Planning e-submission

Step 1: Check with your school admin team if there is an existing workflow

Your school may already have an online submission and marking workflow (a standard way of running assessments). Contact your school admin team to see if there is an existing workflow that meets your requirements. If that's the case, see Guidance on recommended workflows. They may also have school-specific guidance which you can use.

Step 2: Choose a workflow

If there is no existing practice that suits your requirements, you need to decide which workflow will be best in your context. Workflows are available for both University-supported online marking tools – Blackboard and Turnitin. Use the menu below to help decide. If you need a workflow for group assignments, submission of multiple documents at once, or will give feedback via an attached file (eg feedback form), then you should use a Blackboard workflow. If you are unsure or have any questions, please contact the Digital Education Office digital-education@bristol.ac.uk as early as possible.

Tools and practices

You can use the table below, or our interactive decision tree to pick the best workflow for your requirements. Or, see Blackboard Original guidance here.

Submission options
Tool/Practice	Turnitin LTI	Blackboard offline marking	Blackboard online marking	Blackboard with Turnitin enabled
Individual submissions	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Group submissions	No	Yes	Yes	No
Number of documents submissible	Single	Multiple	Multiple	Up to 10 documents per attempt will generate Similarity and AI score
Single/ Multiple attempts	Multiple	Multiple	Multiple	Multiple (single recommended)
Maximum File Size	<100MB	<2500MB in total	<2500MB in total	<100MB per file
Submit on behalf of the student	Yes	No	No	No

Marking & Anonymity
Tool/Practice	Turnitin LTI	Blackboard offline marking	Blackboard online marking	Blackboard with Turnitin enabled
Student anonymity	Yes	Yes	No (Not recommended - contact DEO)	Yes with Blackboard offline
Distributed marking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Student anonymity with distributed marking	Yes	Yes	No	Yes with Blackboard offline
Parallel Marking (Double-Blind Marking)	No	Yes	No	Yes with Blackboard offline
Annotations	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Marking Rubric available	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Preformatted Marking Comments	Yes	No	Yes (cannot be easily shared with other markers)	Yes (cannot be easily shared with other markers)
Video feedback	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio feedback	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Similarity and AI reports
Tool/Practice	Turnitin LTI	Blackboard offline marking	Blackboard online marking	Blackboard with Turnitin enabled
Similarity reports	Yes	No (see Blackboard with Turnitin enabled)	No (see Blackboard with Turnitin enabled)	Yes
AI reports	Yes	No (see Blackboard with Turnitin enabled)	No (see Blackboard with Turnitin enabled)	Yes
Overview of academic integrity results	Yes (Assignment Inbox)	No	No	No

Submission management
Tool/Practice	Turnitin LTI	Blackboard offline marking	Blackboard online marking	Blackboard with Turnitin enabled
Permanent deletion of submissions	Yes	Yes	Yes	No (requires supplier's intervention)
Paper view request	Yes	No	No	No
Automatic Late penalties	No	Yes (depending on eVision assessment type)	Yes (depending on eVision assessment type)	Yes (depending on eVision assessment type)

Step 3: Setup and test the workflow

Once you have selected your workflow, use the guidance to set up and run through the workflow in a test Blackboard course with a test student. It is essential to test before using real assessments, and this will also enable you to see the student perspective. Failure to test may result in lost submissions or feedback. To request a test course, or if there are any issues with your test, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Step 4: Implement the workflow

Now you have tested your workflow you can implement it into your course. Follow the instructions in the guidance above just as you did for your test.

Health and safety

If you are marking or administering marking online, please see the Safety and Health services workplace guidance on using display screen equipment.

Printing

If printing is required (eg to read paper copies), staff can either download assignments individually or bulk download a .zip file containing all assignments from Blackboard. This .zip file can be uploaded to the Print Services “Print submission system”. Files must be in .pdf format, so if printing through Print Services will be required, students should be instructed to submit .pdfs.

If planning to print a large quantity of assignments, schools should contact Print Services as early as possible with details of approximate volume and dates when submissions will need to be printed.

Do you have any comments or suggestions?

The Digital Education Office works to advise and support staff on electronic management of assessment, as well as with suppliers such as Blackboard and Turnitin to improve our toolset.