Remark Requests

Opening remark requests

This page will explain how to open the remark requests form on the website for a new assignment.

1. Navigate to ~/web/content/assess/remark-requests/

2. Edit the const assessments in the index.md file to include the info of the assignment for which remarks are being released.
   Example from F20 a01:
   
   
   Note: It is equally valid to sort remark requests by category (correctness, handmarking, other) instead of by assignment question number. If you want to have remarks sorted by category, simply change the ‘questions’ array to look something like this
   

3. Follow the instructions on How to update the web site

Additional notes

• Currently, the remark requests page will automatically open and close according to the ‘start’ and ‘stop’ dates in the array.

  • In Fall 2020, there was an issue where the form would close early (prior to midnight) on the listed ‘stop’ date. (Probably worth looking into when setting up remark requests during a new term).

• For more on collecting/processing remark requests after the form has closed, see Remark Requests Script

How to Handle Remark Requests

Throughout the week, ISAs should place remark requests in the respective folder in the course email. When doing remarks, go through the emails inside the folder containing all student remark requests one by one (note that there may be many emails wherein students mistakenly submitted a remark request for a rollback – see the late rollback/rollforward page on how to handle these). You can draft responses prior to the deadline in order to spread out the time spent on the remark requests; however, refrain from sending these emails before the deadline and changing any grades in order to ensure that all similar cases (including those that may appear later) are dealt with similarly.

When drafting a response to the student, always make sure you have checked their graded assignment on MarkUs, firstly, to confirm or refute their concern, and, secondly, to give the student valuable feedback. If you feel that the student’s request is valid and you would like to edit the grading, uncheck the checkbox that says “Released” to unrelease the mark. Make the necessary edits to the rubric and add an annotation starting with “Remark Request: ...” for feedback regardless of whether their marks change or not – you should only edit grades after the remark deadline has passed, and the email has been sent. Otherwise, if you did not change their mark, explain in your email why you did not do so. Remember that students are often stressed and concerned about marks, which factors into why a remark was submitted in the first place. Therefore, always be respectful and polite when responding to these requests.

If you are unsure about how to proceed with a remark, or if it concerns autotesting matters, make sure you check in with the other ISAs, and potentially, the instructors, to determine how to proceed.

Finally, note that students are free to submit a remark request for a bonus question, but we will not release any feedback regarding their request since we do not give any information regarding bonus questions.

As always, try your best to understand the student's perspective, and remember, you are communicating the students' concerns to the instructors, make sure the student understands that their concerns are valid and that the course staff cares about their wellbeing, education, and outlook on the course!

Remark Requests Script (remarkR.sh)

A script that collects the remark requests for an assignment and generates the corresponding CSV file including all the information needed to deal with the remark requests.

How to Use remarkR.sh

1. ssh userid@linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca Log in to your student account
2. ssh cs135@linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca Go to the course account
3. cd ~/remarkRequests Go to the directory the script is saved
4. ./remarkR.sh ASSIGN Run the script, ASSIGN is the assignment you want to collect the remark requests (e.g. a01)

Note that remarkR.sh is a bash wrapper script around the Python script remarkR.py. The Python script does most of the work. The bash script handles the task of emailing the finished remark request CSV file to the course account. If you need to make changes to the script, edit remarkR.py in vim. The code is documented.

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-- Alice Schroeder - 2021-12-14