Most Commonly Asked Scribo FAQ's
Section 1 : Scribo Platform Features
What is Scribo?
Scribo is an intelligent online writing assistant that supports and reviews the writing of every student, delivering personalised feedback on their text in seconds. Scribo builds feedback from the student's work across multiple levels of analysis. The resulting feedback targets where students could improve their writing techniques and lift overall quality.
If required, Scribo allows tutors and academic staff to live monitor student progress, adding feedback quickly and simply. 'Journey' based monitoring and mentoring adds significant value to student writing outcomes. Scribo reduces the time monitoring and feedback takes as well as tracking all feedback given. Whilst this option is not required to collect student data, it is a practical way for educators to be part of the monitoring process.
What is the main benefit of Scribo to students?
Without doubt, the most loved feature of Scribo is instant, personalised feedback that helps students improve the quality of their writing. Scribo gives students a zero-wait environment in which they feel supported and encouraged to improve and be more authentic authors. Educators recognise an increase in student submission quality through more ownership in their work. Administrators like the supporting benchmark data and it’s value as evidence to support regulatory requirements.
Where does Scribo fit in the University "tech" landscape?
Technology in Universities is a busy and complex environment. There are student management systems, Learning Management Systems, plagiarism and originality checks, grading systems and more. Scribo does not have to be integrated into the conga line of technology and complexity to start making an impact on supporting student writing. Why? Because writing is what students do alone, 99% of the time under the radar of academic oversight. Having stated the reality, Scribo has options to improve the visibility of student effort and allow tutors and academics to work alongside the student writing and creation journey.
SOLO MODE is where Students create their text
Each student's Word or Google Docs environment is where they work, from when they first get a topic or task to when they hand the work in to the LMS. This is the Writing Zone where Scribo works, giving them support directly as they work in the framework and platform they always work in. It's logical that this environment can be supported by what we call SOLO mode. Students feel supported, and advice is consistent and free flowing.
CONNECTED MODE
If tutors or lecturers/academics want to be involved in the writing/creation journey of their students, Scribo has a Connected Mode. In connected mode, tutors and lecturers can 'connect' to the live writing of students, contributing live feedback and watching over at-risk students. Scribo will deliver live analytics to the academic staff, tracking improvement and many other metrics that can be used for efficacy, proof of value and regulator evidence.
How do students access Scribo?
Scribo is available for students either on the Web or in Google Docs or WORD O365 as an Add-On.
Scribo can be run in SOLO mode by students with no University or tutor oversight. In SOLO mode students do not have to be connected to a course.
Scribo can also be integrated into a standard application suite by Universities.This could include LMS systems and others via LTI.
How does Scribo support guidance for student writing?
Scribo lets educators deploy writing scaffolds and support materials that students access when writing. These are options. Scribo can also give students scaffolding tools to help plan their work.
Can Students use Scribo for any text?
Scribo allows students to enter any question and text response. There is no limitation on course type or subject matter. Scribo automatically discovers the context of the question, isolating the keywords, task and limiting words for the essay. Scribo uses these parameters in the essay response analysis.
Does Scribo analyse writing styles and voice?
Yes, Scribo analyses over 16 different writing styles, including three voices, to check if students have followed the question requirements and answered the question. Scribo tracks the efficiency of over 16 different writing styles like Compare, Contrast, Expand Ideas, Give Examples, Cause and Effect, Expand Ideas, Quote and more. Students can select the styles they want to check.
Can Scribo do an analysis for all students in the course?
Scribo reads all students’ texts and creates a multi-layer analysis of cohort writing. With these insights, educators see across live examples of student work. Teachable moments are ready, examples from live text are extracted ready for lesson planning, and deep analysis and insights are created in minutes across all students.
What types of grading does Scribo support?
Scribo supports very flexible Rubric marking – from your Rubric definitions, not ours. Letter grading and number based X/Y grading as a number or percentage is supported. Students can self grade against a Rubric. Grading is often an end point process that is done in an LMS. Scribo does not really have to cut across this established process.
How does Scribo support feedback on student work?
5 automated feedback capabilities of Scribo include:
Extensive feedback on writing is generated automatically, paragraph by paragraph. Students rate this feedback as sensational.
Educators can ‘drop’ text based feedback onto student work as they work.
Feedback can be spoken – full voice to text capability.
Feedback libraries can be used to shortcut common feedback points.
Feedback statistics are available to Educators instantly with one click.
Can Scribo support Summative Writing tasks?
Summative writing tasks are used extensively in Scribo. Students are given a topic, possibly a supporting scaffold, and a neutral writing space to address the question. This writing space has no spell checking or grammar checking support. Educators finally see the levels of writing in a cohort as they really are. All data flows into analysis and feedback.
Can Scribo be used for any course and subject?
Yes. Scribo can be used across all faculty subjects at all levels of learning. All that changes is the level of the feedback, the depth of the question answer and obviously the student response.
Section 2 : Scribo Workflow
Can educators monitor student writing tasks live?
Yes. Educators can monitor student work as they work in Scribo Web, O365 or in Google Docs. Educators work with a linked copy holding comments/feedback.
Can educators run a Cohort writing analysis any time?
Yes. At any time, Educators can run a cohort report that summarises the writing results and trends for the whole course. The panel report is also available at student level.
Does Scribo build data efficacy models showing usage?
Yes. Scribo builds efficacy models that show where Students are accessing Scribo and the impact Scribo is making on improvement. Scribo aggregates many major metrics and can break them down in many different ways.
Do educators have access to student writing growth analytics?
Yes. Scribo builds data from the lowest level of identification. From Student → Educator → Course → Year → Subject → Faculty → University → Dept/District.
Key insights show educators the students and areas that are improving, and those which are not.
Is Scribo the most comprehensive writing support platform available?
No surprise there. Yes. Scribo has been designed to achieve three main outcomes and in so doing, be relevant to three clear sets of stakeholders in a comprehensive way.
Engage students with full-time writing support that does more than writing correction. Analysis and feedback makes the biggest difference via real connections to student writing growth. Universities must provide reasonable support to enable students to achieve expected learning outcomes.
Educators have live student connections to student progress, feedback, learning analytics and supporting workflows all reducing workloads and time demands.
University and Faculty leaders have a strong base for improvement through live data analytics collated across multiple levels. This is the backbone of writing improvement and data for bench-marking and regulator evidence.
Section 3: Get Scribo going in your University
How do I register my University / College with Literatu and get Scribo access?
To use Scribo in a University setting, Universities must register with Literatu. Scribo is NOT a free service, however it can be trialed FREE for 21 days for up to 50 students in a faculty. We encourage the use of a single University Community for multiple educator accounts.
University trials should register with this link :
How do I register educators and students?
Educators and students register using community / class access keys or via our Literatu university on-boarding process. Scribo integrates directly with LTI, O365, Google, Google Classroom and LDAP protocols to establish educator, student access, courses and accounts. If you have any of these, please let us know. For the purposes of a trial, we issue an Educator registration code. Educators create courses and give students course key codes to self register.
Can students register via Single Sign On (SSO)?
Students can SSO (Single Sign On) in Scribo using their O365 or Google account. With a Student Access code, registration into a course is simple and fast.
Can students register for a trial directly?
What level of student does Scribo apply to?
Scribo is used in all levels of Tertiary education to check and promote writing skills and techniques. Scribo does this through:
Active writing connections to students with immediate feedback and analysis powered by the Scribo AI and ML engine.
Live connections between students and tutors to help reduce the time taken for current feedback and guidance.
Integrated Data analytics that find and highlight where targeted support could have an immediate impact on student writing.
Section 4 : Infrastructure / Delivery
Is Scribo a cloud hosted system?
Yes, Scribo is delivered to Universities and Colleges via the cloud. Anyone can log in from anywhere there is a web connection, and your login email or user account can be validated. All data is stored in Country of Origin.
Can Scribo support SSO with Google and O365?
Yes, Scribo integrates with both. Your primary Google or O365 account can create a Scribo account with single click access – no new passwords. Register with Google and/or Microsoft accounts from the Register screen.
Does Scribo use AI and ML technology?
Yes, Scribo uses Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence extensively to make every student and educators’ life easier. All feedback generated by Scribo for students is created using our NLP, ML and AI technology. The data created is kept confidential and unique to the context of your University / Scribo Community. Data that is shared and used to aggregate and inference learning data across all writing is used in anonymity. In University environments, educators work with us to train Scribo ML and AI feedback to respond to students in a tailored University context.
Can Scribo integrate with O365 and Teams?
Yes, Scribo is fully integrated with O365 and Teams. Educators can synchronize courses and activities in one click utilising the powerful remote chat capabilities of Teams to include students. Scribo is an Add-on available from the Microsoft Store.
Planning to run feedback online is a topical scenario now with COVID-19 being an everyday reality. Scribo can easily facilitate tutor - student feedback without any need for personal contact. Using O365 and or Google Docs with Scribo makes the feedback process native and simple to set up.
Can Scribo work inside Google Docs and Word O365?
Yes. Scribo is an Add-on in both platforms. Scribo for G-Suite works in Docs, Scribo for O365 works in Word without forcing students away from their authoring platform of choice. Scribo for Teams links collaboration around a cohort, enabling sharing and support to be built into the writing process.
Can Scribo work with course keys for quick registration?
Yes, Student and course keys are the quickest way to get students on-boarded. If you use O365 and/or Google register using SSO and enter a key. Instantly your course is ready to go and students can quickly join.
Does Scribo require plugins for the Browser?
No, Scribo is HTML 5 delivered. There are no plugins required and Scribo works with all major browsers.
Does Scribo integrate with SIS and LMS Systems?
Scribo integrates with SIS and timetable systems directly. Integration with LMS is via LTI launch.
Can Scribo data support BI platforms?
Scribo data can be exported in BI formats for further analysis. We have a direct link from our Ledger platform to Power BI and Tableau or other BI tools and platforms.
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