This guide explains assignment settings for instructors to set up assignments in Gradescope to fit their course needs. Some of the settings in this guide are only available to accounts with an institutional license.
In this guide:
- Assignment Types
- Accessing assignment settings
- Assignment Settings
- Assignment name
- Template
- Who will upload submissions?
- Release Date, Due Date, Late Due Date
- Timed assignments
- Extending dates and time limits
- Submission Type
- Template Visibility (Homework, Exams, and Bubble Sheets)
- Advanced Rubric Settings
- Grading Defaults
- Labeled Printouts
- Viewing active assignments
- Linking an assignment or gradebook column from an LMS to Gradescope
Assignment Types
Here is a quick overview of each type:
- Exam / Quiz: An instructor-uploaded assignment where students answer in designated regions.
- Homework / Problem Set: Instructors specify a window of time that students can submit their work. Students upload their work via their phone or computer.
- Bubble Sheet: Using a Gradescope Bubble Sheet template instructors can mark correct answers and have submissions automatically graded.
- Programming Assignment: Instructors can grade student code with autograders or manually grade each submission.
- Online Assignment: Instructors create questions on Gradescope and students can submit responses online.
If you want more details about each assignment type, check out the Assignment Types article.
Accessing an assignment's settings
- To access your assignment settings from the course dashboard:
- Select the three-dot menu next to the assignment.
- Select Assignment Settings.
- To access the settings from within an assignment, select Settings in the left sidebar.
Assignment settings
Assignment name
Gives the assignment a name. If the class or assignment is linked via an LTI 1.3 learning management system integration (LMS) (for example, Canvas or Moodle) the Gradescope assignment name comes from the LMS and can only be changed in the LMS.
Template
The template PDF should be a blank version of your assignment. You'll use the assignment template for Creating an Online Assignment and Creating an Outline for Homework/Problem set assignments.
Students can view and download this the assignment template when students upload their submissions and Template Visibility is enabled. For more information, see the Who will upload submissions? and Template Visibility sections on this page.
Who will upload submissions?
For certain assignment types, you can choose whether instructor or students will upload submissions.
- Instructor - Allows course staff to collect, scan, and upload student work (paper-based quiz).
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Student - Allows students to upload their own work (problem set, lab report, or programming assignment).
Helping students get their work submitted: Instructors can still use the Upload Submission button to upload on behalf of students if needed.
Release Date, Due Date, Late Due Date
For assignment where students upload their work, there are a few extra options to set.
- Release Date - specifies the date and time when students can start submitting their work.
- Due Date - specifies when students will stop being able to submit their work without any late penalties.
- Late Due Date - specifies the final submission deadline for students to submit their work on Gradescope. When students submit after the due date but before the late due date, it will be marked "late".
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Allow late submissions - allows students to submit work after the due date has passed.
You can apply a penalty to late submissions with the submission-specific point adjustment field on the grading page, or by creating a Late Deductions question with its own rubric.
Timed assignments
For some student-uploaded assignments, you can enforce a time limit.
- Maximum Time Permitted - Set a time limit in minutes for students to complete an assignment from the moment they open it. Students must finish within this time after they begin.
For more information on timed assignments, check out our Setting up a timed assignment guide.
Extending dates and time limits
To modify assignment due dates and time limits, check out Extending assignment release dates, due dates, late due dates, and time limits.
You can give extra time to a student for one assignment or all timed ones. To give a student more time on all timed assignments within a course, check out Extending time limits at the course level.
At this time, it's not possible to give a student an extension on all assignment dates in a course at once (release dates, due dates, or late due dates). Instead, we recommend you modify those extensions for the student on each assignment.
Submission Type
Submission Type determines what assignment template students will use to provide their work for the assignment. This setting applies to Exam/Quiz and Homework/Problem Set assignments.
Here are the types you can choose from:
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Variable Length
- Students can upload any number of pages and then pick which pages match each question. This is commonly used for a list of textbook problems or lab reports. This submission type supports PDF and Image uploads.
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Templated (Fixed Length)
- Students are expected to write their answers in specified, outlined regions. This works well for exams and worksheets. Because the location where students will mark their answers are fixed, AI-Assisted Grading is available with this submission type. We only support PDF uploads with this submission type.
Group Submissions
Group submissions allows students to work in groups on an assignment and add members to their submission. Instructors can set the group size and can see group history.
- Group Submissions - Allows students to work in a group and add other students as members to their submission.
When group submissions are permitted:
- Instructors can set a limit for the maximum number of students that can be in a group.
- Instructors can see everyone’s full submission history.
- Students can add or edit group members at any time even after the deadline.
- Alternatively, adding or deleting group members can be done by clicking on the submission from the Manage Submissions page and clicking the Group Members button.
Template Visibility
Choose whether students can view and download the blank assignment template. When students will be uploading their own work on Homework, Exams, and Bubble Sheet assignments, you can edit the Template Visibility setting.
Allow students to view and download the template - Allows students to view and download a blank copy of their assignment on Gradescope after the release date.
Homework / Problem Set and Exam / Quiz assignments - students will be downloading the blank template you uploaded to create your assignment outline.
Bubble Sheet assignments - students will be downloading Gradescope’s blank 200-question template that contains five answer bubbles per question and no question content. You will still need to give students the questions for their multiple choice assignment outside of Gradescope.
Advanced Rubric Settings
Use the Advanced Rubric Settings to customize assignment-wide grading defaults, which include the Changing these settings will apply to any newly created questions. Existing assignment settings won't be changed.
Rubric Permissions
Rubric permissions control which Gradescope staff can add, import, and edit the rubrics for the assignment. Please note that only an instructor can edit these permissions.
- All staff can edit rubrics - Instructors, TAs, and Reader roles can add, import, and edit the rubrics for the course/assignment and grade normally.
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Only instructors can edit rubrics - Only allows instructors to add, import, and edit the rubrics for the course/assignment. All staff can still apply rubrics, point adjustments, comments, and annotations during grading. When selected, the following grading settings are locked for TAs and Readers and can only be edited by an instructor in the course:
- Default Scoring Method
- Default Scoring Bounds
- Create Your Rubric
- Rubric Group Selection Style
- Scoring Method
- Scoring Bounds
- Bubble Sheets Answer Key
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No one can edit rubrics - This setting locks the rubrics and additional grading settings for the assignments within the course. This prevents any staff from adding, importing, and editing the rubrics. All staff can still apply rubrics, comments, and annotations during grading. When selected, the following grading settings are locked:
- Default Scoring Method
- Default Scoring Bounds
- Create Your Rubric
- Rubric Group Selection Style
- Scoring Method
- Scoring Bounds
Rubric Creation
Create rubrics before or during grading. Bubble Sheets and Programming Assignments using an autograder have auto-made rubrics.
- Creating a rubric before student submission (Institutional license feature only)- Once you have finished creating your Assignment Outline, you will be directed to the Create Rubric page. For any questions that do not receive a rubric, you can return to create one later or while grading.
- Creating a rubric while grading - During grading, go to the Grade Submissions tab of the assignment and select a question. A blank rubric is displayed to the right of the submission.
Default Selection Style
Applies to rubric item groups, which is when a question has multiple rubric items to be graded as correct that are batched together. By default, graders can select multiple rubrics items within a group. However, if you want to limit selection to only one item, you can change the selection style. Read more about Rubric Item Groups in Grading Submissions.
- Select one - limits graders to select one rubric item in a rubric group.
- Select many - allows graders to select multiple rubric items from a rubric group.
Grading Defaults
Use grading defaults to customize positive or negative scoring and the score bounds maximum and minimum possible score.
Default Scoring Method
Choose your preferred grading style for the assignment. To set default scoring methods at the course level, which will apply to all new assignments unless overridden in the assignment settings, edit the grading defaults in course settings.
- Positive Scoring - allows you to add points to a score starting from zero to reward correct or complete answers.
- Negative Scoring - allows you to subtract points from a maximum score for errors.
Default Score Bounds
Set score limits for the assignment. These bounds ensure that scores remain within a consistent and expected range during grading.
- Ceiling - sets rubrics to the maximum points for the question, as specified on the assignment outline.
- Floor - sets rubrics to a minimum of 0 points.
Apply these settings to all questions
Select this checkbox to apply specific grading settings uniformly across all questions within an assignment. This is useful when setting up or modifying grading parameters such as the scoring method or score bounds.
Labeled Printouts (Beta)
Use labeled printouts to print unique copies of an assignment for each student. Labeled printouts are available for instructor-uploaded Homework/Problem Set and Exam/Quiz assignments.
- Create Printouts - Creates unique copies of the assignment that you can print and distribute to every student. During grading, Gradescope will use the unique labels to automatically group the pages of each student’s submission together, no matter the order they were scanned or uploaded in.
For step-by-step instructions on this feature, see the Managing Scans for Exam/Quiz Assignments or Managing Scans for Bubble Sheet Assignments. To have this feature added to your courses, please contact help@gradescope.com.
Viewing active assignments
You can see active assignments from your course homepage. An active assignment refers to assignments that are still open and visible to students as well as being graded.
Linking an assignment or gradebook column from an LMS to Gradescope
You can connect assignments to learning management systems like Blackboard, Brightspace (D2L), Canvas, Moodle, and Sakai. Follow steps in the LMS Workflow section or watch a video on the Get Started page.
Check out the LMS Integration video on our Get Started page to see how to connect your LMS to Gradescope and create and link assignments from the Gradescope website.