Last week we produced a presentation on how to get administration and marking done faster at a WISEflow HEI usergroup meeting, which provoked a lot of discussion in the break afterwards. Here are some of the insights that were shared with regards to speeding up marking:

1: A DIY Comment Bank using WIN+V

Perhaps the most straightforward optimisation to adopt and one that provides a useful workaround for a feature that markers have long been missing. A common method of setting up a makeshift comment bank involves keeping a word document of comments, and copying and pasting between the document and WISEflow. Instead, try this:

Clipboard History – Windows

1. Make sure clipboard history is enabled on your computer’s settings:

2. Copy each piece of feedback you want to use in your comment bank (piece by piece, not all at once).

3. Inside the marking tool in WISEflow, click on the relevant field where you’d like to add your feedback, e.g. a text box in an annotation or comment.

4. Press the windows key and v (WIN+V) to bring up your clipboard history and click once on the feedback you want to add.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 as needed.

Video demonstration of the clipboard history comment bank in action:

When timed, using the clipboard history comment bank was two times faster than a more traditional copy/ paste method and at least three times faster than typing the same comments over and over again!

Tip: you can also pin your comments so that they’re saved if the clipboard history is cleared:

Clipboard History – macOS

macOS devices don’t have a native clipboard history function, however there are a number of downloadable apps that can offer a similar experience. Two lightweight, free and open source options are Maccy and Clipy.

Download Maccy

Download Clipy via GitHub

2: Taking Typing out of the Equation

The average typing speed is generally accepted to be 40wpm (words per minute). Although it’s possible to practice and learn to type significantly faster, even without being a touch typist (Feit, Weir & Oulasvirta. 2016), top speeds are only really achievable in short bursts. Instead, markers can leverage their lecturing skills and just dictate. The average conversational talking speed for British English speakers is considered to be anywhere from 120 – 190wpm, and with speech to text technology acting as a scribe we can deliver typed feedback fast:

When timed, adding 99 words of feedback at a leisurely pace via speech to text took 52 seconds, comparing to typing the same feedback which took 1 minute and 44 seconds.

There are, of course, a few caveats to this:

Using speech to text to dictate written feedback has a learning curve if you want to be able to use it efficiently
Dictation of mathematical formulae and insertion of tables still presents a challenge (we wouldn’t recommend speech to text for the purpose of doing this faster)
Even with good dictation, you will probably still need to make minor edits to your feedback using a cursor and keyboard afterwards

With all that said, here’s how to do it:

Speech to Text – Windows

1. Search for and open the Voice Access app:

2. The Voice Access app will appear as a bar at the top of your screen. When you’re ready to use it, say “voice access wake up” or click the microphone button to activate.

3. Inside the marking tool in WISEflow, click the relevant field (e.g. a text box for a comment or annotation) and start speaking. Voice access will transcribe your words into text. You can say “turn off microphone” or click the microphone button again to switch voice access off.

Tip: speaking clearly and voicing punctuation, new lines or new paragraphs will help minimise the amount of editing that’s required afterwards. Access Microsoft’s guidance on dictating text with voice.

Speech to Text – macOS

Access the Apple support guide on dictating messages and documents on Mac.

3: Audio Feedback plus a Transcript

An alternative way to use speech to text is to generate a written transcript for audio feedback. Although this will require more editing than factoring conscious punctuation into your dictation, it allows markers to speak naturally rather than having to learn a specific way of talking. This can be done directly in WISEflow wherever a standard or custom rubric is in use that includes areas for both written and audio feedback.

1. Search for, open and start the Voice Access app (or the speech to text software of your choice).

2. Inside the marking tool in WISEflow, open your rubric. Start the recording for audio feedback and then click inside the text field and start speaking. Avoid using dictation commands to produce a natural, verbatim transcript.

3. Once you’ve finished delivering your feedback, end the recording and switch speech to text off. You’ll now have a piece of audio feedback along with a typed transcript which may require some cleanup.

See a demo of how this works below:

In the demo, 138 words of feedback were produced in under a minute. Is the cleanup of the transcript afterwards faster than just typing your feedback? That really depends on the specific content (in this particular example, another 40 seconds or so were spent adding punctuation and line breaks); however, it is definitely the fastest way we’ve found to deliver two formats of feedback at the same time! Additionally, there are a number of studies that have explored the benefits of audio feedback, including a higher rate of engagement and student perceptions of it being more detailed and more personal.