Exams with Gradescope

Gradescope is an exam tool by Turnitin. TU Graz offers licences for this tool. We are inviting teachers to try Gradescope and give us feedback.

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Exam formats

When is Gradescope suitable?

Gradescope can be used to create both face-to-face exams in the lecture hall and online exams. One possible use case is scanned exams, where students answer questions on paper and the exam sheets are scanned in at the end of the exam. Teachers can then grade the exam online on Gradescope using rubrics.

Gradescope is particularly suitable for exams with a large number of students and possibly several people grading the assignments, as the rubric system can make the assessment more transparent and enables faster online assessment, including free-text questions. AI grouping of short answers is also possible, which can further facilitate assessment, as similar answers can be graded at once.

Gradescope is connected to the TeachCenter Exam. Students can therefore be automatically synchronised with Gradescope and scores can be transferred back to the TeachCenter Exam.

Gradescope can be used to create different types of exams, which are briefly explained below:

Homework

The exam type "homework" is suitable for exams where students download a file with questions, then write/calculate on a separate page or in a digital document. The sheet or document with their answers is uploaded at the end, either by the students themselves as a photo/scan or it can be collected by the teachers and scanned all at once.

Theoretically, all types of questions are possible, but this type of exam is best suited for essay-type answers or calculations, as the students write their answers on a sheet without an answer template.

Screenshot of the preview of a homework/problem set type exam — homework type exam

Exam/Quiz

This type of exam is similar to the “homework“ type, except that the answer is written directly on an answer sheet. Teachers can define in advance in which area of the sheet the answer to a particular question will be located, so that later, when grading a question, only this area will be displayed.

This type of assessment is also suitable for essay-type questions, but enough space must be left on the answer template. Apart from this, other question types are also possible, such as the labelling of a diagram or drawing sketches.

For this type of exam with predefined answer fields, AI grouping can be used in grading. The AI feature can pre-group identical answers, which can then be graded with one click without having to open each student‘s individual answer. The AI feature only works with short answers (e.g. checkboxes to be ticked, short formulas and equations).

assignment types menu, exam/quiz is selected and there is a preview — type exam/quiz

Online exam

Bubble Sheet

In this type of exam, students receive an exam sheet with multiple-choice questions and possible answers as well as an extra sheet, the "bubble sheet", on which only the letters A/B/C/D are pre-printed. Students read the information on the question sheet and only tick the corresponding box on the bubble sheet, but do not see the answer texts there.

This type of exam is suitable if your exam consists exclusively of multiple-choice questions that all have the same number of answer options. This type of exam can be corrected very quickly using templates.

assignment types menu: bubble sheet selected — type bubble sheet

Programming assignment

Create and manage Gradescope exams

Creating a course

If you would like to create a Gradescope exam, contact the TeachCenter support (tc@tugraz.at) with your exam date and course number.
We will create a TeachCenter Exam course for you that includes the activity "External Tool". You will receive the link to your TC Exam course from us. Students who are registered for the exam are automatically synchronised with your TC Exam course.

NB: We will also create a TeachCenter Exam course with a link to Gradescope for you if the exam is held in a lecture hall. The digital course is used for student administration and students can also use it to view their exams and grades.

Open the TC Exam course, click on the activity and you will be taken to Gradescope (opens in a new tab). In a pop-up menu, you will be asked which Gradescope course and assignment you want to link to the Moodle activity. Select "new exam".
If you make a mistake in this step, you can always click "Unlink" in the Gradescope course settings or assignment settings, thereby unlinking the course and linking it again.

Link to TU Graz TeachCenter Exam Assignment menu. A new gradescope assignment can be created and linked here. — How to create and link a new assignment

Create Gradescope Exam

Homework

Click "Create assignment". Select the Homework/Problem Set option and click Next.
You will need to give the assignment a title and upload a file with questions or a problem to solve.
By default, the Homework/Problem Set assignment type is set so that students will upload their own work. If you want to scan and submit the work, you can change the „Who will upload submissions“ setting.
Upload your questions file and set who uploads the scans
Set the release date, due date and time limit.
Release and due date
Allow students to view the template in Template Visibility so they can download the questions or problem to solve.
Then create an outline of your exam by adding new questions via the plus icon and entering the maximum points for each question.

Exam/Quiz

Click "Create Assignment".
Select Exam / Quiz. Click Next.
Give the assignment a title and upload a blank copy of the exam.
By default, the Exam/Quiz assignment type is set up so that teachers will scan and upload the documents. If you want students to scan their own work, change the setting in Who will upload submissions?
Create the exam template
Highlight the areas in the PDF where students are going to write their answers
Click + new question to start adding questions. You can title your questions and add maximum points. As you create the outline, a total score for the task will be displayed at the top of the page

menu for creating an outline. Buttons Create Name Region and ID region, Question titles and points and button Save Outline — How to create an outline for the exam

Create a sub-question by clicking the plus icon next to a question or dragging one question into another.
You can also define areas where students enter their name and matriculation number. These areas are optional, but very useful if assignments are scanned centrally, as an AI feature can recognise the handwriting and automatically assign the assignment to the correct person.

Bubble Sheet

By default, the Bubble Sheet assignment type is set up for teachers to scan and upload the answer sheets. However, you can change this setting in Who will upload submissions?
If you enable the Template Visibility, students will be able to download a blank template containing 200 questions with five answer bubbles each.
Create your answer key and grading specifications.

Programming task

Create a new programming task, give it a title and description.
If you are manually grading the code, the following steps are the same as for a homework assignment.
If you want to use an autograder, set it up: https://gradescope-autograders.readthedocs.io/en/latest/specs/

Synchronise students

Taking the exam

On the day of the exam: Students enter via the TC Exam, agree to the privacy policy there and click on the link that directs them to the exam on Gradescope.
Students should then be automatically logged into Gradescope (access data = TUGRAZonline data).
For a "Homework/Problem Set" type exam, students are asked to assign the pages of their answers to the corerpsonding question when uploading. Advise students to start a new page for each answer, as this speeds up the correction considerably.

Grading the exam and exporting scores

To start grading, go to the Grading tab and click on the question you want to grade.
Grading on Gradescope is done through „rubrics“, which allow you to grade quickly and consistently.
Rubrics consist of a point value (plus or minus, set in the activity settings) and an explanation of why these points are given.
Rubrics with negative scoring
Rubrics can be created directly while grading or in advance when creating the exam.
Template Visibility and negative/positive scoring
Select + Add rubric entry and add the points and description. All other people grading the exam will see this new rubric in real time and can use it.
We advise you to create detailed rubrics instead of just "correct" and "incorrect" to make grades more transparent for students.
For faster grading, simply press the number on the keyboard that corresponds to the rubric.
To move to the next answer to the same question, go to Next ungraded. This avoids several people grading the same answer at the same time.
For homework or exams/quizzes, you can also leave comments or sketch with a pencil tool.
When all answers are graded, export the scores to the TC Exam using the corresponding button. Students will find their points in TC Exam, and can view the entire exam on Gradescope once the grades are posted.

For specific information on AI grouping of answers and grading, see the Gradescope help pages.

Help and Contact

A mock exam is highly recommended so that there is less stress for students during the actual exam when using a new tool, but also so that students get to know the upload feature and how to assign pages, making it easier for you to grade.

If you have any questions about Gradescope, please contact Gradescope-Support. When doing so, please put Teach-Center-Support in CC so that we are also informed.

For more help, see these how-to guides by Gradescope:

... or contact the TeachCenter support for questions of any kind.

Licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 International Licence

TU Graz Educational Technology, except screenshots taken from gradescope.eu