Academic feedback "copied & pasted," claim students

Tutors at Edinburgh University are once again in the spotlight after allegations of copy and paste feedback were exposed in an online forum.

The forum, accessible to students at the university via MyEd, is the latest attempt by the vice principals to address poor feedback across the University.

One irate student said: “I placed my feedback amongst friends and we were startled to notice that it was almost word for word, with stock phrases seemingly copy and pasted into the written feedback box.” The student went on to point out the “sloppy, bad practice” of his tutors.

However, vice principal Professor Jeff Haywood pointed out the advantages of such a method: “Sometimes, of course, identical comments are sensible – for example 'this is not the correct format for references, you should do them like this.'” He also commented that it can often be more useful as tutors can take the time to fully address a recurring error and give everyone a copy of the in-depth feedback.

This is not to say that he agreed with blanket feedback per se, and the negative aspects of it are one of the things they are trying to eradicate completely. He said: “Stopping poor quality feedback is what we are trying to do”.

“Inevitably you'll get a wide range of feedback, some really good stuff, some really abysmal stuff. Hopefully you'll get more of the really good stuff than the really abysmal stuff.”

Evidence from the online forum overwhelmingly indicates that a student’s confidence drops with poor feedback, and leads to the perception that tutors simply don’t care and haven’t read the essay. In addition, it offers little direction for further improvements.

One student said: “Knowing that I am 'good' at my structure isn't constructive enough to help me improve so that the next time it would be 'very good'.”

Another said: “I received an essay back where I got a 69, and the feedback commented on one thing: I missed an apostrophe. This is simply preposterous”.

The vice principals appear to be aware of such instances and Prof. Haywood and his team have set in motion measures to address it via the part of the forum, entitled “Feedback or Feedforward?”, which asks students: “Are you looking for more pointers on how to do better next time?”

Prof. Haywood also reiterated the need for student initiative. He encourages students to talk openly and candidly with tutors about problems they have with feedback. In response to the second student quoted above, he said: “Did you query the mark of 69? If so what was the result? If not, why didn't you, if you felt it was unjust?”