Gradescope
for Instructors

Creating an account

Creating a course

1. Once you are logged in to Gradescope, you will see the main Gradescope page. At the beginning it will be populated with a couple of sample courses. To create your own course click on +Create a new course tile.

2. Complete the Create Your Course form which will pop up. Enter SUNY Buffalo in the SCHOOL field. Select the ENTRY CODE checkbox - this will give you an option to let students self-enroll in your course. More about it below.

3. When you click on the Create Course button, the course will be created and you will be taken to the main course page where you can enroll students, create course assignments etc. You can click on the Gradescope logo in the upper left corner to get back to the main page listing all your courses.

Enrolling students and course staff

There are two ways way to enroll students in your Gradescope course:

1. You can register students yourself by uploading a student roster.

2. You can provide them with an entry code. Anyone with the entry code will be able to self-enroll.
   

The first option will be often a better choice, since it gives more control over who enrolls in your course on Gradescope. In addition, if you use it then Gradescope can send emails to all enrolled students providing them with instructions how to access your course.

1. Enrollment with a student roster

If you upload to Gradescope a CSV file with a roster of students, only students in the roster will be able to enroll in the course. In fact, these students will be automatically enrolled - once they create Gradescope accounts (following instructions posted here), they will see the course on their Gradescope dashboards and they will be able to enter it.

1. To enroll students using this method you will need a CSV file with student names in one column and student email addresses in a different column. It is actually more convenient (although not necessary) to have student names split into a column of first names and a column of last names, since otherwise Gradescope sorts names alphabetically by first names. If you do not have such CSV file (files downloaded from the HUB do not include emails), John Ringland created them for all courses. Contact him, and he will provide a CSV file in the right format to you.

2. On the main page of Gradescope click on a course tile to get to the course page. On the left hand side of the course page there is a Roster link . Clicking on this link will bring you to the Course Roster page (see the screenshot below), This page is meant to be populated with a list of enrolled students and course staff members, but initially it will list only you - as the course instructor. Click on the Add Students or Staff+ button in the lower right corner of the page.

3. The menu which will pop up gives you an option to upload a CSV file. Choose this option, and follow the instructions to enroll all students listed in the file.

Enrolling course staff

The SINGLE USER option of the menu shown above is a way to enroll course staff (TAs, graders) as well as individual students. Click on it and complete the enrollment form. You will need to know the name and email address of the person you want to enroll. If you are enrolling a course staff member, you are given three options: Instructor, TA, and Reader. According to the Gradescope documentation the only difference between these three roles is that students can see names of instructors, but not of TAs and Readers. In particular, TAs and Readers have the same course management permissions as Instructors.

2. Student self-enrollment with an entry code.

On the main page of Gradescope click on a course tile to get to the course page. The course entry code is posted in the upper right corner of this page (see the picture below). Provide this code to the students. Directions how they can use it to enroll in your course are posted on the Gradoscope for Students page of this website. You can send them a link to this page.

Creating an assignment

Gradescope assignment types

Gradescope allows for two main types of assignments:

• Homework/Problem Set is an assignment that will be submitted to Gradescope directly by students. As the name indicates, it is suitable for collecting homework problems. It is also the option you can use for exams given in remote courses.

• Exam/Quiz is for assignments where the instructor will collect student papers, scan them and upload the scanned files to Gradescope. This is useful for administering in-class exams.

Creating a Homework assignment (submitted to Gradescope by students)

1. On the left hand side of the main course page click on the Assignments link. The page which will show up lists all course assignments. At the beginning this list will be empty. In order to create a new assignment click on the Create Assignment button in the lower right corner of the page.

2. In the Create Assignment pop-up menu select the Homework/Problem Set option.

3. In the Assignment Settings window:

• Enter the assignment name (e.g. Homework 1).

• Upload a PDF file with an assignment template. Theoretically this file should list assignment problems, but it is for the instructor's reference only, and it will not be visible to students or used in any way. You can upload an arbitrary PDF file as long as you upload one, since you won't be able to create an assignment without it.

• WHO WILL UPLOAD SUBMISSIONS - choose Student.

• Select the RELEASE DATE (i.e. when the assignment will be visible to students) and the DUE DATE.

• Select Variable Length as the SUBMISSION TYPE. The other option, Templated, is suitable only if the instructor provides a template for the assignment, and students write in blank spaces of the template.

Click on the Create Assignment button.

4. This will bring you to the assignment outline page. The left hand side of this page shows the PDF file with the assignment template that you uploaded. On the right hand side you need to specify the outline of the assignment: what parts it consists of, which parts have subparts and how many. Student submission will be organized in such way, that all solutions to each part of the assignment will be assembled together, e.g. all solutions to Exercise 1, all solutions to Exercise 2a etc. The outline describes this organization pattern. In the outline of the assignment you also need to specify how many points each part of the assignment if worth (the default value is 1 point for each part). Once you are done editing the outline click on the Save Outline button.

5. After you save the outline, you will be brought to the Manage Submissions page, This page will be initially empty, but as students start uploading their papers, it will list their submissions. At this point the assignment has been created. You can click on the Edit Outline link on the left hand side of the page to make changes in the assignment outline (change the number of problems, their point values etc.).

Creating an Exam/Quiz assignment (submitted to Gradescope by the instructor)

1. On the left hand side of the main course page click on the Assignments link. The page which will show up lists all course assignments. At the beginning this list will be empty. In order to create a new assignment click on the Create Assignment button in the lower right corner of the page.

2. In the Create Assignment pop-up menu select the Exam/Quiz option.

3. In the Assignment Settings window:

• Enter the assignment name (e.g. Exam 1).

• Upload a PDF file with an assignment template. This should be a blank copy of the exam. The cover page of the exam must include designated spots for students to write their names and (optionally, but preferably) UB person numbers. Gradescope will use the information where this information is located on the cover page to identify which students corresponds to which submitted exam copy.

• WHO WILL UPLOAD SUBMISSIONS - choose Instructor.

Click on the Create Assignment button.

4. This will bring you to the assignment outline page. The left hand side of this page shows the PDF file with the exam template that you uploaded. On the right hand side you need to specify the outline of the exam. Use the "Create Name Region" and "Create ID Region" buttons to select the areas on the exam cover page where students will enter their names and UB person numbers. Gradescope needs this information in order to read student names and person numbers, and associate each exam copies with an appropriate student.

Just as in the case of a homework assignment (described above) you also need to specify what problems and subproblems the exam consists of and what is the maximal possible score for each of them. For each problem select in which part of the exam template the solution of the problem will be located. Gradescope will show only this part of the exam when the problem is graded.

Once you are done editing the outline click on the Save Outline button.

5. After you save the outline, you will be brought to the Manage Scans page, This page will be initially empty. After students take the exam, you need to scan exam copies. Make sure that exam pages for each student are scanned in the same order in which they appear in the exam template. You can save several scanned exams in the same PDF file. Once you have files with the scans, use the Manage Scans page to upload them to Gradescope. Gradescope will process the scans attempting to split them into individual copies and read student names and person numbers. When this process is finished you can verify if this was done correctly. In cases when the name or UB person number information of a student cannot be recognized automatically, you will be prompted to manually select which student corresponds to a given exam copy.

Grading an assignment

1. Navigate to the page with the assignment you want to grade (on the main gradescope page choose the course, and then on the next page choose the assignment). This will bring you to a page with a list of student submissions. On the left hand side of this page click on the Grade Submissions button.

2. The next page will show the outline of the assignment and the progress made in grading each part of the assignment. Click on the part you want to grade.

3. This will bring you to the grading page. See the picture below for its general layout.

• The left hand side shows a submission of a student. You can zoom, pan and rotate it. Tools above the submission let you annotate it with hand-drawn markings and with typed text.

• The main tool on the right hand side are grading rubrics. Initially only one rubric -0.0 correct will be visible, but you can create new ones using the +Add Rubric Item button. Each rubric consists of a point value and an brief explanation what the rubric means. If you select a rubric, its point value will be subtracted from the maximum problem score. Rubric text can contain LaTeX formulas - enclose LaTeX code in double dollar signs $$like this$$. A rubric item created while grading one submission will be visible when you grade all other submissions, so once you create a rubric you can use it repeatedly. You can add new rubric items at any point during grading. Also, at any point you can adjust rubric values. Note that it you change a rubric item value, it will be changed for all student submissions to which this rubric item has been applied. By default, all rubrics items are visible to students when they view the graded assignments, but this can be changed.

• Below the rubrics there is a SUBMISSION SPECIFIC ADJUSTMENTS field where you can adjust score for a single student, without creating a rubric item.

• Below that there is a box for entering comments which will be visible to the student. The pull down menu APPLY PREVIOUSLY USED COMMENTS contains all previously entered comments, so they can be easily reused.

• The navigation buttons at the bottom of the page let you go from one student to the next/ previous one. Use the Next/Previous Ungraded buttons to navigate among submissions which still need to be graded. Use the Next/Previous buttons to navigate among all submissions - whether they have been already graded or not.

Grading progress is automatically saved, you can leave it at any point and pick up when you left off.

Reviewing, publishing, and downloading grades

When the whole assignents has been graded, you can publish the grades so that they are visible to students, send emails to students notifying them that grades have been published, and download a file with assignment scores.

1. Navigate to the assignment page (on the main gradescope page choose the course, and then on the next page choose the assignment). If the whole assignment has been graded, it will bring you to a page showing exam statistics and a list of scores of individual students. Click on the Publish Grades button at the bottom of this page to make graded assignments visible to students.

2. Once you click on the Publish Grades button, a new button Compose Email to Students will show up in its place. You can click on it to compose a message notifying students that grades have been published, and send emails to all students.

3. You can also use the Download Grades button to download a file with assignment grades - either in the format of a CSV file or an Excel spreadsheet.