Taking a Closer Look: Inline Comments

Last week, we gave you a sneak peek of our upcoming feature that will allow instructors to leave comments directly on student submissions, as well as use TimelyGrader to assist with the creation of those comments.

Why? After speaking with many current TimelyGrader users, we found that written feedback is most commonly given to students as either general comments or inline comments.

With inline comments, we’re taking our OG approach: human-in-the-loop with a blend of AI assistance. That means customization, refinement, and human validation. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Enabling Inline Comments

Inline comments are toggled on by default under assignment settings, similar to general feedback and grading. This can then be toggled off or kept on depending on the use case. This feature is particularly useful if feedback needs to be directed at a specific sentence with grammar issues, a paragraph that requires rewriting, or even a thesis statement that needs improvement.

Step 2: Customizing Inline Comments

If you already use TimelyGrader, you’ll notice a lot of familiar options here. In the Advanced Settings area (as shown in our screenshot above), you’ll find customization controls for inline comments. Instructors can tailor these suggestions to better reflect the complexity of each assignment. Options include number of total comments, language level, tone, and more. Nothing you haven’t seen before!

Step 3: Review, Edit, and/or Add Your Own Inline Comments

After student submissions are processed, instructors can review all inline comments in context before finalizing feedback. They can edit, remove, or further personalize any comment, and are always free to write completely original feedback wherever needed. This can be done by highlighting relevant sections in the student submission and adding feedback as necessary.

Note that all AI-assisted feedback is tagged so students and instructors can better distinguish between AI-assisted feedback and human written feedback.

Step 4: Getting it Back to the Students

Once satisfied, instructors can simply pass back general feedback and the submission with inline comments directly into their LMS. If you’re using the non-integrated version of TimelyGrader, you’ll be able to export individual or all submissions in a zip file to return to students.

That’s it for today’s deep dive! As we gather beta feedback from our institutional users over the next month, some changes may be made. If you’re on the self-serve version of the platform, we ask for a bit more patience.

Curious about what an integrated version will bring to the table? Reach out to our new Partnerships Manager, Will Couling ([email protected]).