Thesis Contribution Marilyn Edmond Senior Consultant.

Thesis Contribution

Marilyn EdmondSenior Consultant

Thesis Contribution 04/09/133

Student Submissions

Theses and final year projects


Pearson recently undertook 2 assignments

• Build a theses contribution and marking environment for UNSW Canberra

• Build a final year engineering project documents submission and marking environment for RMIT


UNSW Canberra

Thesis submission and marking:

• Currently a complex and time consuming process

• Relies heavily on a complex paper trail

Process involves:

• UNSW Canberra academic supervisors,

• Internal academic markers (i.e. UNSW staff),

• External academic or industry expert markers (recognised experts in the thesis’s subject area),

• UNSW’s student administration staff


UNSW Canberra

Outcomes:

• Awarding of a degree to the student, or

• Resubmission and remarking of the thesis after amendment by the student, or

• Student fails the degree

• Final accepted version of the thesis is stored in electronic form and may be made available to UNSW staff and students


UNSW Canberra

UNSW Canberra wants to replicate the manual process with an electronic submission and marking environment

Key requirements are:

• Once a thesis is submitted students cannot change it. If reworking is required, a new version must be uploaded by the student

• Marks must be kept confidential, and can only be seen by the marker and student admin staff

• Marker feedback must be stored in conjunction with each thesis and must be confidential to the marker and student admin staff

• The outcome must be stored with the thesis (e.g. degree awarded, minor rewrite required, major rewrite required, fail)


UNSW Canberra

Pearson was approached to see whether EQUELLA could be used to manage thesis submission and marking.

A brief meeting was held with UNSW Canberra student admin staff to discuss requirements.

As a result, it was decided EQUELLA would deliver solutions for thesis management.


UNSW Canberra

Funding was sought and granted.

• A workshop was held to examine the current manual process and to define and document requirements

• The University provided detailed documents of the current process, and requirements for a new electronic process

• These formed the basis for developing project documents, including a specification for collections and workflows to manage thesis submission, assessment and marking

• The project was divided into three stages- Development of basic functionality- Refinements and advanced functionality- Reporting requirements


UNSW Canberra

A pilot environment was developed.

• It was made available on a UNSW Canberra test EQUELLA for UAT and feedback

• A second workshop was held to identify points of refinement

• Additional funding was sought

• A new statement of work was drafted

• Work on stage 2 is to commence shortly


Initial screen for student submission


Student survey: page 1 of 4


Thesis upload and submission


Examiner response for reporting


Demonstration


RMIT University

RMIT SAMME final year project submission:

•RMIT has traditionally managed Engineering final year projects using spreadsheets

•The faculty wanted to move to an online environment for submission and marking

•Pearson was approached to develop an environment which would support these goals


RMIT University

A number of conference calls were held with SAMME academics to specify requirements.

Documents and spreadsheets were exchanged and a final statement of work was produced.

Requirements:

•Students need to upload a sequence of documents all relating to their research topic including the initial proposal, a conference poster, and a journal paper

•Cut-off dates for each type must prevent students uploading or modifying their documents after the date


RMIT University

Supervisors and examiners are assigned via the contribution wizard.

•Workflow ensures that at each stage notifications go to the appropriate supervisor or examiner

•Marks are uploaded by supervisors/examiners and are stored for each requirement which a project must meet

•Marks must be kept confidential

•Supervisors and examiners can be either internal RMIT staff, or external industry partners


RMIT University

UAT took place in June-July and SAMME project submissions is currently being trialled by a group of approximately 40 students.


Initial contribution page


Submission uploads


SAMME examiner marks collection


Demonstration


QUESTIONS?