Why did you choose to use Cadmus?

It chose me! I am all about making it easier for students to learn and Cadmus ticked the boxes. This is particularly challenging with 1st years as it's possible to lose them, so it's important to get them writing early, rather than a couple of days before its due. If you do, it's a miracle.

With Cadmus, I could scaffold assessments and have students look at the final content area multiple times. Without Cadmus, I would never have been able to run these types of tasks.

How did you use Cadmus?

Before Cadmus, I had one major assessment task (an essay) that students went away and completed.

With Cadmus, I was able to scaffold the assessment into three parts so that I could guide students towards the intended outcomes. Each piece increased in difficulty, from summarising an article to synthesising five articles, before finally using eight articles to critically discuss a topic. Each assessment was relevant and built towards the final topic.

How did your students respond?

When we told students to use Cadmus and let them go, they just did it — we didn't get many support requests. Students generally did better in the assignments, and we saw an improved pass rate.

How did your teaching change?

Cadmus gave me the possibility to have students look at the content in Week 3, and again in Week 6, to produce a final essay in Week 10. Because of this, I front-loaded the feedback so students could action it before the larger assessment which carried more marks.

With the learning analytics, I was able to tell that only 60% of students looked at specific resources, and this prompted me to think of more obvious ways to get students to engage better. After scaffolding the tasks and using the learning analytics, subject pass rates and assignment grades have gone up.

Would you recommend Cadmus to a colleague?

Absolutely — Cadmus is a student-friendly environment that helps them focus on the content.

Lecturers get feedback, via Learning Analytics, on how students are progressing, and can directly give feedback to students on their academic writing — it's a one-stop-shop where students don't have to worry about anything but the assignment, they just go in and type.