Grading Assignments
Kira Fines-Kested avatar
Written by Kira Fines-Kested
Updated over a week ago

Overview

Instructors can grade assignment submissions directly in Forum by adding scores and comments.

Navigating to assignments

On the homepage, you can find all assignments due in the next week in the Assignments due in the next 7 days section.

If the assignment you're looking to grade is not in this section, you can click on

Assignments in the left menu or See All Assignments at the bottom of the above section.

From the Assignments page, you'll see a list of all upcoming assignments and past assignments.

You can find the assignment you want by using the search field and filtering by section or dates.

The assignment list will display the assignment title, course, weight, due date, and submission status. The possible submission statuses are:

  • (# of submitted assignments) / (# of expected submissions) Submitted

    • The status is displayed in gray if not all assignments have been submitted (e.g. 1/20 Submitted, 0/20 Submitted)

    • The status is displayed in green if all all expected assignments have been submitted, or if the due date has been reached (whichever comes first)

  • View Scores

    • Displayed as a link once scores have been released

How to grade assignments

To grade an assignment:

  • Choose either Grade Assignment or Blind Grade Assignment. Blind grading allows you to grade without seeing student names.

  • You can give feedback on a specific section of the assignment or leave a general comment.

    • To give feedback on a specific section, highlight the relevant text and a popup will appear. Choose the Outcome you are assessing, add a score and comment, and click Save

      • To give feedback on a specific question in a Forum Workbook or Code Workbook, click on the question or code block and a popup will appear.

    • To give general feedback, click the Add a General Comment button at the bottom right.

  • Use the Who dropdown in the lefthand menu to navigate to a different student

  • Once you have finished grading all assignments, click the cloud icon at the top right to publish all grades. Publishing is required for participants to see their assignment grades. See more about publishing in this section.

Granular grading workbooks

“Granular Grading” describes the ability to associate assessments with specific questions in a Forum Workbook or Forum Code Workbook. When grading a Workbook submitted as an assignment, instructors can click on any question or code block to highlight it.

This will automatically open the assessment editor. Any assessment added like this will be associated with the highlighted question. Check the bottom right corner of the assessment editor to confirm which question is being associated with the assessment.

After saving, you can also see the association in the assessment list. Clicking any assessment will allow you to edit it. As long as the editor is open, you can freely re-assign it to any question. Clicking on an assessment in the list will also scroll to that assessment in the Workbook.

Adding multiple assessments to a single question in a Workbook

Clicking on a question in the Workbook that already has an assessment attached will open that assessment for editing. If you want to create a second assessment for a single question:

  • Close the assessment editor

  • Click “Add a General Comment”

  • Select the desired question, which will associate the comment with the specific question

Adding assessments to the Workbook as a whole

If you want to add a general assessment to a workbook:

  • Open the workbook

  • Click “Add a General Comment”

  • This will also open the assessment editor so you can assess the desired outcome. This will associate the assessment with the workbook as a whole.

Note that in case an intended general assessment gets linked to a cell/question, you can click the cell/question twice to deselect it again, making the assessment a general one.

Deep Linking

If you are editing or viewing a specific assessment from the list, it will be highlighted in blue. In this state, you can copy the URL in the browser URL bar and share this with instructors or students. As long as they have access to the assignment, loading the page will highlight the assessment you selected and scroll it into view as soon as the page loads.

Student View

Students will be able to see the question associations and click on the assessments to scroll the right question into view, but can not select or deselect questions within the workbook.

Sharing links to assessments in a Workbook

If you are editing or viewing a specific outcome assessment, it will be highlighted in blue. In this state, you can copy the URL in the browser URL bar and share this with instructors or students. As long as they have access to the assignment, loading the page will highlight the assessment you selected and scroll it into view as soon as the page loads.

Viewing notes on how to grade

In the upper left corner of the assignment grader, click on View Assignment Details. This will open a PDF version of the assignment that includes the following:

  • Instructor-only description of the assignment

  • Why/Use for each learning outcome attached to the assignment

  • Grading Guide for each learning outcome attached to the assignment

These notes were added to help instructors grade the assignments.

Viewing scores and comments

Scores and comments you’ve saved will appear in the Assignment Grades & Comments module. The Outcomes to Be Assessed module tells you if you have graded all of the foregrounded outcomes.

Releasing Grades

When the instructor is finished grading all assignment submissions, they can release grades for students to view their scores and comments.

To release all grades and make them visible to students, the instructor can click "Release All Assessments" at the bottom of the left menu. If assessments have already been released for that assignment, the same area will show the date and time of release, with the option to retract assessments. Note that retracting assessments simply makes them inaccessible by students, and does not delete the assessments themselves.

Downloading assignment submissions

To download a submission, click a student’s assignment, and then click the gear icon in the upper right corner. Finally, click Download Submission to download the individual submission or Download All Submissions to download all submissions.

Sharing links to assessments in a Workbook

If you are editing or viewing a specific outcome assessment, it will be highlighted in blue. In this state, you can copy the URL in the browser URL bar and share this with instructors or students. As long as they have access to the assignment, loading the page will highlight the assessment you selected and scroll it into view as soon as the page loads.

Q&A

Q: What happens if a student resubmits an assignment after I've already given them grades?

A: If a student uploads an assignment submission after scores and comments have been added to their original submission, then those scores and comments will not be overwritten. The original grades will still be saved, and it is up to the instructor to edit or delete those scores and comments.

Q: What is the Similarity Score displayed in the righthand module?

A: The Similarity Score displays the results of automated plagiarism detection provided by Turnitin. An instructor can see additional details by visiting the Turnitin site directly.

Plagiarism detection may be turned on or off at the Organization level. If you do not see the Similarity Score module and are interested in using plagiarism detection, contact your Account Manager.

Q: What is the Status field shown in the lefthand menu?

Use the Status field in the lefthand menu to help track your work. The instructor can choose to mark an assignment as Not Graded, Complete or Incomplete depending on their own progress in grading the assignment.

Q: Is the value of the Status field shown to participants?

The status is not shown to students at any time, and does not affect the visibility of scores or comments.

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