How do students benefit from using Cadmus?

The start of the new year can be an overwhelming time for students especially if their idea of tertiary education comes primarily from trashy American college movies. With the excitement of transitioning back to 'in-person' learning, comes the reality of assignments, exams, and deadlines. Things that students haven't had to consider for some time (like reflective writing or academic integrity) will soon be front of mind.

For teachers using Cadmus, the beginning of the semester is the right time to show students how it can help minimise stress and provide support throughout the year. Whether you’re introducing students through a low-stakes assessment, an in-class activity, or a demo during a lecture, we’d recommend reinforcing to students the benefits of using Cadmus on their skills and results.

We’re proud to say that in 2021, 87% of students that used Cadmus had a positive experience, and 3 out of 4 students wanted to use Cadmus in more of their subjects.

To help teachers with answering a class full of students asking "what's so good about Cadmus?", we took a deep dive into our 2021 student feedback. Who better to describe the benefits of using Cadmus, than students that have used the platform themselves — here’s what they had to say.

1. It's all in one place

“I like that everything was in the one place and I felt it made my assessment a little easier to understand.” 

Disparate platforms, emails and information make it difficult to locate and pull together assignments, particularly under deadline pressure.

Cadmus has all assessment information in one place, with no need to go hunting within the LMS. It always has the latest version of instructions and any edits teachers make are automatically updated ensuring no one misses out.

2. Stress-free formatting 

Font styles, spacing, and margins are set. You just need to focus on your content. Depending on the referencing style your teacher sets, Reference List formatting gets set automatically. That means no more fiddling around with hanging indents for APA.

3. Auto-saviour 

There is nothing quite like the sick-to-stomach feeling of losing an assignment that you forgot to save while in a deep work state. That’s why your work in Cadmus is constantly auto-saving, so even if your internet is patchy, your work will be backed up to the internet as soon as you're online again. Don’t worry about losing work again.

“Being the first time using the Cadmus template, I found it very easy to navigate my way around and the autosave feature is brilliant!!” 

4. Stay on top of academic integrity

“Cadmus was a great platform to use. I liked the way we had all the instructions along the side of the page, so I didn't need to keep flipping back and forth through tabs to find the information. I also like how the referencing was made so much easier, and that it automatically aligned to APA 7th edition.”

Upholding academic integrity is a university essential and can become a major stressor for students. Cadmus has integrated prompts, nudges and resources to help students as they navigate through assessments and exams. Be sure to keep an eye out for:

1. Referencing resources in Cadmus Manual

2. Helpful nudges when you paste in external content

3. Turnitin similarity reports (if your teacher has enabled this)

5. Keeping it simple

Submitting an assignment shouldn’t be cause for stress, as anyone who has forgotten to upload a PDF or attach it to an email will attest. 

Cadmus is designed to simplify the process and save time — it’s a simple one-click submission. And once you’re comfortable working in the environment, be sure to try out the keyboard shortcuts and other top tips to streamline the way you work. 

6. Grammarly integration

Grammarly is a student’s best friend for simple errors like missed capitalisation, misplaced words and all the regular grammar faux pas (e.g. its/it’s). It’s an excellent upgrade from the standard spell check you get in other writing tools. It’s simple to download and integrate and essential for error-free writing. (We use it too!)

Overall, what do students gain from using Cadmus? While we strive to simplify the assessment process for students, we also want to help students succeed. Every feature we build is designed to help students get closer to reaching their learning goals. In a study of 10 large subjects, Students that spent 6+ hours working on a major assessment in Cadmus were 3 times more likely to get a Credit or higher than those that spent less time in Cadmus. 

And we’ll leave the last word with a student:

“I love using Cadmus and honestly wish that it was used for all of my subjects assessments. It is so easy to use and keeps track of everything that you need. And the notes section is amazing!”