your criteria.

Hiding columns in the marking screen

As there are many columns in the marking screen, unless your screen is very large you will have to scroll horizontally to view all of them. However, you are able to personalise how the screen is displayed by using the minus icon – in the column header to hide columns and the plus icon + to reveal them. To open all columns, select ‘Reset table preferences’ (note this option only appears if you have hidden columns).

Assignments per page

Whe you first open the Submissions page, the drop down menu next to Show allows you to change the number of assignments you can see on a page. This option appears at the bottom of the page, next to the list of pages.

Marking submissions on-screen saves on printing and facilitates the return of marked scripts to the students.

The methods available for on-screen marking depend on the format of the files submitted. The majority of assignment files consist of a text-based document (such as a Word file).

It is important to ensure that marked scripts can be opened by the student once they have been returned. For this reason it is sensible, where possible, to use the same program for marking the script that the student used for generating it. Where a different program, or version of a program, has to be used, ensure that the marked file is saved in a format compatible with the submitted file.

Here are a few recommendations to facilitate the process:

• Encourage students to present their work ready for on-screen marking by including overviews, contents lists, an index, or by splitting essays into shorter sections. You can also specify your preferred format.
• Make a copy of the submitted file and work on the copy rather than the original; you can then always go back to the original and make another copy to mark if you make mistakes during the marking process. As you mark-up the document, save it regularly.

Marking Word (and similar type) documents

Although the following is based on the features found in Microsoft Word, most standard word-processing programs have similar functions.

Throughout the marking process, it would be helpful to be on the Review tab.

The mark-up tools available in Word are Track Changes and Comments. For both these features, the options for how the mark-up appears in the document can be selected from the Review tab.

Using Track Changes

To toggle the ‘Track Changes’ tool on and off, click Track Changes in the Review tab. If there is a border around the tool’s icon, the tool is enabled. This tool is useful for marking small errors in spelling and punctuation. Any editing is marked in a different colour, with deletions and other clarifications indicated in the right-hand margin, or inline within the text.

From the drop-down menu on this toolbar, select to show either ‘Final Markup‘, ‘Simple Markup’ or ‘Original Markup‘. Experiment to find your personal preference.

Using Comments

The ‘Comments’ tool is useful for making notes on the actual content of the document. Highlight the section the comment applies to (this can be from a single letter to whole paragraphs or pages) and click New Comment in the Review tab. A balloon appears in the right-hand margin with the cursor ready placed for your comment. If you want to delete any comment, right click and select Delete Comment.

Marking PDF documents

Your ability to edit or comment on a pdf depends on the pdf reader you are using. We recommend the free Foxit Reader but other software has similar tools.

Open the pdf document you want to comment on. Along the top menu there is a Comments option which gives access to all sorts of tools, although the most useful one is probably the Note tool, which puts a note that looks like a post-it note on the document.

Refer to your software documentation if you need more in-depth help. Top tip: use the Search functionality to locate the sections of interest – for example search for the term “Comments” to get to the information you need.

Other file formats

So long as you can manage to view each type of file submitted then, even if there are no mark-up features available to you within that program, it is always possible to create a separate Word document in which you can record your feedback.

What to do if you need help

If you need further help marking an assignment please contact your course administrator. If you experience technical problems using the online assignment system, please contact tallithelp@conted.ox.ac.uk.

At any point, you can check the status of submissions for a particular assignment.

To do this:

• Log in to the course site and open the relevant assignment.
• Select the Submissions tab at the top of the assignment screen.

The next screen lists the students (note that a participant Identifier is used in place of the student’s name when blind marking is being used), the status of each student’s submission, and links to any files they have uploaded/submitted (in the File submission(s) column).

Note that if you follow the link included in an email notification of the submission of an assignment you will be taken directly to this screen.

If a submission has been marked, the mark will be displayed in the Grade column under the button, and any feedback provided can be found either in the Feedback comments or Feedback files columns. Please note that the grade will be provisional until the course administrator has released the mark to the student.

Late submission

Any assignments submitted after the due date without permission will show as late.

The work should not be marked unless you have been told to do so by the course administrator.

Extensions

If the course regulations allow it, some students may request permission to submit late. These requests will be referred to the Head of Student Administration for consideration and you will be notified of the decision. If a request to submit late is approved, the extended deadline will be visible on the assignment submission screen.

Assignments should be marked in the normal manner.

Drafts

In order to submit their assignments, students are required to complete the ‘authorship declaration’ confirming the work is theirs and they have not plagiarised. Works left in draft should not be marked. Please contact your course administrator if you notice any work marked as Draft close to the submission deadline.

You may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see all the columns displayed on the screen. If you use this screen regularly you may want to hide some of the columns you do not require using the - button so that you can see all the columns you need simultaneously.

Once you have downloaded and marked your assignments, the second stage of the marking process is to upload marks and feedback to the course site.

Our recommended process when dealing with a whole cohort is to first upload the annotated scripts and feedback files. Then, use the gradesheet to add a mark for each student.

Note: As often in Moodle, there are a number of ways of doing things. While this is our recommended approach, you may want to experiment with using the Grade button instead, and/or using the Quick Grading functionalities to find the approach that best fits your workflow.

[A walkthrough video will be added here soon]

Uploading multiple feedback files

1. Preparing your files:
   • Check all your feedback files; the file names should start with the same name as the submission files you downloaded and marked, followed by’-feedback’. For example, if the submission file was called Participant_26_assignsubmission_file_Test assignment.docx, the feedback files will be named: Participant_26_assignsubmission_file_Test assignment_feedback.docx
   • Select all the feedback forms and save them to a new Zip folder.  The folder name does not matter as long as the feedback files have the same names as before. Important: Don’t just edit the files inside their original folder and re-zip this; it will not work.
   • You are now ready to upload your feedback files to Moodle.
2.  Open the grading screen for the assignment:
   • Log in to the course site and open the relevant assignment.
   • Select the Submissions tab at the top of the assignment instructions page.
3. Upload your marks
   • Option 1: if you used the gradesheet to record the individual marks:
     • Above the table, open the Actions menu, then select ”Upload grading worksheet” in the drop-down box.
     • Upload your completed gradesheet. Any row where no mark is present will be ignored.
     • Check that the grades appear as expected in the grading table. You can manually fix any mistakes by using the Quick Grading option available above the table.
   • Option 2: If you did not use the gradesheet:
     • Above the table, select the Quick Grading option. This will bring up an editable textbox in the Grade column.
     • For each submission, type the mark in the box.
     • Don’t forget to Save using the button in the sticky menu at the bottom of the screen.
4. Upload your feedback files
   • Above the table, open the Actions menu, then select ”Upload multiple feedback files in a zip” in the drop-down box.
   • Upload the zip folder you prepared in step 1 above, which contains your feedback forms.
   • Before you complete the upload, you will be presented with a confirmation screen displaying a list of your feedback files. If you zip files from a Mac, make sure to remove the folder _MACOSX. Complete the upload.
   • On the next screen, check that all the files appear in the feedback file column. If any are missing, it may be because the file had a different name from the submission file, or maybe the file name was too long. Try renaming the file, then manually upload it: select the submission in question, and in the sticky menu at the bottom of the screen, select More and choose Upload feedback.

Final checks and editing manually

If you notice a mistake or need to change anything (including feedback files), you can follow the instructions below for marking individual submissions in order to access your marks, feedback text and files for individual students.

1. Log in to the course site and open the relevant assignment.
2. Select the Submissions tab.
3. Click on the More kebab menu in the Grade column for the relevant student to open the grading window. This is where you can add or edit marks, add feedback text and files, review and replace feedback documents, etc. Don’t forget to Save Changes before moving to another page.

For more information on the Grade functionality, see the companion page Mark assignments using the Grade functionality.

Releasing feedback to students

Once your feedback has been uploaded, contact your course administrator to let them know you have done so. Once all markers have uploaded their marks and feedback, and any moderation has taken place or penalties for late submission applied, marks will be released to the students by the course administrator.

1. Log in to the course site.
2. Locate the assignment you are marking and open it either by clicking on the link on the course homepage or via Activities > Assignments in the menu drawer.
3. Open the assignment, and select the Submissions tab to access the grading table showing all students and the detail of their submissions.

There are a number of ways to download assignment submissions. Here we will share step-by-step instructions for the recommended way to download submissions.

[ a video walkthrough will be added to this page soon]

Whatever method you use, please make sure you only download submissions marked as Submitted for Grading. 
Please do not mark any submissions showing as Draft (Not submitted) or Submitted but marked as Late until your course administrator has confirmed which ones have been approved.

How do I download submissions?

1. First, you can Download the gradesheet, under the Actions menu. This will be a list of all the rows in the grading table. You can edit this gradesheet to add marks for each student, and ignore any rows where no submission is available (or not ready for marking yet). This will enable you to add marks for multiple students all at once. (Feature introduced in Summer 2025)
2. Select all the submissions you want to download using the check boxes in the Select column (which is located on the far left-hand side of the screen). You can use the filtring settings at the top of the screen to display only relevant submissions. For example you can use the filter to only view submissions with the status Submitted or Requires grading (you will need to untick any submissions marked as submitted late).
3. As you select submissions, you will see a number of options in a sticky menu at the bottom of the screen. Select Download.Top tip: Before you download, check that the option to Download submissions in folders above the table is not ticked. This will ensure all the files you download have the participant number in the file name, minimising the potential for mistakes.
4. Save the zip file containing the submissions on your computer. When you unzip the file, you will notice the participant number has been added at the start of each file name.

How do I mark the assignments and provide feedback?

Assignment submissions will be saved on your computer in a zip file. The zip file will be named with the short title of the course followed by the name of the assignment.

To mark the individual assignment files:

1. Double click on the zip file to open it. You will see the list of students’ assignment files named in the following format: e.g. ParticipantNumber_StudentFileName.docx (for a Word Document). Where a student has submitted multiple files, they wil be listed together.
2. Open each file to add comments and feedback to each student’s assignment. Please provide feedback on the student’s assignment script, where possible; for example, by using the Comment or Track Changes features in Word, or use Comments with PDF. See the A short guide to on-screen marking for information on how to do this.
3. Save the annotated script using Save as. We would suggest keeping the same name for your feedback file, followed by ‘-feedback’ for example:ParticipantNumber_StudentFileName_Feedback.docx. The first part of the file name should be the same file name as when you downloaded it initially. This will make it easier to upload the correct feedback files to each student. You can create multiple feedback files for each student. Make sure that any changes to the file name are added to the end of the file name (e.g. ParticipantNumber_StudentFileName_Feedback.docx, ParticipantNumber_StudentFileName_Feedback 2.docx, etc.)
4. For each student, add the mark to the gradesheet in the Grade column.

Students may submit files in a number of different permitted file types, so in the example above .docx would be for a Word file, whereas .pdf would be a PDF file, .xlsx an Excel file and so on. 

When you have finished marking, you will need to upload the annotated student script (and the feedback form if you have used one), as well as the gradesheet to the course site following the instructions below:

• Uploading marks and feedback (award-bearing courses)
• Uploading marks and feedback (short courses)

1. Downloading assignments to mark them

• Go to the assignment you are to mark in the course site.
• Click on the Submissions tab.
• Select the assignment(s) to mark using the check box at the far left-hand side of the screen. Do not select assignments marked as Draft or Late.
• In the menu at the bottom of your screen, choose Download (Note: this menu only appears when you select assignments).
• Save the assignment(s) on your computer. The participant number will appear at the start of the file name for each file.
• In the Actions drop-down menu above the grading table, select ‘Download grading worksheet’ (check with your course administrator if you cannot see this option – it needs to be enabled in the assignment settings).

2. Marking

This process happens outside of Moodle and you are welcome to do this on your computer or tablet using the programme of your choice. If you are double-marking, ensure you are aware of the requirements of your course by checking with your course administrator.
Save the annotated scripts or marking forms with the same name as the file you downloaded, followed by ‘-Feedback’ or ‘-FeedbackForm’. Make sure you save these documents in a place where you can easily find them, ideally all together in one ‘feedback-AssignmentName’ folder.

The marks can be added to the offline gradesheet you have just downloaded. You can leave the cells for the students you are not marking empty.

Late submissions

Any assignments submitted after the due date without permission will show as late.
The work should not be marked unless you have been told to do so by the course administrator.

Extensions

If the course regulations allow it, some students may request permission to submit late. These requests will be referred to the Head of Student Administration for consideration and you will be notified of the decision. If a request to submit late is approved, the extended deadline will be visible on the assignment submission screen.

3. Uploading marks and feedback

Go to the assignment in the course site, and click on the Submissions tab.

• • Option 1: Bulk upload

1. 1. 1. Save your folder containing the annotated scripts and marking forms as a .zip file.
      2. In the Actions drop-down menu above the grading table, select ‘Upload multiple feedback files in a zip’, and follow the instructions to upload your zip file.
      3. In the Actions drop-down menu above the grading table, select ‘Upload grading worksheet’ and follow the instructions to upload the file.

• • Option 2: Individual upload

1. 1. 1. Select the submission you want to mark.
      2. Open the More kebab menu in the Grade column, and select ‘Grade’.
      3. Add the mark.
      4. Upload the annotated script and / or feedback file, or type your comments.
      5. Either click Save and show next or Save changes to retain your input.

Once you are done, check the mark and feedback files are the correct ones for each student.

4. Releasing feedback to students

When you have uploaded your feedback for all the assignments you are marking, contact the course administrator to let them know.

Once all markers have uploaded their marks and feedback, and any moderation has taken place or penalties for late submission applied, marks will be released to the students by the course administrator.

The following guidance is provided for tutors marking award-bearing course assignments for Oxford Lifelong Learning in Moodle. Please note that there are multiple ways to download assignments, and upload feedback and marks. Feel free to experiment to find the way that best suits your workflow.

• Quick guide to online marking
• Check the status of submissions
• How to download multiple assignments to mark
• How to upload marks and feedback (Award-bearing courses)
• How to mark individual submissions using the Grade functionality
• Short guide to on-screen marking
• Advanced features to aid the marking process

The quick guide to online marking is aimed at tutors who are familiar with using Moodle and provides an overview of the online marking process. If you’re new to Moodle or are marking for the Department for the first time, we recommend that you read the detailed instructions.

Video walkthrough

If you would prefer to watch a video of the process you may find the short recording of a demo session useful. Tip: Open the video in Panopto to access the chapters in this video.

Further help

If you need further help marking an assignment please contact your course administrator. If you experience technical problems using the online assignment system, please contact the TALL IT Helpdesk on tallithelp@conted.ox.ac.uk.