The following page will explain how to access the NILE courses you are enrolled on, and how to find and view the assessments, feedback, and information about the grading, feedback and verification processes that took place for each module.
If you are unable to log in to NILE, or do not know how to, please select the link below.
Once you have logged in to NILE, select the 'Courses' button to find the courses that you are enrolled on, and click on the course title to enter the course. Depending on whether you are in list or grid view, the courses will display as follows:
If you are enrolled on multiple courses, you can use the 'Search your courses' box to quickly find the course that you are looking for.
If you are not enrolled on all the NILE courses that you need access to, please contact the programme leader and ask them to enrol you.
All external examiners should be enrolled on the 'EE101: External Examiners Testing Area' NILE course. If you are not sure about any of the features or functions of NILE, you can use the EE101 course to check over any processes. The EE101 course has only dummy students enrolled and dummy assessments submitted, so you are welcome to use this course in order to get better acquainted with NILE.
If staff have added external examiner notes and/or internal moderation notes, etc., for you to review, these will be located in the 'Grading, feedback, and verification' folder in the NILE course.
The 'Grading, feedback, and verification' folder will be hidden from students, as will all documentation inside that folder. It is vital that the folder and contents remain hidden from students, as these documents contain confidential information and disclosure to students may constitute a data breach.
Please note that practices vary across the University, and staff may not necessarily make use of the 'Grading, feedback, and verification' folder. If this is the case, the programme/module leader will explain their practices to you and will send you the necessary information via alternative means.
If the documents in the folder have been uploaded in a common MS Office format (Word, Excel, etc) they will display directly in the NILE course when you select them, so you may not need to download them.
If you do download any documents containing information about students, these should be treated as confidential and subject to the Data Protection Act (2018). Such information should always be held securely on a password protected device, and completely deleted from the device once you no longer need access to the documents.
When viewing students' Blackboard assignment submissions, please make sure that you do not adjust any settings, or make any changes to students' grades or feedback, as these changes will be saved and will be immediately visible to students.
Once you are in a NILE course, to access a Blackboard assignment, select 'Gradebook'.
In list view, with 'Markable Items' selected (as shown in the screenshot below) all the items for assessment in the course will be visible. In the screenshot below, the second example in the list is a Blackboard assignment.
If you want to view all the grades for the assignments, you can switch to grid view.
To view the students' Blackboard assignment submissions, grades and feedback, switch to list view, and make sure that 'Markable Items' is selected. Then select the Blackboard assignment that you want to look at. This will open the Blackboard assignment inbox, from where all students' assignments can be accessed.
Once the assignment inbox has opened, select the name of the student whose submission you want to view. This will open the Blackboard assignment for that student.
If there are a lot of students enrolled on the course and you are looking for a specific student, start typing their name into the search box to quickly find them and view their submission.
When the Blackboard assignment viewer opens, one of a number of things will happen.
1. The assignment will be immediately visible if it is in a format that allows it to be directly displayed in the assignment viewer. As well as the assignment, the grade and feedback will also be visible in the feedback panel.
2. If the assignment is in a format that does not allow for direct display in the assignment viewer, you can download it by selecting the ellipsis button and choosing 'Download Original File'.
3. If there are multiple items submitted to the same submission attempt, these will be directly displayed in the assignment viewer or will be available to download depending on the file type.
4. If the assignment is an offline submission (e.g., a physical artefact or a performance) no assignment will be available to view or download, although feedback and grades will still be available to view in the assignment viewer.
If the Blackboard assignment is a group assignment, when you access the assignment inbox you will be able to see the different groups, view the group members, and see the grades for each group.
Where all group members have not been given the same grade, 'Multiple' will be displayed, rather than a grade. Showing the group members will display the different grades that were allocated. In the screenshot below you can see that the members of Group 2 have not been given the same grade. In addition, the attempt date and time next to the student's name indicates which student made the submission on behalf of the group. And, 'Override' next to the student's grade shows that this student has had their grade changed from the default grade allocated to the group.
Selecting the group name will open the assignment viewer. As with individual Blackboard assignments, the assignment will be displayed directly the viewer, or not, depending on the file type(s) submitted.
The feedback and grade for the entire group will be visible to in the feedback panel. Where feedback to individual group members has also been given, this can be viewed by selecting 'Individual' in the feedback panel.
If, instead of or as well as writing feedback for the student directly into the 'Feedback for student' box, staff have attached an external feedback file for the student, this can be downloaded and viewed by selecting the ellipsis button and choosing 'Download'.
In some cases, students are allowed to make multiple submission attempts, although usually only one of these will have been marked. If a student has made more than one submission, this will be displayed in the assignment inbox, underneath their name.
Groups may also sometimes make multiple submission attempts. As with individual assignments, if there are multiple groups attempts this will be displayed under the group name in the assignment inbox.
Where a student (or group) has made multiple submission attempts, when you open the submission attempt you will be presented with the marked attempt. It is possible to view earlier attempts using the 'Select Attempt' function in the assessment viewer.
In most cases where multiple attempts have been made by a student or group, only one will have been marked, and usually it will be the last (i.e., most recent) attempt that is marked, and the previous attempts will be earlier drafts. If there are multiple submission attempts and it is not clear which is the one that you need to look at, you will need to speak to the marking tutor, or the module or programme leader.
Please note that the Blackboard assignment tool always allows students and groups to submit multiple files, regardless of how many attempts are allowed. Where students are required to submit multiple files as part of the same assignment, it is usually the case that all the files are submitted simultaneously as part of the same attempt and marked collectively, rather than submitting one file to one attempt and another file to another attempt.
If a rubric has been used when marking the assignment, this will be available in the feedback panel.
Select the rubric to view the criteria and marks allocated to each criterion.
Select each criterion to view more information about it.
Once you have completed viewing a Blackboard assignment submission attempt, you can close the assignment viewer by selecting the close panel button on the left-hand side of the viewer. This will return you to the assignment inbox. Alternatively, you can select the name of the previous or next student in the assignment inbox list to view their submission attempt.
Closing the assignment inbox will take you back to the gradebook.
Once back in the gradebook, you can view another item of assessment, view the course content, or can exit the course by closing the panel.
From the NILE course page, you can select another course, or can exit NILE by choosing 'Sign Out' at the bottom on the main NILE menu.
When you have completed the process of external examination you will normally complete an external examiners report. If you have any questions about how to complete the report, please contact: externalexaminers@northampton.ac.uk