Insights and highlights from the TeacherMatic and Jisc webinar

The recent TeacherMatic and Jisc webinar, ‘AI for Assessment: Cutting Workload in Higher and Further Education,’ explored how AI can support marking, feedback and assessment across colleges and universities.

Hosted by Peter Kilcoyne, Managing Director of TeacherMatic, with contributions from Hannah Lawrence, Licensing Manager for Teaching, Learning and Assessment at Jisc; and Tom Moule, a Senior AI Specialist. There were also demonstrations from the TeacherMatic Development Team. The session gave a practical look at how AI is being used to reduce workload while keeping educators in control.

The Jisc Partnership and Why Assessment Matters

Jisc and TeacherMatic have partnered to provide a safe, supported and cost-effective way for institutions to access AI tools that improve teaching and learning. While many educators know TeacherMatic for lesson planning and resource creation, Jisc highlighted the growing value of its assessment features.

“Not everybody associates TeacherMatic with assessment and feedback. However, when I started looking for tools in our automatic grading systems portfolio, TeacherMatic kept coming up again and again.”

– Hannah Lawrence

Pricing through the Jisc Chest framework is also set up to help institutions scale their use of AI for assessment without the high per-student costs found elsewhere.

The Jisc Pilot: Understanding AI in Marking and Feedback

Jisc is running a year-long national pilot on AI in marking and feedback, with TeacherMatic as one of the selected platforms. The aim is to understand how AI can improve efficiency and quality while maintaining educator oversight.

Tom Moule explained:

“We wanted to get a deeper understanding of AI’s role and impact in marking and feedback. Workload is a real pinch point in education and assessment is an intense area.”

The pilot encourages educators to build confidence over time, learn how TeacherMatic behaves with different types of input and understand how to integrate AI into marking workflows safely.

Early insights suggest AI may enhance, rather than dilute, the quality of feedback.

“One of the concerns we often hear is that AI will make marking more generic and less personalised. We have actually heard some interesting insights that the converse may well be the case.”

Ethics, Transparency and Human Oversight

Ethics was a central theme throughout the webinar with Tom Moule stressing the importance of transparency around AI use, ensuring FE and HE educators maintain full ownership of final decisions.

“We are very strongly encouraging transparency and openness around the use of AI. Being clear with students before AI is used and giving a clear note wherever AI has supported the marking.”

Tom continued:

“The big pillar of the ethical baseline is keeping the human in the loop and making sure an educator’s professional judgment has signed off any feedback.”

TeacherMatic’s design also protects student work, as defined by Peter Kilcoyne:

“TeacherMatic is a walled garden. What you upload goes nowhere. There is no loss of copyright and it is not feeding any large language model.”

What TeacherMatic Can Do: Assessment Tools in Action

Peter Kilcoyne demonstrated several tools to clearly show how TeacherMatic directly supports assessment and reduces workload in further and higher education.

Multiple Choice Question Generator

• Teachers can quickly generate custom MCQs by entering a topic or by uploading materials such as assignment briefs, lesson notes or even YouTube links.
• Advanced options allow vocational and sector specific scenarios, which is particularly valuable in subjects like agriculture, engineering and health.
• Questions can be exported to Moodle, Google Forms, Microsoft Forms and other platforms, which means institutions can build banks of quality assured questions in minutes.

Rubric Generator

• Rubrics support transparency and improve student performance.
• The Rubric Generator allows educators to upload assignment briefs, select grading scales and generate descriptors across performance bands.
• Rubrics can be exported as Word documents for fine tuning before being shared with students or embedded in VLEs.

Image Based Content Generator

• This tool uses any uploaded image to create quizzes, summaries, worksheets or discussions.
• This feature is valuable in practical subjects such as construction, engineering, lab sciences and creative arts where image based assessment is common.

Example: Peter uploaded a photo of an audio mixing desk and the tool correctly identified the model and created questions about its components and uses.

Feedback Generator

• The Feedback Generator was the focus of the session and is the central tool used in Jisc’s pilot.
• Educators can upload student work as a Word document, PDF or handwritten scan.
• The system analyses the submission in detail, applies grading criteria or rubrics and produces high quality formative or summative feedback.

Example: During the demonstration, Peter uploaded three A level history essays of different quality. TeacherMatic correctly produced distinct grades and feedback that aligned with the standards expected at that level.

New Features Coming Soon

Oliver Stern, Technical Director at TeacherMatic gave a preview of upcoming features, including:

• Bulk upload and batch marking: Educators will soon be able to drag and drop entire classes worth of assignments for automatic processing. This will significantly reduce time spent uploading individual files and will streamline the workflow for high volume assessment periods.
• PDF annotation: The new interface will allow TeacherMatic to add contextual comments throughout a student’s PDF submission. Teacher comments can also be added manually before downloading the final annotated file. This will provide a familiar marking experience for educators who prefer in-document feedback rather than separate reports.

• Moodle integration: This new Moodle plugin enables direct export of resources, quizzes and question banks from the platform into Moodle. This includes MCQs, lesson plans and assessment materials.

A responsible and collaborative approach to AI in assessment

A key message throughout the webinar was the importance of balancing innovation with responsibility. AI can speed up marking, improve consistency and free educators to spend more time on higher value feedback. However, transparency and human oversight remain essential.

FE and HE institutions are encouraged to:

• Inform students when AI will support marking.
• Keep educators in control of final decisions.
• Provide opportunities for students to discuss concerns.
• Use AI to enhance, not replace, personalised feedback.

Watch the Recording On Demand

The full session recording is available for anyone who could not attend live. It includes demonstrations, Q&A and practical examples that can help teams explore the role of AI in their assessment processes.

If you would like a personalised walkthrough, a trial login or guidance on institutional rollout, please contact peter@teachermatic.com.