TEU Update 13 November 2025

Focus on assessment and feedback

As well as offering versatile grading and feedback options on student submissions, the Loop Assignment activity offers many features for managing submissions. While these features are useful in all modules, those with particularly high student numbers may benefit from them.

1. Granting extensions: In circumstances where a student requests an extension in advance of a due date, you can configure this on the Loop Assignment in question so that when they do submit, they are not marked as late. Learn more about granting extensions.

2. Overriding the due date: Distinct from extensions, you can also give individual students or groups of students different due dates within the same Loop Assignment, using the Override feature. This might be useful where perhaps some students started their work later than others, so therefore need a different due date. Learn more about overrides.

3. Marking allocation and workflow: A great feature for when multiple assessors are grading submissions in the same Loop Assignment, marking allocation allows you to assign a certain number of submissions to a marker, and the workflow feature lets you keep track of the status of grading. Learn more about marking allocation and marking workflow. 

Check your Turnitin Similarity text-matching settings

If you want student submissions to Loop Assignments to be text-matched, you must ensure these settings are applied before students start submitting.

Managing Student Space in Portfolios

As students continue with their portfolios, working towards various assessment submissions, it is important to reiterate to them that they need to manage the limited space they have for files in Loop Reflect. They don’t want to find themselves in a situation of re-working their portfolio close to a deadline! 

• Students should save artefacts in their DCU student Google Drive, set the sharing settings so “Anyone with the link” can view, and then either paste a link in their portfolio or use the “Google Apps” block to directly embed the item

• Students should compress images before uploading them to Loop Reflect, instructions for which are available on the Reflect Help page; alternatively students can use the aforementioned Google Drive method to save an image there, share it, and then use the “External media” block to embed it on a portfolio page

• Students should not upload video files to Reflect - the best option is to upload to their DCU student YouTube channel (which all students have) and then embed it from there to a portfolio page (or similarly use the aforementioned Google Drive method)

Please share these useful tips with your students.

The problems facing people and the planet do not respect disciplinary lines, so neither should the solutions.

This session will bring together staff members from all of DCU's faculties. Participants will consider how their discipline relates to issues of social, global and climate justice and reflect upon how it may not have all the answers, before exploring how collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches can have greater impact. 

Where: DCU Business School, Room Q219

When: Wednesday 3rd December 1pm - 2:30pm

In the third installment of our new webinar series on immersive learning, our colleague Patrick Boyle from the School of Chemistry and Dr Peter Tiernan from the School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies will share their experiences of using virtual reality for students in initial teacher education to practise classroom management skills. We will also have a guest contributor from RWTH Aachen University in Germany, telling their story of using authoring software to create 360 degree immersive video learning content. Further information available on our webpage, including the link to register for this webinar.

The ECIU CBL/MM Community of Practice will take place on Thursday November 27th at at 12 noon.  This is a great opportunity to engage with colleagues from ECIU partner universities and discuss the planning and implementation of CBL and micro modules. The meetings follow a set pattern whereby an individual presents a question from their own context and the group, via a reflective team approach, discusses potential solutions or ways forward. In this session, Greta Danilavičienė from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology will present on Flexible Learning Pathways within the MA+ Challenge Based Innovations competence development track for their postgraduate students.

If you are interested in attending please click here to register and you will be sent the Teams link.

Submit a request at DCU Help for Loop queries
More complex query or prefer to chat? Join a Loop drop in clinic
Find comprehensive resources on our Loop Staff Support Page - enrolment key is 'staff'
 

For advice on teaching practice, including on the use of technology, email teaching.enhancement@dcu.ie
Request a workshop or extended consultation

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