If discussions in your course are being evaluated, you can attach a score, rubric, and/or grade item to VIULearn discussions to facilitate giving students feedback and marks for their contributions.
Set Up a Graded Discussion
- In the Discussion tool, create a new Discussion Topic by clicking the New button and selecting New Topic from the drop-down menu.
- Set the Forum, topic type, title and any other settings on the Properties tab.
- Click the Assessment tab.
- You can use the drop down menu at the top of the Assessment tab to select the Grade Item (if any) you want to connect this discussion to.
- If you have not yet set up your Grade Items, you can click New Grade Item to create a new grade item in a pop-up window.
- If you have not yet set up your Grade Items, you can click New Grade Item to create a new grade item in a pop-up window.
- Under the Score Out Of heading, enter the maximum number of points a student can receive for the discussion.
- If you will be using a rubric for discussion assessment, you can click Add Rubric to add a VIULearn rubric you have already created to the discussion.
- If you haven't yet set up your rubric in VIULearn, clicking Create Rubric in New Window will open the Rubric tool in a new window or tab so you can set up your rubric
- If you haven't yet set up your rubric in VIULearn, clicking Create Rubric in New Window will open the Rubric tool in a new window or tab so you can set up your rubric
- Decide how granular you want to be in your assessment.
- If you want to give students a single holistic mark for all of their contributions to a topic, keep the default settings under Posts.
- If you want to score each individual post for each student and have VIULearn calculate an overall grade based on those assessments:
- Check the box for Allow assessment of individual posts.
- Choose how you want the overall score for this topic to be calculated from the drop-down menu.
- Once you have finished, click Save and Close.
- In the Discussion tool, click the arrow next to the name of the Discussion Topic you want to connect an assessment to and choose Edit from the menu.
- Click the Assessment tab.
- You can use the drop down menu at the top of the Assessment tab to select the Grade Item (if any) you want to connect this discussion to.
- If you have not yet set up your Grade Items, you can click New Grade Item to create a new grade item in a pop-up window.
- If you have not yet set up your Grade Items, you can click New Grade Item to create a new grade item in a pop-up window.
- Under the Score Out Of heading, enter the maximum number of points a student can receive for the discussion.
- If you will be using a rubric for discussion assessment, you can click Add Rubric to add a VIULearn rubric you have already created to the discussion.
- If you haven't yet set up your rubric in VIULearn, clicking Create Rubric in New Window will open the Rubric tool in a new window or tab so you can set up your rubric
- If you haven't yet set up your rubric in VIULearn, clicking Create Rubric in New Window will open the Rubric tool in a new window or tab so you can set up your rubric
- Decide how granular you want to be in your assessment.
- If you want to give students a single holistic mark for all of their contributions to a topic, keep the default settings under Posts.
- If you want to score each individual post for each student and have VIULearn calculate an overall grade based on those assessments:
- Check the box for Allow assessment of individual posts.
- Choose how you want the overall score for this topic to be calculated from the drop-down menu.
- Once you have finished, click Save and Close.
Assess VIULearn Discussions
- From the course navigation bar, choose Communication. Select Discussions from the drop-down menu.
- Use the drop-down arrow to the right of Discussion topic and choose Assess Topic.
- Click on the Topic Score text below the name of the student you wish to assess.
- All contributions that the student has made to that Discussion Topic will be listed in the pop up window. Insert any feedback you may have for the student in the General Feedback field. Give the student a score in the Topic Score field.
- Once you have finished editing, click the blue Publish button to make the feedback and score visible to the student. Alternatively, click the Save Draft button to save your changes without publishing.
- From the course navigation bar, choose Communication. Select Discussions from the drop-down menu.
- Use the drop-down arrow to the right of Discussion Topic and choose Assess Topic.
- Make sure all your students are listed on the same page. If they are not, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click the Per Page input field in the bottom right hand corner and select 200 per page from the drop-down menu.
- Click the checkbox in the upper left hand corner of the table to select all the students on the page.
- Click the Publish Feedback button.
- Click the blue Yes button to confirm.