NoodleTools How to Guide: Viewing & Responding to Comments

This page explains how teachers can view and respond to student comments.

Adding and Managing Comments

How to Add Feedback:  Project

How to Add Feedback:  Sources

How to Add Feedback:  Notecards

How to View and Respond to Comments as a Teacher

To View the Source or Notecard Being Discussed in the Comment

How Will the Students Know You Left Them a Comment About Their Work?

How to View Comments from Collaborators

In your inbox, while you cannot make changes to the citations, notecards, or outline, you can add comments. Students will appreciate having a chance to improve or correct their work based on your feedback before they submit their final work.

You can leave feedback on your students’ project via your project inbox. Comments can be added to a project, sources, and notecards. To learn how students can add comments and questions, see the NoodleTools tutorial “How to write and respond to comments and questions.”

When adding a new comment to a student’s shared project, you have several choices in how to classify the comment. For example, if you are requiring the student to make a change, use the Change required classification. On the other hand, a perfect citation might warrant a comment with the Compliment classification.

Click Send to add your comment to the project. If you want to save a copy of your comment for another project, click Save and Send. The comment will be added to your comment database.

Click Manage saved comments to view and edit your saved comments. The comments can be categorized for either Project, Sources, or Notecards.

To use a previously saved comment in a new comment, enter the first few characters of the comment and a menu will appear. On the menu, select the saved comment to use. 

All comments become part of the project and cannot be deleted.

1. Click Dashboard in the top navigation.
2. On the Dashboard screen, click Add comment in the upper right.
3. The Project comments panel will open.
4. Enter your comment, choose a comment classification and click Send.

See video below for a brief demonstration how to move and close the panel.

1. Click Sources in the top navigation.
2. To the right of a reference, under Options, select Add comment.
3. The Sources comments panel will open, displaying any previous comment thread for that reference.
4. Enter your comment, choose a comment classification and click Send.

Notecards associated with a source:  On the displayed notecard on the Sources screen, use the notecard's Options menu to select Add comment, and the Notecard comments panel for comments will open and you can add a comment for that notecard.

Click Notecards in the top navigation.

Tabletop view:

1. Hover on a notecard (or long-press on a tablet), click Add comment.
2. The Notecard comments panel will open, displaying any previous comment thread for that notecard.
3. Enter your comment, choose a comment classification and click Send.

Detail view:

1. Select the notecard in the left column by clicking the notecard title (it will highlight blue and the notecard’s contents will be displayed in the middle panel).
2. On the notecard detail, click Add comment in the lower right.
3. The Notecard comments panel will open, displaying any previous comment thread for that notecard.
4. Enter your comment, choose a comment classification and click Send.

Outline

At this time, comments can be added only to notecard items in the outline. Follow the above steps for adding a comment to a notecard.

When a student has left a comment, a red comment icon will appear on the Inbox tab.

To view the comment:

1. Open the project in your inbox.
2. Click the comment button with the red dot and number of unread comments (upper right). 
3. Click on the unread comments to view them.
4. Click Respond to contribute to the thread.

When you initially click the comment button, the comments panel will be displayed that reflects the screen you are viewing (e.g., notecards, if you are on the Notecards screen). To view comments in one of the other categories, click the corresponding category header in the comments panel.

To view the source or notecard that is being referenced in the comment, click View source, or if you are in the Notecards category, click View note card.

Identifying the author of the comment

Each comment identifies the author by their ID and displays the date and time it was written. See above screenshot. In a collaborative project, each team member can contribute separately to the thread.

The next time a student opens the project, the comment button displays the total number of unread comments, including your new comments.

Students respond to your feedback by clicking Respond below your comment. See the NoodleTools tutorial “How to write and respond to comments and questions.”

In a collaborative project, NoodleTools tracks the number of comments left by each collaborator and displays them on the Dashboard screen under Sharing and Collaboration in the Contribution column (the number displayed next to the talk-bubble icon):

Viewing comments between collaborators is the same as if you are viewing comments by a single student in any project. 

Click Respond to add a comment to the thread.