Grading Online Assignments

In this guide:

• Auto-graded fields
• Manually graded fields
• Regrading auto-graded questions
• Rubrics
• Publishing grades
• Deleting submissions
• Exporting Submission Data
• Viewing exported submission data

Grading

Auto-graded fields

Multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions will be graded automatically based on the correct answer you provided in the question's problem field. Short answer questions require an exact match to be marked correct. You can enable options for making the matching case-insensitive and to remove leading/trailing whitespaces on the assignment’s Settings page. If there are multiple input fields in one question, students must answer all of them correctly to receive any credit. Also, if there are both auto-graded and manually graded fields (see below) in the same question, you will need to manually grade all fields. Though you can auto-grade multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions, AI-assisted grading and answer-grouping are not possible on any answer field in Online Assignments at this time. Note that you can manually override any auto-grading by going to the Grade Submissions page, clicking on the question name, and editing the rubric or rubric item applications.

Manually graded fields

Free-response and file upload fields can only be graded manually from the assignment’s Grade Submissions page. If there are both auto-graded (see above) and manually grade fields in the same question, you will need to manually grade both fields. Also, though you can auto-grade multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions, auto-grading, as well as AI-assisted grading and answer-grouping are not possible on free-response and file upload fields at this time.

Regrading auto-graded questions

If the points for auto-graded questions need to be recomputed or rescored, you’ll find a Regrade All Submissions button on the assignment’s Manage Submissions page as well. Clicking the Regrade All Submissions button will regrade all auto-graded questions:

• multiple-choice
• select all
• short answer

Any manual grading applied to auto-graded questions, such as submission specific adjustments or comments, will not be removed unless you check the box to allow it.

As the regrading only applied to auto-graded question types, rubrics for questions with free response and file upload fields will remain unaffected, even when the "reset manual grading" box is checked.

Using Rubrics

Rubrics allow you to grade quickly and consistently, applying the same set of feedback to every submission. Gradescope rubrics are created for each individual question.

Online Assignments contain pre-loaded “Correct” and “Incorrect” rubric items for any multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions. You can add rubric items to these questions if needed; however, editing or deleting these pre-loaded rubric items will interfere with the auto-grading of these questions. To learn more about rubrics, check out our Grading Submission guidance.

Publishing grades

Note that students won’t see their feedback and scores until you publish grades. If you intend for students to see their results for auto-graded questions immediately, you should publish grades from the Review Grades page when you are finished creating the assignment. See the section on Displaying answers immediately above for more on this.

If you’d like students to see the correct answers for each auto-graded question after the due date has passed (even if they did not get the correct answer), you can check the Show answers after due date box on the assignment’s Settings page.

Deleting submissions

Editing an assignment currently leaves any grading on existing submissions alone. To delete a student’s submission, check their score, or see when they started an assignment or last updated their latest submission, head to your Manage Submissions page.

Exporting Submission Data

Exporting assignment submissions

Exporting assignment submissions allows you to export submission data and all of your students' scores and responses, including any files they uploaded with an assignment. 

1. Open your assignment and go to the Review Grades page.
2. Select Export Submissions and then Download Submissions from the modal. 
3. Once downloaded, unzip the submissions.zip file, and you should have a submission_metadata.csv file and, if your assignment had questions with File Upload fields,  a Submission_XXXXX{ID} folder for each student.
4. You’ll receive an email from Gradescope letting you know when the export is ready.

Depending on the assignment size, question types, amount of student submissions, and how many large files students submitted for file upload questions, it may take some time for the export to be ready. 

Viewing exported submission data

• Submission_metadata.csv - contains a spreadsheet of the students’ submission data of each question. Data listed includes submission status, sections, each student’s total assignment score, question data like given question scores, response timestamps for each question, and each student's response for each question. Any file upload questions will contain a text file ID, which you can use to locate the folder of the same name containing the raw file in a student’s submission ID folder.

• Submission_XXXXX{ID} - contains an individual student’s raw files (given a text file ID generated by Gradescope) that they uploaded as a response to any file upload questions in the assignment. The filename of each folder is the student’s submission ID and can be found in the Submission ID column of the submission_metadata.csv. To see a file for a specific question, match text file ID found in the associated Question X Response column of the submission_metadata.csv.