Moodle – Workshop (formative)

Published on: 15/09/2023 · Last updated on: 04/11/2024

Assessment Type: Coursework

Below is the TEL recommended workflow for a formative Moodle workshop. Moodle workshop does not support configuration for ‘feedback comments only’. Peer assessment comments cannot be released without grades. For formative use, staff would need to explain to students that grades are indicative only, and explain how they are calculated.

The workshop activity allows students to add their submissions to the activity, distributes the submissions between the students, and allows students to grades and provide feedback on their peers’ submissions. The workshop has 5 -phases and only one phase can be open at a time.

If you are setting up a summative workshop activity visit Moodle Workshop – Summative. The guidance provided is for general use.

Recommended workflow:

1. Create the Workshop Activity

• Give your workshop an appropriate name and description.
• Amend the Grading settings
  • Reminder: Moodle workshop cannot be set-up to provide feedback only. The activity will need to be set-up with a grade. Staff would need to explain to students that grades are indicative only.
  • Before setting up this activity, please read the guidance on Moodle Workshop Grading and Grading strategies.
  • The Workshop allows you to set weightings for a Grade for submission (a weighted mean of assessment grades given by reviewers) and a Grade for assessment (a grading grade calculated by an algorithm).
  • You can choose to set weightings to Grade for submission: 100% / Grade for assessment: 0%. This removes the complexity of Moodle’s calculated Grade for assessment and students will only receive a grade for their submission.
• Add your Submission settings – this is the instructions students will see when they click the link to the workshop during the Submission phase.
• Add your Assessment settings – these are the instructions students will see during the Assessment phase for general guidance on how to approach assessment.
• Amend Feedback, Example submissions, Availability and other settings as appropriate for your activity.
  • Under Availability we recommend that you do not enable the ‘Switch to the next phase after the submissions deadline’ option. Manually switching between phases gives you greater flexibility to manage the activity.

2. Complete Setup Phase

• If you have not used this activity before, allow plenty of time for set up.
• Set the workshop description and Provide instructions for submission should have been completed, as indicated by a green tick, during the set-up of the activity.
• .You can now choose to Add or Edit assessment form, to set out the assessment criteria
  • Prepare example submissions to provide students with guidance and opportunities to practice and develop skills for peer assessment.
• If you want peer assessment to be anonymous, you need to set permissions for your workshop activity to prevent ‘view author names’ and ‘view review names’ for students.
• When you are ready to launch the activity, switch the workshop to Submission Phase.
•  It is a good idea to try out the activity phases from a student view. You can temporarily enrol yourself (and / or colleagues) in a Student role and use Switch role to… Student to test out the Workshop activity from a student view.

3. Students submit document (Submission Phase)

• Students upload their document for peer assessment within the deadline.
• You will need to monitor submissions and send reminders. There is no facility to manage individual extensions.
• Allocate the submissions for assessment (manually or with random allocation).
  • A minimum allocation of 3 peer reviews in needed for calculation of the Assessment Grade (each student should be allocated at least 3 other submissions).
  • If you use Separate groups mode, you can filter by group and manually allocate submissions within each group.
• When allocation is complete, manually switch the workshop to Assessment Phase.

4. Students assess peer submissions (Assessment Phase)

• Students complete the assessment form to assess the peer submissions allocated to them.
  • If enabled in the settings, students may also complete a self-assessment and / or assess an example.
• You will need to monitor assessments and send reminders.
• When assessments are complete, manually switch the workshop to Grading Evaluation Phase.

5. Grades calculated and adjusted (Grading Evaluation Phase)

• You can now review students’ peer assessments and choose to calculate final grades. Students cannot modify assessments in this phase.
• A Grade for submission (weighted mean of peer grades) and a Grade for assessment are calculated.
  • Note: If Grade for assessment is set to 0.00 weighting in the settings, students will see a mark out of 100 for Grade for submission, and 0.00/0.00 for Grade for assessment – staff should provide an explanation for students.
• There is limited scope for you to adjust the calculated grade. You can moderate the calculated grade by:
  • Adding your own assessment and re-calculating to adjust the Submission Grade, or overriding the Submission Grade for a student to a fixed value. The student will see the staff assessment you add.
  • Adding your own assessment and re-calculating, or adjusting the weighting of a student’s assessment, to adjust the Grade for assessment (if in use)
• If you make any adjustments, you can re-calculate the final grades.
• When grading evaluation is complete, manually switch to Closed Phase.

6. Activity concludes (Closed Phase)

• You can add a Conclusion statement to your workshop to provide students with general feedback on the activity
• In the Closed Phase, students can view their own submission and assessments received from peers
  • Students need to scroll down the page and click on their submission link to view their peer assessments. To help students in finding this, you can add an explanation in the workshop conclusion, such as “To view grades, comments and feedback about your submission, look in the section below ‘Your submission’ and click on your submission title link.”
  • Students will see the total Grade for Submission awarded by each peer, as well as break down of marks in the assessment form
• Students can view their final overall grade within the Moodle Gradebook