• Gradescope

Gradescope

With the return to in-person teaching, Gradescope will no longer be centrally funded from May 2022 onward. Instructors who want to use this tool will need to arrange for funding with their department first. More info on funding changes can be found here.

Gradescope is an online grading system that allows instructors to grade paper-based or code-based assignments. Instructors can add detailed feedback while marking assignments and then send the graded assignments back to students online. Gradescope allows students to quickly receive their work and view their instructors’ comments, so they can improve for their future assignments.

Key features

 

  • Photos of student work can be submitted to Gradescope (after converting the photos to PDFs)
  • Answer Groups & AI-assisted Grading features form groups of similar student answers, allowing for quick, efficient grading
  • Grade analytics feature that shows student results for each assignment question
  • Any rubric changes made to an assignment are automatically applied to assignments that were already graded
  • Built-in fail-safe to avoid accidental overwriting of grades when multiple graders work in parallel

 

UBC offers support for Gradescope, however funding for the service is granted on a per-Faculty basis. Instructors wishing to use Gradescope should first check with their respective departments to determine if funding is available. Once they have received this confirmation, instructors can submit a request to integrate Gradescope into their Canvas course(s). Please refer to the following section, “Getting Started”.

For instructors and students using Gradescope for the first time, Gradescope provides detailed documentation on getting started.

 

Submitting a request

 

Please complete the Learning Tool Setup Request Form for Gradescope, and include the following information in the Additional Details section of the form:

  • The course name(s), course number(s), and section number(s)
  • Which term(s) the course(s) is offered
  • The name and email address of the financial contact who approved the request for Gradescope funding 
  • The program code for funding

After, the LT Hub will follow up with further instructions via email.

Setting up Gradescope with Canvas

 

After you receive further instructions from the LT Hub (refer above), add the Gradescope link to your course:

  1. Within your Canvas course, click on Settings
  2. Click on the Navigation tab.
  3. Click on the three dots beside Gradescope and select enable
  4. Click Save. You should now see a link called Gradescope added to your course navigation.
  5. Click on the Gradescope link to go to your Gradescope course in a new tab.
  6. In the Gradescope interface, you will be prompted to create a new Gradescope course or use an existing course to link with your Canvas course. Select A new Gradescope Course and click Link Course.
  7. A new Gradescope course will be created that is linked to your Canvas course and you can edit the course details on the page that opens. Click Update Course to save changes.
  8. Then, reply to the email from the LT Hub and request the LT Hub to sync the class roster.

Students who click on the Gradescope link within Canvas will be automatically enrolled in the respective Gradescope course. Students that were not yet registered in the course during the initial Gradescope roster sync can be directed to click on the Gradescope link through Canvas to enroll into the Gradescope course.

Information on setting up Gradescope and grading your assessment(s) can be found on the Gradescope Help page.

Grading Student Submissions

 

Once available, student submissions will be organized by questions in Gradescope. You can divide up work between a team of graders to grade one specific question at a time.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the left-hand menu, then click the assignment name.
  3. Click Grade Submissions in the left-hand menu, and click the question that you would like to grade.
  4. Click Grade at the bottom of the screen to begin grading.
    • Note: you will need to apply at least one rubric to each question for Gradescope to consider the student's submission graded.
  5. You can hover over the submission and use the left and right arrows to navigate to other pages of the submission.
  6. PDFs and images also include annotation tools for grading, in the top right when you hover over the submission.
  7. Click Next Ungraded to see the next student’s submission for the same question and continue until you've completed the available submissions.

     

Reviewing and Publishing Grades

 

After grading is complete, you can review and return the graded submissions to students by publishing the grades.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the left-hand menu, then click the assignment name you'd like to release grades for.
  3. If there are submissions that have not been matched to a student, click Manage Submissions in the left-hand menu. You can try to auto-match submissions or match them manually.
  4. Click Review Grades in the left-hand menu.
  5. Below the histogram and basic statistics, you can click any student name to view that student’s graded exam.
  6. For students to see their grades via Gradescope, grades must be published. From the "Review Grades" interface, click Publish Grades at the bottom.
  7. To notify students who submitted work, click the Compose Email to Students option (which appears after you publish), customize what will be sent, and click Send Email.
  8. Gradescope will send an email to each student containing a link to their score page, which includes their work, scores, and feedback.

     

Uploading Grades to Canvas

 

Canvas and Gradescope do not auto-sync grades, it has to be done manually. To do so, you will need to have your roster synced with Canvas and link your Gradescope assignment to an existing Canvas assignment

  1. First, you will need to link your Canvas assignment to your Gradescope assignment:
    1. In your Canvas course, click on Gradescope in the left menu to navigate to your Gradescope course. If prompted, sign in with your CWL and allow Gradescope to access Canvas.
    2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the left-hand menu, then click the assignment name you'd like to link.
    3. Click on Settings in the left menu.
    4. Under Canvas Assignment, click Link.
    5. Using the dropdown menu, select the Canvas assignment to which you will sync the grades.
    6. Click Link Assignment.
  2. Once the assignments are linked, follow the steps below to sync the grades to Canvas:
    1. In the left-hand menu of the assignment page in Gradescope, click on Review Grades.
    2. Click Post Grades to Canvas.
    3. Click Post Grades. 

Last updated on: March 24, 2023

Learning technology support

If you have any questions or if you would like to report an issue regarding a learning technology, please don’t hesitate to contact us at LT.support@science.ubc.ca. For in-person support, please join our LTRs at one of our drop-in sessions.