Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Barbara Newland et al.
managing student submissions electronically. For some academics it has caused confusion.”
However, in other universities the administrative role is increasing as “Admin staff have undertaken a
new role which involves going in to Blackboard, checking students are in the right modules, allocating
staff to groups for marking, extracting marks from Blackboard and uploading them back into the
student information system.” Similarly, “admin staff are playing a larger role in the process, not just
the event, and academic staff are being organised by the admin teams more.” In some universities
the administrative role is decreasing it is “an admin responsibility when not using e-submission that is
no longer needed when online.” It “replaces queues at an office.”
Figure 1: Impact on academic, administrative and learning technologist roles and practices
There is a sense that this change of roles between academics and administrative staff may cause
tensions as “In some departments, administrators now 'own' more elements of the assessment cycle.
There are some dangers in the above, as it can cause an admin/academic rift, often within the same
VLE area.” In another university administrative staff are “also becoming anxious about what their role
in the process will now be.”
eSubmission has generally created more work for learning technologists and they are often key
agents of change in this area. The learning technologists “need to get an understanding of existing
assessment practices - no good simply saying "here's a wonderful tool" if academics can't be shown
how it will work for them.” They have also been “able to discuss feedback practices more with staff.”
The learning technologists often create guidance documentation and devote a lot of time to “staff
training and development as well as intensive support.” They often have to “pick up the pieces” when
things go wrong “particularly due to setups being used” that they did not recommend. In some cases
“Students with problems often contact learning technologists rather than departmental staff in the first
instance.”
The changing practices have also improved efficiency in some universities. The “critical thing is that
once you start looking at submissions and feedback, you start looking at current practice and realise
that needs to be examined!” For example, “It has given us a huge saving in the logging, distribution
and receipting of student work. It has also allowed us to back up and archive student work more
easily and has streamlined our external examining process.” Some members felt that they were too
early in this process to evaluate it. Another member said that they were “Not yet far enough
developed to say with confidence, but I suspect it will, particularly for administrative staff.”
3.2 Technological infrastructure
There are several technologies used for eSubmission and some are integrated with other university
systems such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) and student record systems. The major VLEs
implemented in the UK are Blackboard and Moodle (Browne et al, 2010). The technologies used by
respondents to enable eSubmission in the UK are Turnitin (either stand alone or integrated with the
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