Dropbox tool (Assignments)

What is Possible with ICON’s Dropbox Tool?

• Collect assignments from individual students or from groups.
• Give grades and feedback online through dropbox interface.
• Restrict submissions to specified dates/times
• Add submission dates to the Events Calendar.
• Group Dropbox Folders
  • Instructors can create dropbox folders for groups, allowing them to view files submitted by group members in a single location.
  • Evaluate the group as a whole using a grade item or a rubric associated with a competency activity.
• Submit Files from a Locker
  • Students can submit files directly from their personal locker or a group locker.
• Preview
  • Instructors can preview how a folder looks from a student’s perspective, submit a file, assess the preview submission, and view feedback.
• Multi-Edit
  • Instructors can edit multiple dropbox folders and categories simultaneously.
• Check uploaded papers for plagiarism using the new Plagiarism Detection tool.

Note: High-Level TA's and TA/Designers can retrieve and grade completed assignments.

05 October 2009

Create a Dropbox Folder

For each assignment, you must create a Dropbox folder to hold student submissions.

1. Click Dropbox in the NavBar.
2. Click New Folder.
3. Type in the folder name (i.e., the assignment name).
4. Select Individual submission folder if students are graded individually or Group submission folder and select the group if all group members will receive the same grade.
5. If you are organizing your assignments by category, select an existing category or click New Category.
6. To associate the assignment with a gradebook item, select from the Grade item dropdown list. If you haven't yet created the gradebook item, click New Grade Item and adjust properties for the grade item.
7. In the Out of textbox, enter the maximum number of points the assignment is worth.
8. Enter any assignment instructions. If you wish to give students quick access to a related content document or tool in your ICON course or to an external URL:
   1. Click  the  Edit icon next to the Custom Instructions textbox.
   2. In the HTML Editor window, click Advanced (except in Safari), and then click the QuickLink icon.
   3. Select the ICON course area you want to link to, or click URL Link for an external url.
   4. In the Link Caption box, type the words students will click on.
   5. Indicate whether to display the item in a whole frame, the same (current) frame, or a new window.
   6. Click Insert.
9. If you wish to attach a document, click Add a File.
10. Click Save.

Setting Availability Dates & Adding These Dates to Calendar

You can specify the earliest and/or latest dates submissions will be accepted:

1. From within the Dropbox folder, click the Restrictions tab.
2. To specify a specific period when students can submit the assignment, select Has Start Date and/or Has End Date. Make your date/time selections from the dropdown list(s).
3. To add the selected submissions date(s) to the course Calendar, select Display in Calendar .
4. Click Save.

Setting Up Additional Release Conditions Based on Group Membership or Task Completion

You can restrict access to members of a certain group or to individuals who have fulfilled a specified online requirement:

If you plan to base assignment access on group membership but haven’t yet created the group, do so now, before you set up your release conditions.  (See Creating Groups.)  Then you can Edit your assignment folder and set up the release conditions.

1. If you are not yet in the assignment folder, click Dropbox in the NavBar, then click the Edit icon for the folder. 
2. Under Additional Release Conditions, click Create and Attach .
3. Select a Condition Type and specific item or group from the dropdown lists and click Save.

Note: When applying conditional release, ICON uses the condition AND rather than OR. Therefore, if you enter multiple conditions, students must satisfy all of those conditions, not just one, in order to access that Dropbox folder.

4. If you are finished creating the assignment folder, click Save.

Setting Up Special Access (Outside Normal Availability Dates OR for Select Individuals)

Note: If you are setting up access for groups created with the Groups tool, follow the instructions under Setting Up Additional Release Conditions . . . (above).

You can allow certain students to submit assignments to the dropbox folder outside of the availability dates for the dropbox folder. You can also allow only students who have special access to see the dropbox folder. Here's how:

1. Select Allow users with special access to submit assignments outside the normal availability dates for this folder or Only allow users with special access to see this folder.
2. Click Add users to Special Access.
3. Select students from the list and set availability options.
4. Click Add Selected.
5. Click Save.

05 October 2009

Plagiarism Detection

What is Plagiarism Detection and How does it Work?

Plagiarism Detection is the process of checking papers against external sources and identifying sections of papers that may have been plagiarized. The University of Iowa has licensed Turnitin (http://turnitin.com), an online, automatic plagiarism detection service, for campus wide use, and we invite all interested instructors to utilize this tool. It is important to note that the final decision about the presence of a plagiarism lies with the instructor.

When Plagiarism Detection is turned on for a dropbox in ICON, papers that students upload to the dropbox will be checked against Turnitin's plagiarism detection service, and an originality report will be generated. Turnitin compares the papers that students have uploaded against web sites such as Wikipedia, online journals, and against other papers that have been uploaded to the Turnitin system.

Instructors who wish to access the Turnitin web interface at http://turnitin.com/ may still do so, and should send an email to turnitin@uiowa.edu for information on how to access Turnitin's web service. For more information about Turnitin, visit http://its.uiowa.edu/support/turnitin/.

Originality Reports

Once the papers have been checked, an originality report will be available to instructors (and to students, if the instructors wish). When the Originality Report is ready, the status will change from In Progress to a percentage grade, indicating the level content that has been matched with an external source. A lower percentage rating indicates that the content is original and has not been copied; a higher percentage rating indicates the content may not be original, and the paper requires further investigation.

The percentage ranges are associated with colors:

Blue: 0 to 20%
Green: 20 to 40%
Yellow: 40 to 60%
Orange: 60 to 80%
Red: 80 to 100%

To view an Originality Report, click the colored section beside the percentage rating, and the Originality Report will open in a new window.

This page: http://cdn.turnitin.com/resources/multimedia/training/turnitin/instructor/view_report/view_report.htm explains how to interpret an originality report.

It is important to note that the originality report does not necessarily indicate the presence of plagiarism. Cases where a false positive may be returned include:

• The paper has been uploaded twice, or it has been uploaded to a Plagiarism Detection dropbox in ICON and to an assignment folder through the Turnitin web interface.
• The paper covers common material that has been covered by other students (i.e. "Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?"), or contains large amounts of quoted material.

Turning on Plagiarism Detection for an ICON Dropbox

1. Click Dropbox in the NavBar.
2. Click New Folder.
3. Check the box next to Plagiarism Detection (just under the Name box).
4. Set the rest of the dropbox settings.
5. Note that you now have additional options under Plagiarism Detection Options. Review these settings.
6. Click Save.

 

Supported File Types for Plagiarism Detection

The following file types are compatible with Plagiarism Detection:

• MS Word
• WordPerfect
• PostScript
• Acrobat PDF
• HTML
• RTF
• Plain Text

 

05 October 2009

Downloading Student Submissions

1. Click Dropbox in the NavBar.
2. Click the folder name for the assignment.
3. Select the Users tab or the Files tab for desired view of the dropbox. You’ll see a listing of submissions. Files you have not yet downloaded are marked . Downloaded files are marked  .
4. Download the file(s):
• To download an individual file, click on the file name.
• To download all files in a folder, click the checkbox at top left or bottom left and click Download. ICON will download files of students whose names are displayed. Since ICON can display a maximum of 200 students at once time, instructors with very large classes may need to repeat the download function.
• To download selected files only, click the checkboxes next to the filenames and click Download.

Problems downloading a student file?

If the filename includes one or more of the following characters, or if there is a space before the filename, the student can upload it but you will not be able to download it:

“ ” * / : < > ? \ | ’

Ask your student to rename the file and re-submit it. (For other downloading problems and fixes, see Content - Acceptable File Types.)

Notes:

• High-Level TA's and TA/Designers can download student submissions.
• It's possible to download files submitted during a previous semester. To do this, go to the My Home page and select the course name under the relevant semester heading. In order for students to view online feedback, the course must be active (click Edit Course and make sure the Active box is checked).

28 April 2008

Entering Grades and/or Other Feedback

1. Click Dropbox in the NavBar.
2. Click the folder name.
3. If the assignment is associated with a grade, click Leave Feedback/Grade next to the student’s name (this option allows you to enter a score as well as feedback).  If the assignment is not associated with a grade, click Leave Feedback.
4. To attach a file (optional), click Add a File.
5. To enter your feedback as HTML, click to open the HTML editor.
6. Enter a grade in the Score textbox .
7. Click Save.

The date you enter the feedback and the date the student views it will both display at top right.

• High-Level TA's and TA/Designers can enter grades and feedback.
• If you should wish to modify or delete a grade, feedback, or attachment, you can return to the same screen and make your changes.

28 April 2008

Known issues with the ICON Dropbox

1. When applying conditional release, ICON uses the condition AND rather than OR. Therefore, if you enter multiple conditions, students must satisfy all of the conditions, not just one. For example, suppose you have divided you class into four different groups, and you wish to make Assignment 1 available to students in Groups A and C. A student would need to belong to both groups in order to access the folder.

16 February 2006