MOODLE · FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
AI Feedback on Moodle Assignment Drafts: Formative Feedback Before the Grade
Feedback that arrives with the grade is too late to change anything. How to set up draft submissions in Moodle and add AI feedback the lecturer edits first.
By Eduface · Updated July 2026 · 10 min read
A note before we start, because the terminology causes real confusion. Moodle has a module called Feedback, and it is a survey tool for collecting responses from students. This article is not about that. It is about giving students substantive comments on their work in progress, through the Assignment activity, before a grade exists.
The short answer
Feedback delivered alongside a final grade rarely changes anything, because there is no next attempt at that piece of work. Moving feedback earlier, onto a draft, is the single highest value change most modules can make, and the reason it is not done is workload. AI drafted formative feedback removes that constraint: the system produces rubric aligned comments on every draft, the lecturer edits and releases them, and the student acts on them in the version that will actually be marked.
Moodle activity to use
Assignment, with drafts enabled
What the student submits
A draft, before the final version
What the AI produces
Rubric aligned comments in a chosen style
Who releases it
The lecturer, after editing
Grade involved
None, unless you configure one
What is tracked
How the same student develops across drafts
Why does feedback on the final submission not work?
Because there is nothing left to do with it. The distinction between formative and summative assessment is not about the instrument, it is about the timing and the purpose. The same set of comments can be formative or summative depending on whether the student still has a chance to act on them. Attached to a returned final essay, even excellent comments arrive at a moment when the student has already moved to the next module.
The research literature on feedback is unusually consistent on this point. Hattie and Timperley’s synthesis frames effective feedback around three questions: where am I going, how am I doing, and where to next. All three are only answerable while the student still has something to do. Nicol and Macfarlane Dick reach the same conclusion from the direction of self regulated learning, arguing that good feedback practice builds the student’s own capacity to judge their work, which requires a next attempt to practise on.
Hattie, J., and Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81 to 112. doi:10.3102/003465430298487
Nicol, D., and Macfarlane Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199 to 218.
Ask the practical question about your own module. If a student read every comment carefully, what could they do with it this term? If the honest answer is nothing, the feedback is a justification of the grade rather than an instrument of learning. That may be a legitimate thing to produce, but it should not be counted as formative.
How do you set up draft feedback in Moodle?
The Assignment activity supports this natively. Two configurations work, and the choice matters more than it appears.
Option A: two separate assignments. One Assignment activity for the draft, unmarked, with a deadline a few weeks before the real one. A second Assignment activity for the final submission, marked. Simplest to explain to students, easiest to report on, and it keeps the gradebook clean. The drawback is two activities in the course for one piece of work.
Option B: one assignment with submission drafts enabled. Set Require students to click the submit button to Yes. Students then work in a draft state that staff can see and comment on before the student finalises. Fewer activities, but the boundary between draft and final is less visible to students and some will submit early by accident.
For most modules Option A is worth the extra activity, because the deadline on the draft is what actually makes students produce one. Two settings to check either way. Set the draft activity to not contribute to the course total, or your gradebook will misreport. And decide whether feedback on the draft is visible to students immediately or held until a release date, which in Moodle is controlled through the marking workflow settings.
Where does AI feedback fit in that setup?
The Feedback Tool connects to Moodle as an LTI 1.3 external tool, the same connection covered in our AI Essay Grader for Moodle article, and drafts comments on each submission. Four things are worth knowing before you use it.
It drafts, and the lecturer releases. Every comment is held until a lecturer has reviewed it. The lecturer edits anything that is wrong, thin or badly pitched, and releases when satisfied. No comment reaches a student unreviewed.
The style is a setting, because style is a pedagogic decision. Four styles are available: reflective and Socratic, constructive and direct, went well and needs improvement, and supportive and encouraging. The right choice depends on the cohort and the point in the module. A first year cohort three weeks into their degree and a final year cohort preparing a dissertation should not receive the same register, and a tool with one house voice forces them to.
It runs on domain specific submodels. Six domains are covered: law, economics, social sciences, STEM, humanities and health sciences. This matters because feedback conventions are discipline specific in ways that generic writing feedback misses. A law essay needs authority for its propositions. A STEM report needs its method to be reproducible. Generic advice about clarity and structure is true everywhere and useful nowhere in particular.
It tracks development across drafts. Because the same student’s successive submissions are connected, the tool produces a view of what is changing over time rather than a series of unconnected comments. The immediate value is that feedback on draft two can reference whether the student acted on draft one, which is the single most useful thing a marker can say and the hardest thing to do manually across a large cohort.
Does AI feedback make students dependent?
The honest answer is that it depends entirely on the style you choose, and this is a real risk rather than a rhetorical one. Feedback that names the fix teaches the student to wait for the next fix. Feedback that asks the question teaches the student to ask it themselves next time. Both have a place, and the difference is not a matter of tone but of what the student has to do to make use of it.
A defensible pattern for a module: reflective and Socratic on early drafts, when the goal is developing the student’s own judgement, moving to constructive and direct closer to submission, when the goal is a specific improvement in limited time. That is a decision for the module leader rather than for the tool, which is exactly why it is exposed as a setting.
Will students just paste the feedback into a language model?
Some will. This is worth designing around rather than worrying about. Feedback that says your third paragraph asserts a doctrine without authority can be handed to a model that will supply an authority. Feedback that says what would you have to establish for this argument to survive a narrow reading of the doctrine, and does your third paragraph do it? is much harder to outsource, because acting on it requires a decision about the student’s own argument.
This is a further argument for the Socratic style on drafts, and a reminder that formative feedback works best alongside an assessment design where the student has to account for their choices at some point. Draft feedback and oral verification are complements rather than alternatives.
What does this cost in lecturer time?
The honest framing is that it moves time rather than only saving it. Reviewing and editing drafted feedback on a cohort of drafts takes real hours. What it replaces is either nothing, because most modules do not give draft feedback at all, or a heavily rationed version where only students who ask get it. The gain is that feedback becomes routine rather than exceptional, and the students who benefit most are the ones who would never have asked. The measurable version, if you want to evidence it: compare the marks of students who submitted a draft against those who did not, controlling for prior attainment, and compare the distribution of final marks against the previous cohort.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Feedback activity in Moodle?
The Feedback module in Moodle is a survey tool for collecting responses from students, such as module evaluations. It is not used for giving students comments on their work. Comments on submitted work are given through the Assignment activity.
How do you give feedback on a draft in Moodle?
Either create a separate unmarked Assignment activity for the draft with its own deadline, or enable Require students to click the submit button on a single assignment so students work in a draft state that staff can comment on. The two assignment approach is clearer for students and keeps the gradebook simpler.
Can AI give formative feedback on Moodle assignments?
Yes. An LTI 1.3 tool such as the Eduface Feedback Tool drafts rubric aligned comments on each submission. The lecturer edits and releases them, so nothing reaches a student unreviewed. No grade is involved unless the assignment is configured summatively.
Does formative feedback need to be graded?
No, and grading it usually undermines it. Once a mark is attached, students attend to the mark rather than the comments. Set the draft activity so it does not contribute to the course total.
Which feedback style should we use?
Reflective and Socratic builds the student’s own judgement and works well on early drafts. Constructive and direct is faster to act on and suits the run up to a deadline. Went well and needs improvement maps onto most institutional templates. Supportive and encouraging suits first year cohorts and students at risk of disengaging.
Does the feedback tool pass a grade back to the Moodle Gradebook?
Only if you configure the assignment summatively. Used formatively it writes no grade, which is usually what you want on a draft.
Related reading
Give feedback while it can still change something
The Eduface Feedback Tool connects to Moodle via LTI 1.3 in one afternoon. Every comment is reviewed by a lecturer before a student sees it.