Managing Student Submissions in EaseLabs

This guide is designed for instructors, detailing how to effectively view, manage, provide feedback on, and grade student submissions within the EaseLabs platform. Efficient submission management is key to a smooth assessment process.

Introduction to Submissions

Once you've created and published an assignment, students can submit their work through EaseLabs. The submission management system allows you to track these submissions, review the work, provide feedback, and assign grades. This process is integral to assessing student understanding and performance.

Key aspects of submissions in EaseLabs include:

• Centralized Access: All student work for an assignment is collected in one place.
• Integration with Grading: Submissions are directly linked to grading tools, including grading rubrics and automated test results.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Tools to provide targeted comments and overall feedback to students.
• Analytics: Submission data contributes to Smart Analytics, offering insights into student engagement and common challenges.
• EaseLabs facilitates Student Submissions through an intuitive interface for students.

Accessing Submissions

You can typically access student submissions in a few ways:

1. From the Assignment:
   • Navigate to the specific Subject.
   • Go to the "Assignments" list.
   • Select the assignment for which you want to view submissions.
   • Look for a "Submissions," "View Submissions," or "Grading" tab/button.
2. From the Subject Dashboard: Your Subject Dashboard might display recent submissions or provide direct links to the submission queue for active assignments.
3. Notifications: You may receive notifications on your main Instructor Dashboard for new submissions.

Viewing the Submission List:

Once in the submissions area for an assignment, you'll typically see a list or table of all students who have submitted their work. This list might include:

• Student Name/ID
• Submission Time/Date (and status, e.g., On Time, Late)
• Grade (if already graded)
• Status (e.g., Needs Grading, Graded, Resubmission Allowed)

Filtering and Sorting Submissions:

To manage a large number of submissions, look for options to:

• Filter by Status: (e.g., show only "Needs Grading" or "Late").
• Sort by: Student Name, Submission Time, Grade, etc.
• Search: Find a specific student's submission.

Reviewing Individual Submissions

Click on a specific student's submission from the list to open the detailed review interface. Here, you can typically:

• View Student's Work:
  • Coding Assignments: See the student's submitted code files. The interface might include syntax highlighting and a diff view if multiple versions were submitted.
  • Theory Assignments: View the student's answers to multiple-choice questions, short answers, or essays.
• See Automated Test Results: For coding assignments, the results of automated tests (both visible and hidden tests defined during assignment setup) are usually displayed prominently. This gives an initial indication of the correctness of the code.
• Access Originality/Plagiarism Reports: If Academic Integrity Protection tools are enabled, you should find a link or section displaying the plagiarism detection report for the submission. This helps ensure the authenticity of student work.
• Provide Comments and Annotations:
  • Inline Comments: For coding assignments, you can often add comments directly to specific lines of code.
  • General Feedback Box: A dedicated area to write overall comments about the submission.
  • Annotation Tools: For theory or file-based submissions, there might be tools to annotate directly on the submitted document.

Grading Submissions

After reviewing the submission and any automated feedback:

1. Assign a Grade:
   • Enter a numerical grade or select a predefined grade (e.g., Pass/Fail) in the designated grade field.
   • If auto-grading provided a score based on test cases, you can often manually override this if your assessment differs (e.g., due to code style, conceptual understanding demonstrated despite minor errors, or penalties).
2. Apply Grading Rubrics: If you have attached a grading rubric to the assignment, you can fill it out for the student's submission. This ensures consistent and transparent grading. The rubric score might automatically calculate the final grade or serve as a guide.
3. Provide Overall Feedback: Use the general feedback area to summarize the student's performance, highlight strengths, and suggest areas for improvement. This is crucial for student learning.
4. Release Grades/Feedback to Students: After grading, you usually need to explicitly "Release Grades," "Publish Feedback," or a similar action for students to see their results and your comments. You might be able to release grades individually or in bulk for the entire class.

Managing Submissions

Beyond reviewing and grading, you may need to manage submissions in other ways:

• Allowing Re-submissions: Depending on your pedagogical approach or assignment settings, you might allow students to resubmit their work, possibly before or after initial grading. The system should track different submission versions.
• Handling Late Submissions: If your assignment policy allows for late submissions, the system will typically flag them. You may need to apply penalties according to your policy when grading.
• Downloading Submissions:
  • Individual: Option to download a specific student's submitted files.
  • Bulk: Option to download all submissions for an assignment (e.g., as a ZIP archive), which can be useful for offline backup or review.
• Viewing Submission History: Access a log of a student's submission attempts for an assignment, including timestamps and possibly previous grades if resubmissions were graded.
• Granting Extensions: If a student has a valid reason for needing more time, you might be able to grant an individual extension through the submission management interface.

Bulk Actions

For efficiency, especially with large classes, EaseLabs may offer bulk actions such as:

• Bulk Grade Release: Publish all currently saved grades and feedback to students for an assignment at once.
• Bulk Download: Download all submissions as described above.
• Bulk Feedback (Limited): While most feedback is individual, there might be options to send a general announcement or feedback to all students who submitted.

Best Practices for Managing Submissions

• Provide Timely Feedback: Students learn best when they receive feedback promptly. Aim to grade and return submissions within a reasonable timeframe.
• Be Consistent in Grading: Use rubrics and apply your grading criteria consistently across all students to ensure fairness. Refer to your grading rubric guide.
• Utilize Plagiarism Detection Tools: Make use of the Academic Integrity Protection features to identify potential plagiarism and discuss academic honesty with your students.
• Clear Communication: Clearly communicate your grading policies, late submission rules, and how students can access their feedback.
• Leverage Automated Testing: For coding assignments, well-designed test cases can save significant grading time and provide objective, instant feedback to students.

Effectively managing submissions in EaseLabs will help you maintain an organized workflow, provide valuable feedback to your students, and ensure a fair and transparent assessment process.