Is your VU Collaborate space ready?

Are you ready to communicate, teach and assess using your VU Collaborate space?  For information on how to build and mark quizzes or assignments, organise grades, mark attendance and communicate with students in VU Collaborate, read on.  To learn about the different roles and permissions within VU Collaborate Master and Delivery spaces, see this guide.

Where to Place Assessment Information

There should be a module in the Learning Space titled ‘Assessment Information’ where information about all of the assessments is stored.  You can link all assessment items into this module.

The Assessment Dropbox

Creating a Dropbox folder is necessary for all written assignments and can be used for linking to web pages and videos too. The dropbox should link to a grade item in the Gradebook, be visible to students and have a due date. To see how to mark assignments and view in groups or classes, there is a written and a video guide to assist you.

Creating and Marking quizzes

Before you create your quiz, you will need to have gone to the question library in the quizzes area.  This is where you add all of the questions you will use for quizzes in your unit. There is also a video and a written help guide on marking quizzes.

Marking Attendance

The attendance tool allows you to monitor attendance for each class, workshop, lecture or lab. See how to create an attendance register for your unit and if you already have the attendance register, see here for how to mark the attendance.

 Communicating with Students in VU Collaborate

You can email students in the classlist as their email address are already there and it is easy to send to one student or the whole class.  You can set up Intelligent Agentemails to go out at any time whilst you are teaching as they are based on your own set criteria such as if someone has not completed an assessment or if they did well in a quiz.  The News Items are very useful as they are on the home page of the unit; they are also very quick to create.

 Need help?

For more information about VU Collaborate, see the VU Collaborate Help site or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you encounter any technical issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Extra training and support is available for VU Collaborate.

Click on each picture above to find out more and book a time and place that suits you.

If you want to learn more about other digital teaching tools such as H5P or Turnitin, have groups wishing to concentrate on specific topics, or need to organise times outside those provided, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Help guides are also available on various topics at the VU Collaborate Help Site. If you encounter any technical issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

You can use dropbox tools on VU Collaborate or add Turnitin Feedback Studio for marking and grading.  It all depends on how you prefer to mark assignments and the tools that make it easiest for you to do that. View our key questions on using the dropbox, GradeMark and Turnitin below.

I have created an Assessment Dropbox folder; why can’t I see it in the Gradebook?

In order for feedback left in the assessment dropbox tool to appear in the Gradebook, each Assessment Dropbox folder must be associated with a grade item. For more information on creating and linking grade items to an Assessment Dropbox, see step 2 in this guide.

How do I evaluate a submission through the Assessment Dropbox?

The 'Evaluate Submission' page in the Assessment Dropbox enables you to evaluate and leave feedback for student submissions. You can download submissions from the Folder Submissions page to mark the files offline, you can use Turnitin Feedback Studio (if enabled), or you can view and grade a file directly on the Evaluate Submission page. You can then choose to publish feedback immediately or save your feedback as a draft to be released later. This enables you to revise individual assessments, review evaluations, and publish your feedback for all students at the same time.

How can I grade a student’s assignment in VU Collaborate?

There are two ways to mark a student’s assignment, through the Assessment Dropbox tool or through Turnitin. Ensure you know which tool you would like to use and communicate to students so they know exactly where to go to view their feedback.

How do I grade submissions using Turnitin GradeMark and QuickMarks?

In order to use QuickMarks, Turnitin must be enabled for an assessment dropbox folder. GradeMark and QuickMarks can be accessed through Turnitin by clicking on the Originality Report colour box in the Assessment Dropbox area and by selecting the QuickMark tab in the top left hand corner of the new window. Using GradeMark, you can add QuickMarks (comments) to specific areas of a student’s assignment, assign a numerical grade and provide overall audio and text based comments. Refer to this guide for more information on assessing submissions via Turnitin.

How do I send a score from Turnitin Feedback Studio to VU Collaborate Gradebook?

Please view step 5 in this guide for information on how to transfer marks from Turnitin to the Gradebook. Please note only the mark will be transferred across – students must access GradeMark to view any feedback given in Turnitin.

How can I upload grades from a spreadsheet to the Gradebook?

If you have a large cohort of students and use spreadsheets to record marks, it can be difficult to enter marks online one-by-one.  This guide on  Importing Gradebook Data will assist you with managing a large amount of student grades.   

For more information on grading assessments and using the dropbox in VU Collaborate, please visit the VU Collaborate Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Would you like to know how many times a student has accessed the unit Space this semester or who has engaged with the material in Echo360 ALP?  Perhaps you would like to automate some emails to remind students to check their own progress.  User Progress, Intelligent Agents and Echo360 ALP can help you do these things. Read some of the common questions below.

How can I view a student’s online activity in my VU Collaborate Space?

View the student’s progress based on login, content accessed, results or discussion activity using the User Progress tool in the Results tab.

How can I use Intelligent Agents?

Intelligent Agents (IAs) can be used to send emails to students according to almost any criteria you set. For example, you can set an IA to send a student an email when they have not logged in for a week and BCC yourself so you get the notifying email too. It is also possible to send IA support emails if a student receives a low score (or congratulate for a high score) on an assignment or quiz. Setting up Intelligent Agents is simple and easy to set up at any time of the semester.  Go to this space to see some examples.

Can I manually run intelligent agents?

You can manually run intelligent agents instead of using a schedule by clicking on the triangle dropdown menu next to the name of the intelligent agent.  Select Run Now.

How can I view analytics in Echo360 ALP?

If you have used Echo360 ALP, there are various analytic capabilities that track who has engaged with recordings, presentations and activities and for how long. Please view this resource for further information.

For more information, please see the VU Collaborate Help Guides on the VU Collaborate Help site. If you encounter any issues, contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

The assessment dropbox is a powerful tool within VU Collaborate that allows you to provide meaningful feedback to students for a variety of different assessment tasks. Leaving quantitative and qualitative feedback can be done with ease.

Can students see their feedback instantly?

Students can see all comments entered by you in the dropbox once you publish it but you can ‘save as draft’ to delay the publishing until all assessments are marked. If you are using Turnitin Feedback Studio, they will be able to view the grade and comments once the GradeMark date in the dropbox lapses. To check this date, navigate to your Assessment Dropbox Folder, click Edit Folder and select the Turnitin tab on the right; the GradeMark section is at the bottom. You will have the ability to adjust the date that GradeMark becomes available to students. For more information view Step 5 in this guide.

Students cannot view their feedback in Turnitin Feedback Studio, what’s the problem?

Ensure that students are opening their Originality reports and clicking on the blue comment bubble in the top right hand corner of the page. Secondly, verify that feedback has been left for them and that the GradeMark Available to Students date setting within the Assessment Dropbox settings has been set correctly. Your students may find this guide on accessing Turnitin Feedback Studio on VU Collaborate helpful.

My assessment tasks don’t require students to submit anything, what’s the best way to evaluate them?

You can still use the assessment dropbox tool to provide meaningful feedback to students for assessment tasks such as in-class presentations. Create an assessment dropbox folder and, when ready to mark, change the ‘Submissions’ search to “Show users without submissions”. Here you will see the list of students, allowing you to select “Evaluate Submission” just above the student’s name, despite the student not uploading anything. Publish this feedback when ready in order for the student to receive it.

Want to leave audio or video feedback for students in VU Collaborate?

By using the Video Note tool instructors can leave short audio and video clips of feedback for their students. This can help in giving students individualised and engaging evaluations of their work.

For more information on providing feedback in VU Collaborate, please visit the Connected Learning Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Turnitin Feedback Studio allows educators to check students’ work for improper citation or potential plagiarism by comparing it against continuously updated scholarly databases. It also provides a method of commenting on written work and providing personalised feedback in a time saving manner.  This software has been integrated into VU Collaborate and is located within the Assessment Dropbox tool.

What is an Originality Report and how do I use it?

The Originality Report enables you to monitor written assignments and identify potential cases of plagiarism by automatically comparing submissions to an online database of original content. You can then view Originality Reports which highlight key areas, provide a percentage of similarity with other content, shows a breakdown of matching sources, and provides direct links to the matching content.

What is QuickMarks (GradeMark) and how do I use it?

The QuickMarks component of Turnitin Feedback Studio provides the option to mark assessments and provide feedback entirely online.  The great thing about QuickMarks is that it has a database of dozens of detailed pre-made comments about written work that you can use, options to add your own custom made comments to the assignment and/or your database of comments, as well as options for either written or verbal overall feedback.

Students are unable to view their Originality report, what do I do?

If you are using Turnitin with your Assessment Dropbox folders and you wish for your students to view their Originality reports, ensure you select the Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder checkbox underneath Display in the OriginalityCheck Options in the Dropbox. For more information check Step 5 in this guide.

The originality report won’t generate for a student’s submission, what’s gone wrong?

Turnitin Feedback Studio will only accept MS Word (Doc, Docx), WordPerfect (WPD), PostScript (EPS), Acrobat PDF (not scanned), Rich text (RTF), Plain text (TXT) documents. Please also ensure that the file size is less than 20Mb and the content of the document has at least 20 words.

For more information on Turnitin Feedback Studio in VU Collaborate, please visit the Connected Learning Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Written assignments are a large component of the curriculum for many units and courses. Take advantage of the Assessment Dropbox tool in VU Collaborate to receive, store and mark assessments online, check for originality using Turnitin, and provide the grades and feedback through a rubric.  View common questions on these tools below.

How do I create an Assessment Dropbox?

Creating a Dropbox folder can be done in a few steps. When creating assessments, ensure that you always link to a grade item. Secondly, be careful of your start date, due date and end dates as the end date controls the visibility of the dropbox to students. Finally, when entering the Out Of mark; ensure that it’s the maximum number of points given in the linked grade item.

How can I add assessment information?

All assessment information should go into the Learning Space in a module titled Assessment Information. Basic assessment instructions can be placed in the description field of the dropbox; you can also create a rubric and attach it to the dropbox.  You can also attach the assessment item in the Add a file area so students can access their assessment item in multiple areas.

What is Turnitin and how do I use it?

Enable Turnitin (Step five) when creating Assessment Dropbox folders if you want to check submissions for originality against thousands of sources. If you are using Turnitin and you wish for your students to view their Originality reports, ensure that you select the Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder checkbox within the Turnitin tab.

A student has applied for an extension for the assignment to the Dropbox; how do they submit their assessment?

You can add special considerations to specific students by changing the dates of submission only for those students. View this guide on giving Special Access for more information.

What is the difference with a VU Collaborate rubric, one in a Word doc and one in Turnitin?

We know that having a rubric to use when marking assignments can make the marking faster and easier; it is also helpful for students to be clearer about what they need to do for the assignment.  If you have the rubric in VU Collaborate, rather than anywhere else, it will also automatically publish the feedback and grade to the student and send the grade result to the gradebook.  Make sure your rubric will provide the correct grades after going through VU Collaborate by following this guide or coming to visit a Connected Learning staff member.

For more information on using Assessment Dropbox in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

There are many ways that you can communicate with students and they can communicate with each other in VU Collaborate.  You can also create automatic emails to go out to students based on their behaviour in the unit space. Read our common questions on these tools.

How can I send announcements to all of my students?

Use news items to broadcast useful information to everyone in your unit or course. You can even customise the news item so that it’s addressed to each student by using their own name by inserting “Hi {FirstName}”.  Ensure you publish news items and do not accidentally save them as drafts. Draft news items are not displayed to students.

How can I send an email out to all students or groups of students?

The best way to email all students is to go into the Classlist tool (through Space Admin) and click on the “Email Classlist” button at the top of the page. Click on “Show Search Options”, change the ‘Role’ filter to Student and click on the blue magnifying glass icon to display students only. If you would like to e-mail a group of students, change the “View By” field from ‘User’ to ‘Groups’. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Send Email”. Note that these will BCC all students so they cannot see each other’s e-mail addresses.

How can I talk with all students online?

The Chat Room tool is a real-time, text-based collaboration tool. You can use the Chat Room tool to brainstorm ideas, hold a question and answer period, have a debate or discussion, or organise a remote study group. Create personal chat rooms to engage with students in a live environment.

What about running sessions online?

You can create and use virtual classrooms for tutorials or discussions at any time.  This is especially useful if you have online courses or a blended course where many students are not available to come onto the campus for classes or discussions.  Use a WebEx Virtual Classroom to share materials and discuss topics in real-time.  Download and install WebEx on your computer and you are then able to join a session with someone else or host your own virtual class. 

What are Intelligent Agents?

Intelligent Agents can be used to send emails to students according to set criteria. For example, if a student scores below 50% on a quiz, you can create an automated email to offer support, a makeup assessment or a reminder when upcoming assessments are. It is also possible to send reminders if students are not engaging with content on a regular basis. Setting up Intelligent Agents is simple, and easiest to do at the beginning of the semester.

How can I personalise the intelligent agent email?

If you want to personalise the intelligent agent email, use strings. Strings are easy ways of automatically adding student or unit information from the system without manually inserting the information yourself. An example of this would be instead of saying ‘Hi Student’, you could say ‘Hi John’ by putting in the email message Hi {InitiatingUserFirstName}. There are a number of strings you can copy when creating Intelligent Agents.

How do I know if an intelligent agent is running?

When creating an Intelligent Agent, make sure you select the Agent Is Enabled checkbox so it’s actively running. Secondly, ensure you define a schedule when creating Intelligent Agents; this enables the system to search for any students that match the conditions you specified. 

For more information on communicating in VU Collaborate, please visit the Communication Section on the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

You need to ensure that students have access to all assessment information.  For information on how to build assessments and organise grades in VU Collaborate, read further for the common questions on these tools.

How do I initially setup the GradeBook in my Space?

Use the Setup wizard when building your grade book.

Where does assessment information go?

There should be a tab in the content titled ‘Assessment Information’ where information about all of the assessments are stored.  If you are using dropboxes for written assessments such as reports, you will also need to put the assessment information and description in the dropbox folder.

How do I create an assessment dropbox?

Creating a Dropbox folder is done in a few steps. When creating assessments, ensure that you always link to a grade item. You also need to be careful of your start date, due date and end dates when creating an assessment as these control accessibility of the assessment dropbox to students.

How can I add assessment information in my Dropbox folder?

Add in assessment instructions in the ‘Instructions’ field and attach the assessment instructions file with the ‘Add a File’ tab.  This will ensure that students have access to all instructions they need in multiple locations; no reason for not knowing what they need to do.

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is an electronic text matching system that compares text in a piece of work against a database of sources.  It can be useful for marking and as a learning tool for students to improve their academic writing.  There are Turnitin dropbox folders for students to test in the Student Induction Collaborate space. 

See how to enable Turnitin in Step 5 in this help guide.  Note that if you want students to view their originality reports after submitting to an Assessment Dropbox, ensure that the “Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder” setting is selected.

How do I create quizzes?

Before you create your quiz, you will need to have gone to the question library in the quizzes area.  This is where you add all of the questions you will use for quizzes in your unit.

What is an attendance register and how do I use it?

The attendance tool within VU Collaborate allows teaching staff to create and monitor attendance for teaching sessions. See how to create an attendance register for different parts of your unit such as tutorials and eliminate the need for paper based attendance recording.

For more information building assessments and your grade book in VU Collaborate, please visit the Assessment Section at the VU Collaborate Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Did you know you can increase the interactivity in your unit simply by altering the tools you use in your VU Collaborate space?  You could change straight-forward readings into activities such as interactive timelines, use accordions to show certain pieces of information at a time, flashcards for improving memory, or even board games.  This can all be done using the H5P tool in VU Collaborate.

What options do I have with H5P?

There are timelines, accordions, flashcards, interactive videos, mark the words, board games, summary tools, image collages, drag and drop, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice tools.  There are plenty of options to increase engagement that suit your preferences and those of students in your course.

Where can I see how these work?

There are a number of examples already placed into VU Collaborate so that you can see how they look and work.  Check the VU Collaborate Essentials space for many examples created by staff of tConnected Learning.

Where can I get more information about H5P?

H5P is an open source community driven project that has been integrated into VU Collaborate.  The activities are available for staff to create online interactions using learning materials that are already available to them.  You can see what they are all about and get more ideas by checking their website.

For more information about using H5P in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Publishing grades through VU Collaborate is easy once the grade items are associated with the required assessments.  Assessments can be in class presentations, online discussions, quizzes, reports, and more.  Grades can also be automatically published to students or can be done manually.  You can now get started on a survey in VU Collaborate too.  Before your students depart, create a survey to capture their opinions with real data about any aspect of the course. 

Making sure grades display in the gradebook.

Ensure that your assessment activities are linked to your grade items and that your evaluations have been published. If grades relate to quizzes, ensure that the Auto Export to Grades  setting is ticked.

I have published the grades but students cannot see them, what do I do?

There is a chance that the grade item may be hidden from students’ view. Please check the visibility settings of your grade item.

How do I build a survey?

Creating a survey can be done by clicking on the Space Admin tab and then Surveys within the VU Collaborate Space. Click on the New Survey button and proceed to add your questions.  If you want to create more than one survey, you could build your questions in the Question Library first.

What types of questions can I add to the survey?

The Survey tool uses the same question types as the Quizzes tool, including Likert questions, short answer, long answer and multiple choice questions.  See how to create a survey with this guide. You can also make survey results anonymous by selecting the make results anonymous checkbox.

Can students view or edit their survey submission?

Once a student has submitted their survey responses, they are unable to review their submission or make further changes. A new submission will have to be made.

Where can I find an example of a survey used in VU Collaborate?

All staff are enrolled in VU Collaborate Essentials so you can see how different things look from a student point of view. There is also information and communication tools for you to learn more about VU Collaborate and the other learning tools.  By going into this Space and selecting Assessments and Surveys, you will be able to see an example of a survey including questions designed to collect space evaluation data.

For more information on publishing grades in VU Collaborate, please visit the Assessments or Analytics Section on the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

You can use dropbox tools on VU Collaborate or add Turnitin Feedback Studio for marking and grading.  It all depends on how you prefer to mark assignments and the tools that make it easiest for you to do that. View our key questions on using the dropbox, GradeMark and Turnitin below.

I have created an Assessment Dropbox folder; why can’t I see it in the Gradebook?

In order for feedback left in the assessment dropbox tool to appear in the Gradebook, each Assessment Dropbox folder must be associated with a grade item. For more information on creating and linking grade items to an Assessment Dropbox, see step 3.2 in this guide.

How do I evaluate a submission through the Assessment Dropbox?

The 'Evaluate Submission' page in the Assessment Dropbox enables you to evaluate and leave feedback for student submissions. You can download submissions from the Folder Submissions page to mark the files offline, you can use Turnitin Feedback Studio (if enabled), or you can view and grade a file directly on the Evaluate Submission page. You can then choose to publish feedback immediately or save your feedback as a draft to be released later. This enables you to revise individual assessments, review evaluations, and publish your feedback for all students at the same time.

How can I grade a student’s assignment in VU Collaborate?

There are two ways to mark a student’s assignment, through the Assessment Dropbox tool or through Turnitin. Ensure you know which tool you would like to use and communicate to students so they know exactly where to go to view their feedback.

How do I grade submissions using Turnitin GradeMark and QuickMarks?

In order to use QuickMarks, Turnitin must be enabled for an assessment dropbox folder. GradeMark and QuickMarks can be accessed through Turnitin by clicking on the Originality Report colour box in the Assessment Dropbox area and by selecting the QuickMark tab in the top left hand corner of the new window. Using GradeMark, you can add QuickMarks (comments) to specific areas of a student’s assignment, assign a numerical grade and provide overall audio and text based comments. Refer to this guide for more information on assessing submissions via Turnitin.

How do I send a score from Turnitin Feedback Studio to VU Collaborate Gradebook?

Please view step 5 in this guide for information on how to transfer marks from Turnitin to the Gradebook. Please note only the mark will be transferred across – students must access GradeMark to view any feedback given in Turnitin.

How can I upload grades from a spreadsheet to the Gradebook?

If you have a large cohort of students and use spreadsheets to record marks, it can be difficult to enter marks online one-by-one.  This guide on  Importing Gradebook Data will assist you with managing a large amount of student grades.   

For more information on grading assessments and using the dropbox in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Would you like to know how many times a student has accessed the unit Space this semester or who has engaged with the material in Echo360 ALP?  Perhaps you would like to automate some emails to remind students to check their own progress.  User Progress, Intelligent Agents and Echo360 ALP can help you do these things. Read some of the common questions below.

How can I view a student’s online activity in my VU Collaborate Space?

View the student’s progress based on login, content accessed, results or discussion activity using the User Progress tool in the Results tab.

How can I use Intelligent Agents?

Intelligent Agents (IAs) can be used to send emails to students according to almost any criteria you set. For example, you can set an IA to send a student an email when they have not logged in for a week and BCC yourself so you get the notifying email too. It is also possible to send IA support emails if a student receives a low score (or congratulate for a high score) on an assignment or quiz. Setting up Intelligent Agents is simple and easy to set up at any time of the semester.  Go to this space to see some examples.

Can I manually run intelligent agents?

You can manually run intelligent agents instead of using a schedule by clicking on the triangle dropdown menu next to the name of the intelligent agent.  Select Run Now.

How can I view analytics in Echo360 ALP?

If you have used Echo360 ALP, there are various analytic capabilities that track who has engaged with recordings, presentations and activities and for how long. Please view this resource for further information.

For more information, please see the VU Collaborate Help Guides on the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

The assessment dropbox is a powerful tool within VU Collaborate that allows you to provide meaningful feedback to students for a variety of different assessment tasks. Leaving quantitative and qualitative feedback can be done with ease.

Can students see their feedback instantly?

Students can see all comments entered by you in the dropbox once you publish it but you can ‘save as draft’ to delay the publishing until all assessments are marked. If you are using Turnitin Feedback Studio, they will be able to view the grade and comments once the GradeMark date in the dropbox lapses. To check this date, navigate to your Assessment Dropbox Folder, click Edit Folder and select the Turnitin tab on the right; the GradeMark section is at the bottom. You will have the ability to adjust the date that GradeMark becomes available to students. For more information view Step 5 in this guide.

Students cannot view their feedback in Turnitin Feedback Studio, what’s the problem?

Ensure that students are opening their Originality reports and clicking on the blue comment bubble in the top right hand corner of the page. Secondly, verify that feedback has been left for them and that the GradeMark Available to Students date setting within the Assessment Dropbox settings has been set correctly. Your students may find this guide on accessing Turnitin Feedback Studio on VU Collaborate helpful.

My assessment tasks don’t require students to submit anything, what’s the best way to evaluate them?

You can still use the assessment dropbox tool to provide meaningful feedback to students for assessment tasks such as in-class presentations. Create an assessment dropbox folder and, when ready to mark, change the ‘Submissions’ search to “Show users without submissions”. Here you will see the list of students, allowing you to select “Evaluate Submission” just above the student’s name, despite the student not uploading anything. Publish this feedback when ready in order for the student to receive it.

Want to leave audio or video feedback for students in VU Collaborate?

By using the Video Note tool instructors can leave short audio and video clips of feedback for their students. This can help in giving students individualised and engaging evaluations of their work.

For more information on providing feedback in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service

Turnitin Feedback Studio allows educators to check students’ work for improper citation or potential plagiarism by comparing it against continuously updated scholarly databases. It also provides a method of commenting on written work and provide personalised feedback in a time saving manner.  This software has been integrated into VU Collaborate and is located within the Assessment Dropbox tool.

What is an Originality Report and how do I use it?

The Originality Report enables you to monitor written assignments and identify potential cases of plagiarism by automatically comparing submissions to an online database of original content. You can then view Originality Reports which highlight key areas, provide a percentage of similarity with other content, shows a breakdown of matching sources, and provides direct links to the matching content.

What is QuickMarks (GradeMark) and how do I use it?

The QuickMarks component of Turnitin Feedback Studio provides the option to mark assessments and provide feedback entirely online.  The great thing about QuickMarks is that it has a database of dozens of detailed pre-made comments about written work that you can use, options to add your own custom made comments to the assignment and/or your database of comments, as well as options for either written or verbal overall feedback.

Students are unable to view their Originality report, what do I do?

If you are using Turnitin with your Assessment Dropbox folders and you wish for your students to view their Originality reports, ensure you select the Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder checkbox underneath Display in the OriginalityCheck Options in the Dropbox. For more information check Step 5 in this guide.

The originality report won’t generate for a student’s submission, what’s gone wrong?

Turnitin Feedback Studio will only accept MS Word (Doc, Docx), WordPerfect (WPD), PostScript (EPS), Acrobat PDF (not scanned), Rich text (RTF), Plain text (TXT) documents. Please also ensure that the file size is less than 20Mb and the content of the document has at least 20 words.

For more information on Turnitin Feedback Studio in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Written assignments are a large component of the curriculum for many units and courses. Take advantage of the Assessment Dropbox tool in VU Collaborate to receive, store and mark assessments online, check for originality using Turnitin, and provide the grades and feedback through a rubric.  View common questions on these tools below.

How do I create an Assessment Dropbox?

Creating a Dropbox folder can be done in a few steps. When creating assessments, ensure that you always link to a grade item. Secondly, be careful of your start date, due date and end dates as the end date controls the visibility of the dropbox to students. Finally, when entering the Out Of mark; ensure that it’s the maximum number of points given in the linked grade item.

How can I add assessment information?

All assessment information should go into the Learning Space in a module titled Assessment Information. Basic assessment instructions can be placed in the description field of the dropbox; you can also create a rubric and attach it to the dropbox.  You can also attach the assessment item in the Add a file area so students can access their assessment item in multiple areas.

What is Turnitin and how do I use it?

Enable Turnitin (Step five) when creating Assessment Dropbox folders if you want to check submissions for originality against thousands of sources. If you are using Turnitin and you wish for your students to view their Originality reports, ensure that you select the Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder checkbox within the Turnitin tab.

A student has applied for an extension for the assignment to the Dropbox; how do they submit their assessment?

You can add special considerations to specific students by changing the dates of submission only for those students. View this guide on giving Special Access for more information.

What is the difference with a VU Collaborate rubric, one in a Word doc and one in Turnitin?

We know that having a rubric to use when marking assignments can make the marking faster and easier; it is also helpful for students to be clearer about what they need to do for the assignment.  If you have the rubric in VU Collaborate, rather than anywhere else, it will also automatically publish the feedback and grade to the student and send the grade result to the gradebook.  Make sure your rubric will provide the correct grades after going through VU Collaborate by following this guide or coming to visit a Learning Environments staff member.

For more information on using Assessment Dropbox in VU Collaborate, please visit the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

Discussions is a great tool to incorporate and facilitate asynchronous communication between students and staff and among students themselves. Campus Pack has multiple features that can spark collaboration and creativity in other ways.  Read the article in full at VU Collaborate Essentials or Learning Environments News for more information.  Read our common questions on these tools below.

How do I create a discussion forum?

You can create discussion forums from the Communication tab in the navigation bar.  You can choose various topics from general ones such as “Questions for Assignment 1” to specific ones such as “Ideas of how to make our streets a safer place”.  Check this guide for details. 

Can I assess discussion posts made by students?

Yes you can assess discussion posts made by students online, making it an integral part of your unit curriculum. Ensure that each discussion topic is linked to a separate grade item in the grade book.

What is Campus Pack and how can it be used?

Campus Pack is an integrated tool that allows instructors to interact online with their content and students. Students can contribute blog entries with Campus Pack Blog.  Blogs can contain engaging elements such as video, images and links to external web pages. Campus Pack Wikis allow instructors and students to create, edit and comment on basic web pages. Wikis are an excellent tool for supporting group work or for peer reviewing shared texts or media. Students can use Campus Pack Journals to create diary-like entries that are shared between only them and the instructors; journals are great for reflective work. Campus Pack Podcasts allows instructors to create and record their own audio content. Students can also contribute recorded episodes to a Podcast.

For guides information on using Discussions and Campus Pack in VU Collaborate, please visit the  Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

There are many ways that you can communicate with students and they can communicate with each other in VU Collaborate.  You can also create automatic emails to go out to students based on their behaviour in the unit space. Read our common questions on these tools.

How can I send announcements to all of my students?

Use news items to broadcast useful information to everyone in your unit or course. You can even customise the news item so that it’s addressed to each student by using their own name by inserting “Hi {FirstName}”.  Ensure you publish news items and do not accidentally save them as drafts. Draft news items are not displayed to students.

How can I send an email out to all students or groups of students?

The best way to email all students is to go into the Classlist tool (through Space Admin) and click on the “Email Classlist” button at the top of the page. Click on “Show Search Options”, change the ‘Role’ filter to Student and click on the blue magnifying glass icon to display students only. If you would like to e-mail a group of students, change the “View By” field from ‘User’ to ‘Groups’. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Send Email”. Note that these will BCC all students so they cannot see each other’s e-mail addresses.

How can I talk with all students online?

The Chat Room tool is a real-time, text-based collaboration tool. You can use the Chat Room tool to brainstorm ideas, hold a question and answer period, have a debate or discussion, or organise a remote study group. Create personal chat rooms to engage with students in a live environment.

What about running sessions online?

You can create and use virtual classrooms for tutorials or discussions at any time.  This is especially useful if you have online courses or a blended course where many students are not available to come onto the campus for classes or discussions.  Use a WebEx Virtual Classroom to share materials and discuss topics in real-time.  Download and install WebEx on your computer and you are then able to join a session with someone else or host your own virtual class. 

What are Intelligent Agents?

Intelligent Agents can be used to send emails to students according to set criteria. For example, if a student scores below 50% on a quiz, you can create an automated email to offer support, a makeup assessment or a reminder when upcoming assessments are. It is also possible to send reminders if students are not engaging with content on a regular basis. Setting up Intelligent Agents is simple, and easiest to do at the beginning of the semester.

How can I personalise the intelligent agent email?

If you want to personalise the intelligent agent email, use strings. Strings are easy ways of automatically adding student or unit information from the system without manually inserting the information yourself. An example of this would be instead of saying ‘Hi Student’, you could say ‘Hi John’ by putting in the email message Hi {InitiatingUserFirstName}. There are a number of strings you can copy when creating Intelligent Agents.

How do I know if an intelligent agent is running?

When creating an Intelligent Agent, make sure you select the Agent Is Enabled checkbox so it’s actively running. Secondly, ensure you define a schedule when creating Intelligent Agents; this enables the system to search for any students that match the conditions you specified. 

For more information on communicating in VU Collaborate, please visit the Communication Section on the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service. 

Victoria University utilises the Echo360 Active Learning Platform (ALP) for video creation, storage and editing, lecture recordings and interactive presentations.   

What happens with lecture recordings? 

If your class is labelled as a lecture on Allocate +, and is held in a recording enabled lecture theatre, the recording will be automatically synced with the timetable.  You do not need to book any recordings. The recordings will automatically go to the Echo360 ALP section for that unit to be viewed at any time.  This should occur a few hours after the lecture has taken place. All recordings can be viewed on a computer by a link through the VU Collaborate unit or through the Echo360 app.

What if I don’t want my lecture recorded?

According to VU Standards, all lectures should be recorded and made available to students. See Standard 3 in the Guide for application of VU Minimum Standards for Online Presence and the course design standards in the VU Learning and Teaching Quality and Standards Framework. 

If the nature of your lecture is such that this is not appropriate please fill out the online form “Echo360 ALP Lecture Recordings Opt-Out Form” to request the lecture/s not to be recorded. Your request will be forwarded for approval or further discussion.

What else can I do with Echo360 ALP?

You can create interactive presentation slides for lectures, workshops and tutorials, short screencasts to explain certain topics or assessments, upload other videos you create, and gather information about student progress.  Attend a Drop-in Day, Personalised Support Session or Echo360 ALP workshop to find out more.

What is useful for students in Echo360 ALP?

Echo360 ALP is fully mobile so students can check videos and presentations wherever they are.  They also have options to take notes, bookmark slides or sections of video to go back to, ask questions and denote confusion in a presentation or video.  Students can also upload their own videos through the app to share with others in the class or for assessments.

For more information on, please visit the Echo360 ALP guides on the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service. 

You need to ensure that students have access to all assessment information.  For information on how to build assessments and organise grades in VU Collaborate, read further for the common questions on these tools.

How do I initially setup the GradeBook in my Space?

Use the Setup wizard when building your grade book.

Where does assessment information go?

There should be a tab in the content titled ‘Assessment Information’ where information about all of the assessments are stored.  If you are using dropboxes for written assessments such as reports, you will also need to put the assessment information and description in the dropbox folder.

How do I create an assessment dropbox?

Creating a Dropbox folder is done in a few steps. When creating assessments, ensure that you always link to a grade item. You also need to be careful of your start date, due date and end dates when creating an assessment as these control accessibility of the assessment dropbox to students.

How can I add assessment information in my Dropbox folder?

Add in assessment instructions in the ‘Instructions’ field and attach the assessment instructions file with the ‘Add a File’ tab.  This will ensure that students have access to all instructions they need in multiple locations; no reason for not knowing what they need to do.

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is an electronic text matching system that compares text in a piece of work against a database of sources.  It can be useful for marking and as a learning tool for students to improve their academic writing.  There are Turnitin dropbox folders for students to test in the Student Induction Collaborate space. 

See how to enable Turnitin in Step 5 in this help guide.  Note that if you want students to view their originality reports after submitting to an Assessment Dropbox, ensure that the “Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their dropbox folder” setting is selected.

How do I create quizzes?

Before you create your quiz, you will need to have gone to the question library in the quizzes area.  This is where you add all of the questions you will use for quizzes in your unit.

What is an attendance register and how do I use it?

The attendance tool within VU Collaborate allows teaching staff to create and monitor attendance for teaching sessions. See how to create an attendance register for different parts of your unit such as tutorials and eliminate the need for paper based attendance recording.

For more information building assessments and your grade book in VU Collaborate, please visit the Assessment Section at the Learning Environments Help site. If you encounter any issues, please contact the ITS Service Desk by phone on (03) 9919 2777, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or self-service.

On Sunday 11th Feb at 5pm, automatic delivery space creation began for Higher Education units. This created the Delivery Space, enrolled users from the Master Space into the Delivery Space, and copied content from the Master Space into the Delivery space. The process was complete by Monday evening. 

From that point in time, your Delivery Space became available (under My Spaces), this is the space you should be working in now. The Delivery Space (under My Spaces) is where students are enrolled and will gain access on Monday 19th February (for Semester 1 and Semester 1 Block 1 2018).

To access the delivery space/s, click on the waffle up the top middle of the screen (see below) and type the unit code or name into the search bar.  If you pin the unit, it comes up in the tiles/pictures on your home page from then on.

At the end of the teaching period you can copy content from the delivery space back into the Master Space, ready for the next creation of a Delivery Space.

For a quick overview of how spaces operate see the diagram below.

If you have any questions, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

There are some exciting changes to be introduced to VU Collaborate in January 2018. These changes are designed to reduce the administrative tasks in setting up Spaces in VU Collaborate and to ensure students get access to their Unit Spaces in a timely manner. Over the next few weeks the Learning Environments team will be communicating a range of other changes to expect in VU Collaborate and any actions that you may be required to perform.

Preparing for Space Creation Automation

Space Creation Automation will involve the automatic creation of Spaces in VU Collaborate based on student enrolment data in the Student Management System and then the copying of Space content and staff enrolments from a new type of Space called a Unit Master Space.

The Unit Master Space is where you will need to build all of your content so that it can be automatically copied into the delivery Space at the beginning of the semester. The copying process will occur 2 weeks before the beginning of the semester (1 week before students have access) so it is critical that your content is ready as the copying process will only occur once.

In order to commence building or copying content into the Unit Master Spaces you will need to be enrolled as a Convenor in the Spaces. To get enrolled in your Unit Master Spaces please do one of the following:

• Ask your College Manager (who has global access to your College in VU Collaborate)
• Ask your College Librarian to assist
• Ask your College TELD to assist
• Send a request to the Learning Environments Team (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

The Learning Environments team will also provide support in copying your existing content from a previous delivery Space or a Sandpit into the new Unit Master Space ensuring it is ready for the automation process.

Important Note: For every Unit there are 2 Unit Master Spaces created, one for ‘Normal’ (blended) delivery and one for ‘Fully online’ delivery. Unless your Unit is listed in CAMs as fully online, you should build your content in the ‘Normal’ Space. If your content is built in the wrong Master Space it will not be copied

You can access your Master Spaces from the “My Master Spaces” widget on the Home page of VU Collaborate.

Although all single Unit delivery Spaces will be created automatically and populated with content from the specific Unit Master Space, some other Spaces will require manual creation by the ITS eLearning team. Shortly we will advise you about these exceptions and the required process for requesting them. We will also be providing detailed guides on the VU Collaborate Help site (https://blendedlearning.vu.edu.au).