Workflow for scanned materials / Strategies for paperless grading meeting recap

April’s 100%digital Meeting included a number of useful strategies for staff to convert their paper-based documentation to digital workflows (focusing on scanned documents) and paperless grading strategies.

Photo credit. iVincent by JD Hancock

A description of staff workflow for scanned materials and strategies for paperless grading are included in this post.

Examples of Workflow for scanned materials

• Convert paper documents to digital record-keeping. Kendall Swanson of Student Disability Services shared their digital workflow. Student paper documents are scanned and submitted to the digital student record system. They use a combination of scanners connected to workstations, smartphone scanner apps (TurboScan) and department scanners to convert the paper documents into digital formats.
• Student intake surveys. Student Disability Services uses a Qualtrics survey as the intake form using an iPad.
• Business Cards management. These apps will scan business cards to smartphones and import information to the phone’s contact list.
  • take photo with phone use Evernote’s business card scanning app: Scannable
  • Seven additional Business Card scanning apps from ComputerWorld
• Digital Signatures: Mike Bell shared a strategy for digital signatures using a laminated copy of the paper form. The student signs the laminated form, the staff member scans the document and wipes the laminated form clean.

Strategies for paperless grading
Craig Campbell, the Director of Public Safety Management Program, shared his experiences using TurnItIn’s GradeMark, an online tool for student assessment

• TurnItIn is embedded inside Blackboard in an assignment
• the “peermark” option allows peer-reviewed workflow for student work (can review anonymously)
  • An added benefit of peer review for students to be more mindful of the rubric in their own work
• the “revision” option allows for students to submit early drafts that are overwritten as they submit latter drafts
• Grammar feature (e-rater) that scans documents for grammatical errors and marks up the paper.
• color-coded annotation that includes auto-scanner for grammar and faculty-authored annotations
• can save a bank of reusable notations to quickly add them to the student’s work
• can add comments in-line in document, as a sidebar or as a bubble anchored to the text that pops out when clicked
• can add audio comments attached to a paper
• rubrics also available to encourage students to read the comments, some faculty will withhold the final grade until they check the comments on the annotated
• Robust help features with video tutorials

Julie Sievers of the Center for Teaching Excellence shared her experiences using Canvas’s online assessment tool (SpeedGrader). Julie shared a number of insights into SpeedGrader as well as her pedagogical approach to assessing student writing.