Quick and dirty beats slow but measured feedback

Let me warm to the theme started in my last blog - the need for lecturers and students to know where the "goalposts" are in relation to assessments in their HE studies.
Clearly lecturers need to develop a clear, consistent, relevant, appropriate and communicated set of assessment criteria to allow their students to achieve the learning outcomes for the lesson, course or programme.  These can often be expanded to a range of descriptors that explain a particular level of achievement - such as the example from a FHEQ Level 6 taught module for the assessment criterion "Analysis / Discussion / Evaluation":

By selecting the descriptor for the chosen criterion the marker can begin to indicate the level of performance of the individual student.  There is also good scope to add some "feed forward", a suggestion, or two, about how the work could be improved.

So, for an assignment scoring 60 - 69% the feedback could be:

A good attempt to analyse or prioritise issues and to draw conclusions.  The example of XYZ corporation's new JIT system showed the key costs and benefits clearly.  To improve the work an example of JIT failing to work would give a more rounded picture.

So, well considered and well designed marking criteria, communicated at the outset, become the basis for clear feedback that can be made to have an individual focus for each student - as the following continuum shows:

Contrast this will the in-line comments on a script, the careful summary of points at the end of a piece of work.  Yes, it is less focused on the individual, yes, it can look like the tutor is using a mechanical way of marking but it does have the advantage of quicker turnaround for the student, efficiency for the marker and a clear and consistent set of standards - whether the paper is marked on a Monday morning or a Friday evening.