The 'MD' has been created in Microsoft excel, with each component created on a separate sheet (accessed via colour coded tabs at the bottom of the document).

We can take full advantage of excel's benefits - for example, formative assessment grades can be entered and averages instantly generated - both in terms of a cohort and individuals. This can prove useful at summative assessment points, particularly if several components are to be taken into account (level 4 illustration, for example, can see a module contain between 4 and 10 components, all of which receive a formative assessment grade before summative assessment).

​Staff Facing:
​Once we had the MD we then needed it to be functional and accessible. In my on-going attempt to truly make Bb the digital home of the illustration course, I wanted to make the MD a central component of each module Bb page.

To achieve this the document is embedded in a 'tutor area' folder on each module. This page is not available to students.
Once embedded the MD has to be shared with all staff who will need access (otherwise they will not be able to see it, even if they have access to the Bb page in which it is embedded). 

From here the excel document can't be amended (you can't, for example, add attendance via Bb) but with a single click the document will open, can be instantly amended and then closed. Those changes / additions will then show up on the MD.

​Admin Facing:
Programme admin often require information with regard to grades or student attendance. For example, a foreign student requires a weekly attendance check which means a weekly email from admin to programme leader and back. A frustrating process for all involved. Instead, our admin has been given access to the MD and now simply checks the doc for any information they might require. No more weekly emails.

You can even limit individual access meaning that staff can amend the MD whilst admin can view only.​

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Student Facing:
If we create all documents as potentially student facing then we will reduce the need to create secondary, student facing versions. Something that it appears we all find ourselves doing.

With that in mind, the timetables included in the MD are designed with absolute clarity in mind. All unneeded information has been removed. The design of each year groups timetable has been created to double as a module planner and sessions on time management use this exact document as their basis.

The timetables published on Bb are taken directly from the MD. Assessment calendars published on Bb are taken directly from MD.

​Proposal:
1. Refine MD to reflect  our experiences of using it for one semester. Invite feedback and suggestion from other course groups.

2. Generate MD template for distribution

3. Generate instruction on population and use of MD

When lockdown hit we had many problems to solve, not least of which was the practicalities of viewing and assessing student work. 
Both formative and summative assessments, pre-lockdown, were based upon physical viewings of work, whether process and development or final outcome. Our use of Turnitin has always been rudimentary as the system is built around deliveries of written content and not the visual work that we assess.

Without time to plan I decided that all work would be presented and assessed via student sites (these were already in place, so it was, as far as I could see, our only option. I'm still not sure what other courses done). For clarity, this meant that not only final outcome work would be presented via websites but every part of the process leading to an outcome would need to be included.

Upon making this decision I realised that this is in fact a move toward professional practice. In a professional context an illustrator works, delivers developments and receives feedback as well as presenting their portfolio via their site. The website is more than a portfolio, it's a shop front and workshop. This quickly begged the question, have we been doing it wrong all this time, creating an experience that in no way prepares students for the professional world that we claim to be readying them for?

We prepared ourselves for teething problems with this new dynamic but no such problems arrived. Students took to this mode of delivery with ease and in fact, it has brought several benefits:
Helped students to recognise the importance of and instilled an evident sense of pride in process.
Removed focus from outcome
Forced students to consider how they present all aspects of work in order to elevate it
Instilled professional practice and approaches

Website based delivery also removed the need for the end of semester rush to print work that has been our experience for years. Students no longer need to budget for print either in financial or chronological terms. 

Practicalities of viewing student's work via their sites.

Using collaborate or teams meant that it was easy for students to share their work with teaching staff as well as eachother. Here's how a normal session worked. Each student is asked to create a fresh webpage for each component of a module. In session each student would share this page, on screen, and talk through their process, decisions and thought process up to that point. Students were encouraged to use any number of systems in order to clarify their work - for example they might collate research via pinterest and then embed that pinterest board within their site
​e.g.

Rather than mentioning reference or inspiration in either written word or in their verbal presentation, they were encouraged to incorporate visual reference using images and/or video. In other words, we did not dictate a standard form of delivery but encouraged students to consider this as part of the creative process that they could take advantage of and make their own - as in a professional context. We were both surprised and heartened by the standard of response that we received from all year groups. It's no exaggeration to say that level 4 students were able to present process and outcome in a way that was out of reach of level 6 students on a couple of years ago.

With all aspects of work and process being presented, students received feedback from lecturer and peer group - in fact, there was a notable rise in peer feedback over the previous in studio version of similar 'round table' interactions where feedback was predominantly lecturer-centric; student being somewhat stuck in the role of receiver.

In terms of formative assessment points we added a peer review form (created in Microsoft Forms, part of our office 365 accounts that I discovered), based upon ILOs, into the mix (below).
Accessed via Blackboard, students were asked to fill these forms in whilst each presentation was underway. As forms were anonymous, it was quickly apparent that students were far more confident to add their honest feedback. This turned out to be a fantastic way of providing actionable and ILO specific feedback but also of providing students with a practice based confidence stemming from having their comments discussed, appreciated and agreed with. Further more, in this way we were able to clarify the assessment process and the module ILOs which may have a positive effect on NSS. 

Student responses to this process have been unanimously positive (feedback gathered via another microsoft form) and the process, as it stands, has been developed in conjunction with student input.