Submitting evidence

Our "Evidence Submission" system helps learners and assessors track work as it progresses. This  shows us when a new unit certificate is due.

Before you can begin tracking work you must have accounts on the Markbook and Learning sites. This is a short process with the following steps:

1. Learner creates an account on the Learning Site
2. An assessor must add the learner to the Markbook (If they are not already there)
3. Learner matches their Learning Site account to the Markbook using their personal ID
4. The personal id is automatically generated when the learner is added to the markbook site

1. The Markbook

An assessor will get an account on the Markbook site after their INGOT academy is created by TLM. Their account will have their e-mail address, user id and their academy name registered with them. When learners are added to the academy in the Markbook, they are given a unique learner id. They are then put into a group(s) linked to their assessor. The assessor can go to the assessment link and see a list of their group members against the assessment criteria for each unit they select.

When that view is saved each learner in the group is registered against that unit. If the save button is not activated there will be no association made between the learners and the units. Without this association the evidence collection system can't work. So assessors need to save each unit that they want to link to learners for providing evidence even if they have not yet entered any assessment data. 

1.1 There is a Guest account - Guest 1 with password zepplin2 so that people without accounts can see how the Markbook works.  There are also videos linked to the front page of the web site explaining how the markbook works. The log in to the Markbook is in the right hand block --------------------->

2. The Learning Site

When an assessor makes an account on the Learning Site using "Create new account", their e-mail address is used to link to their record on the Markbook Site. This means that they must use the same e-mail address for both sites. If the e-mail addresses don't match, there will be no link made to the assessor's learners since the group and learner information is taken from the assessor's links to them on the Markbook Site. The assessor id is provided automatically when their account is set up on the Markbook site and displayed in their profile at login to the Markbook Site. This means that assessors do not have to enter their assessor id when they create a new account on the learning site. (see below if they have an account on the learning site but not the markbook site)

2.1 Once the assessor has set up their account on the Learning Site, they will have a new tab menu called "My Learners" in their account page. If they had an account on the Learning site before their account was set up on the Markbook Site, they should save their profile page by clicking "My Account" in the right block then click the edit tab, then profile and save button.

This process will use their e-mail address to link to the Markbook Site record and assign them an assessor role on the learning site, establishing links to their groups which will be listed in the "My learners" submenu of the "My Learners" tab menu in their account page. This provides the flexibility for people to use most of the free facilities provided on the Learning Site without having to have an account on the Markbook Site. Only TLM accredited assessors can have accounts in the Markbook.

2.2 Once the Markbook and Learning site accounts are both set up, select "My Account" again and you will see a tab called "My Learners". If things don't appear as they should, the most likely reasons are not having the same e-mail address in Markbook and Learning site Accounts or forgetting to click the SAVE button in the Learning Site My Account profile if you set up an account on the Learning site before your account was set up on the Markbook site.

2.3 There is a screenshot explanation below to show how the system works but you can try it out using the Guest 1 account and the learner Ben Payne in the group cannockkids. To Log in to the Learning Site as if you were Assessor Guest 1 put Guest 1 in the Username field in the Learning Site login and password 100%Guest. (Top right of this page) You will be logged in as Guest 1 and you can click "My Account" and proceed as described below. To log in as learner Ben Payne the password is Payne100%. (Hopefully it isn't too painful ;-) ). You can also log into the Markbook site as Guest 1 to see how the Markbook is affected by the evidence gathering system as it is automatically updated when evidence is agreed against the assessment criteria. 

3. The "My Learners" Tab

3.1 If the My Learners tab does not appear, make sure you have used the same e-mail address in setting up your account on the Learning Site that you used on the Markbook Site. Make sure that you saved your profile as described above.

3.2 This tab provides access to evidence provided by the learner and submitted to the assessor. The details of the facilities available for managing this process are provided by clicking the My Learners tab.

3.3 My Learners sub-headings

3.4 Any pending evidence submitted by the learner is listed under the Pending Evidence tab. The assessor can click on the evidence under the "Evidence Title" column to look at it in detail and append comments to it. Clicking the username will take the assessor to the learner's user account. Here they can change the user password and manage the user account details. The date and time that the work was submitted is recorded in the submitted column. Clicking on "Return to learner" will return the submitted work to the learner with comments advising the learner how to move on. Assessment completed allows the assessor to agree or disagree the self-assessment mark submitted by the learner. If the assessment is agreed the mark is automatically transferred to the Markbook and so the Markbook assessments could be entirely populated from here. 

3.5 The Assessed Evidence link lists the submitted evidence by learner name, submission date and the assessment date. 

3.6 This link enables the assessor to list evidence against each of the assessment criteria. 

3.7 The "My Learners link" far left of the sub-links on the main My Learners tab gives a list of groups assigned to the assessor on the Markbook Site. Clicking the group name will list any learners in that group that have made an account on the Learning Site.  The link "letter id" provides a letter to each learner in the group with their learner id, the site acceptable use policy and some tips to get started. This can be provided to learners before they set up their accounts on the learning site. To print the letters with a page break after each learner's letter use the printer friendly html link at the bottom left of the page. 

4. Learner Accounts

4.1 When the learner creates an account on the Learning Site, they enter their learner id and name as it is provided on the Markbook site in the full name space.

4.2 The learner id is the key for linking information from the Markbook Site to the Learning Site records. The learner id is automatically created on the Markbook site when the learner record is created and the assessor can look it up there. Alternatively the id is printed on the letter to learners as described above. 

4.3 The username should normally be a pseudonym so that they are not giving away their true id when blogging or providing publicly viewable pages.

4.4 The user id is used to look up the learner record on the Mark Book Site so it needs to be entered as it is on the Markbook Site in the learner id field.

4.5 The learner name entered in the Full name field must be identical on both sites as a check (name as uploaded to the Markbook site and FULL NAME field on the learning site). Once this is the case they can finish creating their account, which will automatically assign them the role of a learner on the site and link their group information from the Markbook Site.

4.6 Then login to the site and the learner will be taken to the list of their work they have done on the site (obviously empty for new users). Now learners should see tab menu called "My units" and they are ready to provide on-line evidence.

4.7 Submitting evidence

4.8 In "My Account" for the learner there is a tab called "My Units". This Tab provides links as shown below.

4.9 Units and marks enables the learner to list the units that have been assigned to them by the assessor on the Markbook site. They can click on a unit and get a list of criteria and the current grade status for each.  This information is transferred from the Markbook site and so reflects their assessment status in the Markbook.

4.10 The provide new evidence tab gives the learner an edit window so that they can enter text and graphics directly to provide evidence of meeting the criteria. They can also make links from here to other pages eg Blog or e-portfolio pages either on this site or any other.  Below there is a screen shot of the lower part of this page where the learner can also attach files. These could be a pod cast, spreadsheet or other files. In general discourage attaching word processed documents where the content could be just as usefully displayed directly in a web page. 

4.11 Finally, at the bottom of the evidence submission page the learner can select units and the criteria that they think the evidence supports. After selecting criteria do not forget to add selected criteria to the evidence by clicking on "Add selected criteria" button as shown in the picture below. The evidence might support a single criterion in a single unit or it might support several criteria across several units. All that is required is that the evidence supports any of the claimed assessment criteria in keeping with the handbook descriptions.

4.12 In this tab, there is a list of the evidence the learner has compiled and wishes to be assessed. When they click on the "Submit for assessment" button, they pass over the evidence to their assessor and so it appears in the Assessors account under "Pending Evidence" as described above.  This evidence is also recorded under the evidence awaiting assessment heading as shown below.

4.13 The final heading lists evidence that has been assessed.

5. Self-assessment

5.1 Learners have the option to self-assess at the "Evidence to be submitted" stage. If they click on the evidence title  they will see their submitted evidence with a menu showing N meaning no evidence, they can make a judgement against their evidence - perhaps with help of their peers and decide whether the work is L,S or H against each of the criteria they have said are supported by their work. (Initially they will need to be taught how to do this, it is part of the learning process and will only get better with practice.) The screen shot below shows what it looks like. 

5.2 Note that when this is carried over to the assessor for review, if the assessor agrees with the self-assessment they simply check the approved box. If not they can append a comment explaining why, and saying what the learner needs to do.

6. Feedback

6.1 If you have any suggestions for improving this system please contact us. It is new as of August 2010 so we are likely to find ways of improving things as we get more live experience through users. Thanks!