What is it?

Many students consider that online platforms, such as Turn-It-In and Mathematics Stack Exchange are extremely helpful with respect to the distribution of both specific and detailed feedback.

With Turn-It-In, lecturers can provide richer feedback with marks directly on student assignments. The peer-review function can be used to assign peer-reviews to students while encouraging them to engage with feedback and assessment. It also offers postgraduate students plagiarism reports which can be very helpful to ensure the originality of their work.

Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people studying maths at any level and professionals in related fields. It is similar to Wikipedia in the sense that the general public is contributing to building a library of detailed answers to maths questions. This can be used by lecturers to post questions which students need to answer. It is very easy for lecturers to give lots of comments and feedback which will stay on the website for current and future students who want to go back to it.

There are many other online platforms which make it easier for lecturers to give detailed and specific feedback to students.

If you want to know more, contact ISolutions or the Institute for Learning Innovation and Development (ILIaD) as they might be able to point you in the right direction.

How can students make the most of it?

If these platforms are used by lecturers, it is a good opportunity for students to engage with them and receive valuable and detailed feedback from their tutors and lecturers. If these platforms are not used by lecturers, it may be because it does not suit the subject or the assignment. However, it is worth mentioning them to lecturers who might not have heard of them and be willing to try them out.