Aropa TA Information
  • Aropa is supported by Arts and Science Online. Although this page covers administration and troubleshooting, any Aropa technical issues, requests, or questions can be sent to asomm@queensu.ca
  • Work needs to be submitted in the submission phase in order to participate in the review phase of the activity.
  • When submitting, the maximum file size is 15 MB. If a student is trying to upload a file larger than this size it's recommended that they email asomm@queensu.ca
  • At least one review needs to be completed in order for a student to view their feedback once reviewing has ended.
  • Aropa's maintenance window is from 10 PM - Midnight EST daily. Students submitting during this time might experience slow loading and error messages.
  • Aropa works with NetIDs only. If a student needs to be located, the GPHY 101 Class roster can be used (please see next section)
Grading

The grading process consists of a combination of using the Aropa Reference Spreadsheet that was sent to you and entering feedback in Aropa.

  1. In the sheet, please filter your group in Column E
  2. Read the review criteria in the top row
  3. Copy the search term from Column F for each student, one at a time as you go down your list of students
  4. In Aropa while impersonating the gphy101_marker account, search for the review (CTRL + F or COMMAND + F on a Mac)

  5. Once identified, click “View submission [of peer review]” above the search term. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and download or view the original submission. Once downloaded or viewed, click the back button and read the review (you can also see the review responses in the spreadsheet).

    The review search term will be somewhat out of alignment if viewed in Chrome. If Chrome is used, please ensure it is in full screen. If the page is viewed in a reduced window the corresponding View submission button will be below the search term.

  6. Click on “Write your review” and grade the review

    Please do not leave any radio box category unfilled. For most reviews, the radio boxes should be sufficient. If you feel you need to explain something, use the comments box. Immediately, also save any comments you put into the comments box and the grade on the spread sheet in columns Z and AA respectively.

By default only NetIDs are available in Aropa. If needed, a student can be identified as follows:

  1. Search the NetID of the student you need to identify in the TA Spreadsheet that was sent to you
  2. Ensure that the NetID has been found in the Reviewer NetID column.
  3. The corresponding cells to the right of the Review NetID column correspond to the first and last name of the the student. 

For the Fall 2020 term students might still be add/dropping during the activity. If a student does not appear on the class roster (or can't be found in Aropa) please email asomm@queensu.ca.

Once every TA group has finished grading in Aropa, please contact asomm@queensu.ca and the review grades will be exported and uploaded to onQ.

On occasion you will receive an inquiry from as student regarding the TA assessment on their reviews. The following method is recommended for viewing the feedback/reassessing

  1. Login to Aropa. TAs and Instructor can access Aropa from the course, the same way students access it.
  2. In the Aropa activity, choose Impersonate other user from the menu on the left.
  3. On the Impersonate page, type in GPHY_marker and choose Impersonate.
  4. Choose the course associated to the TA group the student is enrolled in
  5. Click on the Reviewer Marking assignment associated to the activity in question (e.g. either the poster peer review or the thesis statement peer review)
  6. Search the student's NetID by pressing CTRL + F (or COMMAND + F on a Mac) and typing in their NetID. The NetID of the reviewer will be on the left of the slash.

  7. The review can be viewed by choosing View Submission. The rubric filled out by the TA can be viewed and modified by selecting the associated Complete your review (or modify your review) button.

    Identifying information is available when the marker account is being used. For this reason it's recommended that the feedback not be reviewed live with a student.

Final submissions will be uploaded to an Assignment in onQ. Please see the course for more information on accessing the final submissions.

Activity Administration (Optional)

Arts and Science Online supports Aropa. If you would prefer that submission and review progress be collected and sent to you by ASO, please send a request to asomm@queensu.ca

While logged in to Aropa, general information about the progress of the activity can be accessed from the front page of the activity. The sections below describe how user specific progress can be accessed.

After the submission phase has started submissions can be viewed by choosing Monitor submissions on the left. This will display the NetIDs of the students who submitted as well as the work they submitted. Non submitters will be listed at the bottom of the page.

In some cases it might be necessary or recommended to send a reminder to the students who haven't submitted to the activity yet. Student email addresses can be generated from Aropa by doing the following:

  • Copy the NetIDs to the right of Yet to submit:
  • Open up Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (MacOS) and paste the NetIDs into the empty document
  • Find and replace , with @queensu.ca; . This extension might need to be manually added to the last NetID
  • Paste the email addresses into the BCC field in Outlook. Using the BCC field will allow a generic message to be sent to each student without displaying all of the email addresses in the message

After the Review Phase has opened, TAs and the Instructor will have access to the Monitor Reviews button on the left of the Assignment Administration page. The leftmost column lists the NetID of the Reviewer while the two rightmost columns list the NetIDs of the authors whose work was allocated to the reviewer.

The order can be changed to view the Author and associated reviewers by clicking on the View by author button at the top of the page.

Aropa codes the status of the reviews in the rightmost columns as follows:

  • Unbolded NetID (e.g. qu2202211) indicates that the review hasn't been started
  • Bolded NetID (e.g. qu2202211) indicates that the allocated work has been viewed but a review has not been started
  • Bolded NetID with a plus symbol (e.g. qu2202211+) indicates that the review has been saved but is incomplete.
  • Bolded NetID with a check mark symbol (e.g. qu2202211✓) indicates that the review is complete
  • Bolded NetID with a check mark  symbol and an asterix (e.g. qu2202211✓*) indicates that the review is complete and the author being reviewed has viewed the feedback

In some cases, a student might have an Accommodation or Academic Consideration which will permit them more time to complete the activity. Alternate deadlines can be chosen by granting an extension to the student in Aropa.
  1. In the assignment, choose Manage Extensions from the left

  2. On the Manage Extensions page, type in the NetID of the student you wish to grant the extension for.

    If you don't know the Student's NetID, their name can be searched in the GPHY 101 Student Roster Spreadsheet.

  3. Select an alternate date for the submission, the review, or both and choose Save changes

Extensions can be granted for the submission phase or review phase or both. The date field can be left blank for the phase that does not require an extension. The Date granted field is automatically populated when the extension is granted.

If the due date of one of the Peer Review activities needs to be modified, it can be updated in Aropa as follows:

  1. From the assignment, choose Edit assignment from the menu on the left
  2. The submission deadline can be change modifying the Author submissions end date. Reviewing can be modified by changing the Reviewing ends due date.
  3. Choose Save to finalize the changes

This activity uses TA groups, meaning that the above steps need to be repeated for the remaining TA groups. For this reason it is recommended that these changes be made by the course instructor who will have access to all of the TA groups.

Alternatively a request to change the due dates can be submitted to asomm@queensu.ca .

In some cases it is beneficial to check the overall progress of grading in your activity. This can be done by monitoring the marking:

  1. As an instructor, choose View review marking from the left-hand menu
  2. In the Reviewer Marking Assignment, choose Monitor Marking
  3. The progress of your marking account will be listed. The grading progress follows the same convention as those outlined in the Monitor Reviews section

The majority of the reviews will likely be bolded and contain the plus sign to indicate that it is incomplete. Due to the nature of how the grading rubric is structured it is appropriate to leave these reviews as incomplete. This will not impact how students view the feedback.


Troubleshooting (Optional)

Arts and Science Online supports Aropa. If you would prefer that troubleshooting be done by ASO, please send the message to asomm@queensu.ca

There are numerous circumstances that can affect why the student is not viewing their feedback. The below troubleshooting steps can be followed to help resolve the issue:

  1. Peer Feedback VS TA Feedback
    • Peer Feedback and TA Feedback are displayed in two different locations in Aropa. Peer Feedback will be available after the review phase in the main assignment while TA feedback will be available in the Review Marking assignment. If it isn't already known the student should be asked about what feedback they can't view.
  2. Unable to View Peer Feedback
    1. Student's won't be able to view feedback until after the reviewing phase has ended. If the phase is still active, ask the student to wait until reviewing has ended.
    2. If the student reported the issue just after reviewing has ended, ask that they close their browser and try logging back in to Aropa
    3. Check the progress of the student reviews (See Monitor Reviews section). Aropa has been configured to only display feedback if one or more reviews has been completed. If the student didn't complete a review they will not be able to view feedback.
    4. Double check with the student to ensure they are not viewing the Review Marking assignment
    5. If none of the above steps resolved the issue, please request that they contact asomm@queensu.ca
  3. Unable to View TA Feedback
    1. Aropa requires an arbitrary deadline for when feedback should be displayed. It is usually set as a week after reviewing has ended. If this inquiry falls within this time frame the student might need to wait until after the week has elapsed.
    2. Similar to Peer Reviews, if this inquiry was submitted just after the week deadline, they might need to log out and log back in to Aropa
    3. Double check with the student to ensure they are not viewing the main assignment
    4. Check the grading progress to ensure feedback has been written for this student's review.
    5. If none of the above steps resolved the issue, please request that they contact asomm@queensu.ca

Aropa's maintenance window is 10 PM EST to Midnight EST. Students trying to submit work during this window will sometimes be prompted with an error message or slow load times. From here, students have several options:

  1. keep reloading the page. In most cases students are eventually able to submit
  2. report the issue to asomm@queensu.ca and attach their work. It can be uploaded on their behalf on the next business day.
  3. wait until after the maintenance window (e.g. try uploading the next morning)

If you are an instructor in Aropa, you have the ability to impersonate any of your students in the activity. This might allow you to see any issues the student is reporting.

  1. From the left menu, choose Impersonate other user

  2. Type in  the NetID of the student you want to impersonate and choose Impersonate other user

    You can revert to your Instructor account by choosing REVERT at the top of the page

In most cases a student can't open up a submission because of one of the following reasons:

  1. The student doesn't have the appropriate software to open up the submission (in most cases in .pages format)
  2. The student receives a message that the submission is empty
  3. The student receives a message that the work hasn't been submitted yet

For 1) the student can be directed to the ITServices Office 365 page for more information on installing the most recent version of Office 365. If the student received a .pages file it's recommended that asomm@queensu.ca be contacted. 

For 2) this usually means that the original submitter submitted an empty document in an effort to participate in the review phase without creating a submission. The original submitter can be contacted and given an opportunity to upload their work or asomm@queensu.ca can be contacted and the empty submission can be removed from activity allocation.

For 3) a submission extension was granted to a student and this particular student did not upload work. This creates an empty placeholder that prevents the reviewer from accessing the work that was allocated to them. The student can be contacted again and provided with an opportunity to submit their work or asomm@queensu.ca can be contacted and the placeholder can be removed from the activity allocation. 




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