Frequently Asked Lightwork User Questions (Lightwork 1.2.x)

General Questions about Lightwork

What is Lightwork?

Lightwork is an application for supporting the management and marking of assignments. It aims at improving efficiency of marking and at increasing the quality of feedback provided to students.

Who can use Lightwork?

Lightwork is open source software and as such is available to everyone/every institution.

As an individual teacher you need to check with your institution if your institution has adopted Lightwork (and has enabled its Moodle installation to work with Lightwork).

How does Lightwork relate to Moodle?

Lightwork is designed to extend the assignment facilities already available in Moodle. In brief, the teacher sets up an assignment in Moodle, the students submit their work to Moodle, the teacher (and their markers) use Lightwork to assess the student work, the students find their marking results (marks and feedback) in Moodle.

Can I try Lightwork (even if my institution has not adopted Lightwork)?

The Lightwork team maintains test Moodle sites that have courses and assignments setup. Pretend student work has been submitted to the assignments. You can use these sites for exploring Lightwork.

For Lightwork core versions 1.2.x use http://lightwork-test.massey.ac.nz/;
For Lightwork versions 2.2.x use http://lightwork-dev.massey.ac.nz/.
The user codes for teachers and students are constructed from initial and the seven first characters of the last name (e.g., dlivings for Dell Livingstone). The password is ‘password’.

Which Lightwork version can I use?

The Lightwork version on your local computer needs to match the version of the Lightwork Moodle server package installed by your institution. Please ask your Moodle administrator.

Massey University: Users should install Lightwork core version 1.2.6 (status July 2010).

Where can I get Lightwork?

You can get Lightwork directly from http://lightwork.massey.ac.nz/projects/list_files/fat. Download the installer file, uninstall any previous versions of Lightwork, and run the new installer file.

Which user platforms are supported?

Lightwork is available for Windows, Macs and Linux.

When do I need to upgrade my Lightwork version?

If your institution changes the version of the Lightwork Moodle server package installed on its Moodle site you will have to upgrade your local version of Lightwork. From Lightwork version 2.x.x onwards Lightwork will prompt you should your local version and server version not match.

Where do I find help material?

http://lightworkmarking.org/ leads you to the help material.

What information is required by the Lightwork team to investigate problems?

To analyze problems with using Lightwork the Lightwork team will require the following information:

Questions arising when using Lightwork

Why can I not see all courses I expect to see in Lightwork?

When setting up Lightwork for a Moodle site a mapping is done between the user roles in Moodle and the Lightwork user types of marking Manager and Marker. This is done to ensure that Lightwork only displays student and assignment data for courses the user has marking access to. Different institutions use different names for these Moodle roles.

Massey University: If you are a Teacher on a course in Stream you will be Marking Manager in Lightwork for this course. If you are a non-editing teacher you will be a Marker. The reason for not seeing a course you expect to see in Lightwork could be that you are Course Creator for this course in Stream. If this is the case go to ‘Assign roles’ in the administration block of your course and add yourself as a teacher.

Why can I not allocate markers?

To allocate markers you have to create a marking rubric first.

Where do I find the student work files?

The work students have submitted are not automatically downloaded to your local computer. You need to download this work explicitly. This happens in the Marking perspective with the command ‘Refresh submissions’.

Can I mark on two different computers?

Yes, you can. Please remember to call ‘Refresh Moodle Connection’ (from the Moodle menu) when finishing work on one computer. When starting on the second computer refresh your Moodle connection again.

Do I need to be online when using Lightwork?

You need a network connection for downloading information from your Moodle site. Once this is done you can work offline. To release marking to Moodle or to share marking information with your marking team you have to be connected to the network again.

Why can my markers not see information I have provided/Why can I not see what my markers have done?

A marking team shares information via a Lightwork data space in Moodle. Uploading information from a local computer to this Moodle data space is a deliberate step. If you cannot see information you expect to be able to see make sure all members of the team have called ‘Refresh Moodle Connection’ (from the Moodle menu).

When can students see their marking?

Students can only see marking that has been released to Moodle in the Release perspective. This release can only be done by the Marking Manager.

Can markers add their own frequently used comments?

No, not at this stage. Only the Marking Manager can add frequently used comments.

Last Update: July 2010