Students' perceptions of eMarking : Grademark vs. iAnnotate

Feedback on assessments is central to formative learning in higher education; it is also a main cause of dissatisfaction in student surveys. New advances in e-learning and eMarking have the potential to improve teaching and learning in this area. In this paper, we present an exploratory study gauging students’ access rates and perceptions of eMarking feedback in two formats, Grademark and iAnnotate, across two large first year first semester interprofessional health science subjects at one university. Results indicate that, on the whole, students are satisfied with the quality, efficiency and convenience of submitting assessments and accessing feedback through eMarking in Grademark and iAnnotate. Furthermore, eMarking has the capacity to substantially improve student feedback collection rates. However, only half of the participants agreed that eMarking was superior to paper-based marking. In open comments, many students described difficulties that should be considered, related to saving feedback, ease of use and computer literacy