by ben reynolds.
I'm not a fan of "send for marking" unless you are seriously doing draft, comment, redraft, comment, submit. I often see comments on the forums that students don't click the submit button. (That's in 1.9; in 2+ I think the language is a bit different.)
Yes, the moment a student touches notes or upload, Moodle records the access, even if the student doesn't upload anything or write in the notes area.