Moodle

Can uploaded assignments be made anonymous?

Details

  • Affected Branches:
    MOODLE_18_STABLE

Description

My institution's regulations require all tutor-marked assignments to be marked anonymously (i.e. the tutor must not know the name of the student who's work s/he is marking). I think this requirement is very common in the UK. However, it seems impossible to do this in Moodle because the names and photos of students are shown alongside the submitted assignments. Is there any way to 'anonymize' work that students upload? Thanks in advance for any pointers.

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Steve Bond added a comment - - edited

There was a thread on this back in 2003: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=911 but it doesn't seem to have arisen since. This seems odd since we have already had 5 different users request this after only a few months of using Moodle.

It looks tricky to me. There are at least 3 places where changes would be required:

  • assignment/submissions.php - need to hide the name and photo of the student, and replace them with some unique ID that does not easily identify the student (as the database's user ID would)
  • grade/index.php - need to hide any 'blind-marked' assignments from the table, and omit these grades from the total.
  • course/user.php - grades also appear in the activity reports here so again any blind-marked assignments would have to be altered to hide the grade.

I have added my vote anyway.

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Steve Bond added a comment - - edited There was a thread on this back in 2003: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=911 but it doesn't seem to have arisen since. This seems odd since we have already had 5 different users request this after only a few months of using Moodle. It looks tricky to me. There are at least 3 places where changes would be required:
  • assignment/submissions.php - need to hide the name and photo of the student, and replace them with some unique ID that does not easily identify the student (as the database's user ID would)
  • grade/index.php - need to hide any 'blind-marked' assignments from the table, and omit these grades from the total.
  • course/user.php - grades also appear in the activity reports here so again any blind-marked assignments would have to be altered to hide the grade.
I have added my vote anyway.
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Martin Dougiamas added a comment -

Thanks for the vote.

Making Assignment do this would not too hard to add to Moodle 2.0, it could just be a new assignment setting which we check everytime we display user names and images (needs to be 2.0 because it requires db changes).

The proposed changes to gradebook are just going to be too complex in the new gradebook (which is complex enough!). There would be all kinds of flow on effects to totals etc. I would suggest instead that those tutors simply be prevented from seeing grade reports (using capabilities) thus avoiding the whole issue.

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Martin Dougiamas added a comment - Thanks for the vote. Making Assignment do this would not too hard to add to Moodle 2.0, it could just be a new assignment setting which we check everytime we display user names and images (needs to be 2.0 because it requires db changes). The proposed changes to gradebook are just going to be too complex in the new gradebook (which is complex enough!). There would be all kinds of flow on effects to totals etc. I would suggest instead that those tutors simply be prevented from seeing grade reports (using capabilities) thus avoiding the whole issue.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

This may as well be added to online text assignment types too.

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - This may as well be added to online text assignment types too.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

An alternative take on this here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=103750#p460393

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - An alternative take on this here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=103750#p460393
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Bobbi A Smith added a comment -

Some faculties (e.g., law, engineering) at my institution require faculty to grade assignments anonymously. We could manage this if we had the option to hide student names and our institutional user IDs and show only the 6 digit student number.

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Bobbi A Smith added a comment - Some faculties (e.g., law, engineering) at my institution require faculty to grade assignments anonymously. We could manage this if we had the option to hide student names and our institutional user IDs and show only the 6 digit student number.
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Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) added a comment -

NOTE: This issue was assigned to the STABLE backlog without complete triaging process. Marking it as triaged, but with this note for future reference.

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Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) added a comment - NOTE: This issue was assigned to the STABLE backlog without complete triaging process. Marking it as triaged, but with this note for future reference.
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Mark Ward added a comment -

I have attached a patch for the assignment activity included in Moodle 2.05 which adds an anonymous option after "prevent late submissions".

The changes in this are going to be difficult to maintain separately as the patch includes an update to the mdl_assignment table (a new column for the anonymous setting). I have taken a look at the assignment activity in 2.1 and 2.2 and I can easily make the same modifications to those for inclusion.

Once the setting is enabled the submission view either hides the name and images entirely or anonymises them. I have ensured this is the case from the "all submissions" view, the "single submission" view and also from the "download all" function.

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Mark Ward added a comment - I have attached a patch for the assignment activity included in Moodle 2.05 which adds an anonymous option after "prevent late submissions". The changes in this are going to be difficult to maintain separately as the patch includes an update to the mdl_assignment table (a new column for the anonymous setting). I have taken a look at the assignment activity in 2.1 and 2.2 and I can easily make the same modifications to those for inclusion. Once the setting is enabled the submission view either hides the name and images entirely or anonymises them. I have ensured this is the case from the "all submissions" view, the "single submission" view and also from the "download all" function.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

A quick question. What happens if the setting is reversed by the teacher in the assignment settings? If this reveals the identities it makes it somewhat redundant. Would a lock on this setting work or should there be a capability to reverse the anonymous option?

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - A quick question. What happens if the setting is reversed by the teacher in the assignment settings? If this reveals the identities it makes it somewhat redundant. Would a lock on this setting work or should there be a capability to reverse the anonymous option?
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Gordon McLeod added a comment -

Interesting point Ray - I'd suggest that if it is possible to reverse the anonymous setting that should only be achievable by site admin - by default anyone with lower permissions shouldn't have that capability. I can think of two possible scenarios for being able to identify the student: plagiarism - to identify culprit, and if exam board ask to see work of a specific student who's degree marks are borderline. But the tutor shouldn't be able to reverse anonymity - in fact it would be better if that could be set as a site-wide default depending on institutional policy (rather than leaving it to each tutor).

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Gordon McLeod added a comment - Interesting point Ray - I'd suggest that if it is possible to reverse the anonymous setting that should only be achievable by site admin - by default anyone with lower permissions shouldn't have that capability. I can think of two possible scenarios for being able to identify the student: plagiarism - to identify culprit, and if exam board ask to see work of a specific student who's degree marks are borderline. But the tutor shouldn't be able to reverse anonymity - in fact it would be better if that could be set as a site-wide default depending on institutional policy (rather than leaving it to each tutor).
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Mark Ward added a comment -

Yes it is simply a setting so if you revet it to "off" the names will be visible. Equally, if the teacher has any awareness of the query strings they could just look at what UID was being passed to the single submission view. While both of these would be worth looking at in the future they involve bit more consideration and I would argue it is best to get something in place and then work from there, after all this has been a request for 8 years now.

Also, given that in the "real world" all our lecturers would have to do is peel back a piece of paper I don't think we need to worry too much about preventing them from finding the name. Just ensuring that they aren't presented with the information is good enough as a starting point.

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Mark Ward added a comment - Yes it is simply a setting so if you revet it to "off" the names will be visible. Equally, if the teacher has any awareness of the query strings they could just look at what UID was being passed to the single submission view. While both of these would be worth looking at in the future they involve bit more consideration and I would argue it is best to get something in place and then work from there, after all this has been a request for 8 years now. Also, given that in the "real world" all our lecturers would have to do is peel back a piece of paper I don't think we need to worry too much about preventing them from finding the name. Just ensuring that they aren't presented with the information is good enough as a starting point.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

Site wide default: I don't think that will work. Clients may work with different universities on the same site who may have differing views on this issue.

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - Site wide default: I don't think that will work. Clients may work with different universities on the same site who may have differing views on this issue.
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Gordon McLeod added a comment -

Mark - fair comment on 'real world', and on getting this out there - better available than not! Restricted permission would be something to consider for future enhancement.
Ray - I'd suggest that having the - option - to set assignment anonymity site wide would be useful to many institutions - I'd anticipate that you could still set anonymous at the individual activity level if it wasn't turned on globally.

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Gordon McLeod added a comment - Mark - fair comment on 'real world', and on getting this out there - better available than not! Restricted permission would be something to consider for future enhancement. Ray - I'd suggest that having the - option - to set assignment anonymity site wide would be useful to many institutions - I'd anticipate that you could still set anonymous at the individual activity level if it wasn't turned on globally.
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Mark Ward added a comment -

I'd be happy enough to add a setting on the admin->plugins->acitivities->assignment form whilst updating the latest version of Assignment with the rest of these changes. The sooner this happens the better as far as I am concerned.

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Mark Ward added a comment - I'd be happy enough to add a setting on the admin->plugins->acitivities->assignment form whilst updating the latest version of Assignment with the rest of these changes. The sooner this happens the better as far as I am concerned.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

Agreed that making this happen quickly would be great - in many user contexts. My concern is that this isn't implemented so that it's only useful a for single institution, single policy scenario as that wouldn't be useful in the multitude of settings where requirements may be different between courses or programmes on the same site.

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - Agreed that making this happen quickly would be great - in many user contexts. My concern is that this isn't implemented so that it's only useful a for single institution, single policy scenario as that wouldn't be useful in the multitude of settings where requirements may be different between courses or programmes on the same site.
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Mark Ward added a comment - - edited

I understand your point of view on this now, however doing this through only permissions would have disadvantages the other way as it assumes we want all assignments to behave the same way for a tutor. I can see situations where tutors may want some assignments to be anonymous and others to be named.

We should perhaps be looking for a two stage solution then, with an "anonymous" setting which applies to users who do not have the necessary permission to view names on anonymous assignments. Incidentally, this new permission would give us a good basis for determining which users should be able to change the "anonymous" setting.

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Mark Ward added a comment - - edited I understand your point of view on this now, however doing this through only permissions would have disadvantages the other way as it assumes we want all assignments to behave the same way for a tutor. I can see situations where tutors may want some assignments to be anonymous and others to be named. We should perhaps be looking for a two stage solution then, with an "anonymous" setting which applies to users who do not have the necessary permission to view names on anonymous assignments. Incidentally, this new permission would give us a good basis for determining which users should be able to change the "anonymous" setting.
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Ray Lawrence added a comment -

Great thinking. I think that refinement would make this improvement universally useful. (or maybe just on Earth as a start).

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Ray Lawrence added a comment - Great thinking. I think that refinement would make this improvement universally useful. (or maybe just on Earth as a start).
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Ian Ruffell added a comment - - edited

This is a must-have feature for my institution too. Is there any way this can be pushed forward? I'm happy to help with any coding required.

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Ian Ruffell added a comment - - edited This is a must-have feature for my institution too. Is there any way this can be pushed forward? I'm happy to help with any coding required.

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    Updated:
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