Assessors are assigned to topics in order to review and grade submissions from learners - responses to Q&A, files for Upload or completions for Task (as well as attendance at events). For the Q&A, Upload and Task elements, Assessors can see an in-platform notification about pending assessable submissions on their Homepage.
Assessor can also receive email notifications about pending assessable submissions, as well as sending notifications to learners after grading has occurred. Let's review these options in this article.
What is the Assessor Report notification?
This first option is to enable the Assessor report email for the assessor. This report is a summary notification which lists any topic that the user is a creator or assessor for AND that topic has pending assessable items awaiting grading. The report lists the topics and the number of pending assessable items. If there are no pending assessable items, the report does not send (to reduce spam).
The subscription for the assessor report is based upon a selected frequency:
None
Once a month (which means the 1st day of the month)
Twice a month (which means the 1st and 15th day of the month)
Every Monday
Every Tuesday
Every Wednesday
Every Thursday
Every Friday
Every weekday
Every day
The assessor report is sent between 7 and 8 am of your organisation's time zone.
Assessors can be subscribed to this report via three methods.
User profiles in Admin: Admins can subscribe assessors by selecting them in the Admin area and viewing their Profile. On the Profile page there is a Notifications panel which can be edited by Admins to set the frequency for this report.
Import People in Admin: Admins can also set the frequency of this report via the Import CSV function. Both the People and People + Enrolments imports support setting this field via the upload. When using the Import CSV function to set this field, select "Assessor Report Frequency" as the System Field and enter your choice as one of: none, once_a_month, twice_a_month, every_monday, every_tuesday, every_wednesday, every_thursday, every_friday, every_day or every_weekday.
Public API: The Public API can also be used to set the frequency of this field for each assessor via the Users endpoint.
How can assessors be notified for each new learner submission?
The Assessor Report email is a summary report sent periodically. It provides a single email listing all topics which require the assessor's attention. But there will be a delay between a learner making a submission and an assessor receiving this report, depending on the frequency of the report for the given assessor. In many situations, where assessing a submission is not urgent, this delay is not important and the assessor benefits from receiving just a single email notification.
However, there are times when an assessor needs an instant alert for each assessable submission. In this case, the Q&A, Upload and Task elements can be configured to send an email notification for each assessable submission in real time. This notification can be sent to the creators or assessors of that topic, or to specific stakeholders. Please review the support articles for each of Q&A, Upload and Task to learn more about this setting.
How can assessors notify a learner once they have graded a submission?
By default, learners are not notified when their submissions are graded. This is both to reduce spam but also because assessors may edit a grading several times before finalising it or communicate with a learner separately.
However, assessors can trigger an email notification to any learner about any graded submission if required. This notification includes the result, score, comments and information about the assessed item. Please review the support articles for each of Q&A, Upload and Task to learn more about this setting.