Managing assessments

When managing assessments, it's important to get the best out of the tools that you are using to ensure that your data is reliable and can be accessed by the right people. Some of the tools available are 'in-house' systems such as LUSI, others are more widely used Microsoft products which can be adapted to your needs.

Tips for managing assessments

Working with externals

A Teams space is a useful way to share and manage assessments with both internal and external markers or moderators. Ensure that you set expectations for how the space is to be used and what process is to be followed to keep things running smoothly. It's important that each member of the team has appropriate access and that this is reviewed regularly. See the Group Collaboration with Microsoft Teams online course to learn more.

Lancaster University has an agreement with Microsoft that allows us to store data of any information classification within Microsoft systems, including Teams. However, be aware that if you are using a personal device you should not sync files to your computer or download files and create multiple copies.

If you do need to share assessment information, please don't email it as an attachment. It's much better to use a secure link form OneDrive or Teams that will only open for named individuals. The University's security of data and information guidance provides additional information. If you are unsure of how to proceed seek guidance from your line manager or contact IT for support.

Multiple markers

When working with multiple markers, it can be tempting to download individual copies of a mark sheet. However, if someone downloads a copy of a spreadsheet or document, they become the data owner and are responsible for it under University Policy and GDPR. It's much better to keep your files within the cloud.

If you find it difficult to work in the slimmed down version of Word or Excel within Teams, you can open it in the full desktop version by selecting 'open in app' from the three dots menu beside the file name. This will avoid multiple downloads and local copies and your changes will be saved for others to see in real time.

Make sure that you are confident with sorting, filtering and hiding or unhiding data in Excel so that you will be sure that your data is both reliable and complete. The Analysing and presenting data with Microsoft Excel online course is a great place to brush up your skills.

Physical documents

When working with physical documents, such as a handwritten exam paper, it can be useful to scan and upload these to a Teams space. An example use would be when sharing a sample of scripts for external moderators.

Once you have followed the instructions for scanning documents at a printer upload the scanned item to a Teams space and share securely with the relevant people. Alternatively, Microsoft OneDrive allows you to scan documents.

Be aware that scanned PDFs are just images of the original page. Unless the scanned image has been made accessible by using optical character recognition (OCR) software, the text in the image cannot be selected or read aloud by the computer. If you need to provide digital or online copies of print materials, there are several ways of making the content accessible by using optical character recognition (OCR) software such as Read&Write or Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Working with Student Records

If you work with student records, get familiar with LUSI and the training on offer. There are a range of training options available to support you; from drop-ins, appointments, in-person training sessions and online courses through Moodle. To see what is available, check out the LUSI Training pages.

If you have a specific query, type keywords in the LUSI Answers home page search bar to bring up relevant results.