December 23, 2010

Design for an assignment submission workflow user interface

We've been thinking about how the assignment submission, feedback and assignment return workflow might be presented to students. Of particular interest are these issues:

how to help students who are following courses in more than one department (including joint honours)

how to get support info and facilities to students in a cohesive and timely manner

Here's an idea for an interface. The assignments are time ordered, except that the most urgent issue (a missed deadline) always jumps to the top of the list. Traffic light colours are used to indicate urgency (amber meaning submit today, red meaning a missed deadline).

Each assigmnent has "more info" - one of these panels is displayed. In this case, the student has had the option of sharing draft copies.

In addition, it could be integrated with the Turn It In (anti plagiarism) system.

assignment workflow interface


Robert O'Toole : 23 Dec 2010 10:04 |  Tags:   |  Comments (6) |  Report a problem

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  1. Luke Robert Mason

    This looks great, certainly alot clearer. However, what happens with students who have a choice of more than one essay title from the same module? Will it be possible to select this from a drop-down box perhaps?

    23 Dec 2010, 10:56

  2. Robert O'Toole

    Good question. Would they see that as an option the the Personal Actions box? Perhaps Personal Actions is a kind of sub-workflow? So it could contain a list of actions, one of which would be “choose a title”. And perhaps the SUBMIT button could be replaced with a CHOOSE A TITLE button before they have chosen? Or maybe there needs to be a single workflow that lists all actions and deadlines for all assignments?

    23 Dec 2010, 11:05

  3. Timothy Brown

    I prefer the Personal-Actions-as-subworkflow option. The Personal Actions box certainly already looks like it contains “sub-tasks” for each assignment: “Share first draft with tutor group” and “Submitted second draft to tutor.”

    Here’s a suggestion, though: if you use the Personal Actions box as a sub-workflow, there will be an over-crowding of the personal actions box. Perhaps you can have the Personal Actions only show the three most current/recent personal actions and (if the list overflows) a “view previous actions” link?

    23 Dec 2010, 12:19

  4. Catherine Fenn

    Agree with Luke it looks great and we also would require option for more than one essay title. Look forward to further discussions around this in new year.

    23 Dec 2010, 13:10

  5. Robert O'Toole

    Timothy, yes i think you’re right. Thanks.

    23 Dec 2010, 18:27

  6. Robert O'Toole

    We will be running a “speculative lunch” to consider these ideas and more, at IATL, perhaps towards the end of January. If you want to come, please send me an email.

    23 Dec 2010, 18:29

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