Creating a Bubble Sheet Assignment

Gradescope’s bubble sheet assignments allow you to create a multiple-choice answer key for the automatic grading of your students’ submissions as they are uploaded. 

In this guide:

• Bubble sheet template
• Creating a bubble sheet assignment
• Assignment Settings
• Creating multiple versions
• Managing uncertain versions

Bubble sheet template

Use Gradescope’s 200-question bubble sheet template for student submissions. The PDF template includes the following fields:

• Name- used for auto-matching uploaded submissions to students on your roster
• ID- student ID, if applicable it can be used for auto-matching uploaded submissions to students on your roster
• Section- enter a section name if applicable
• Date- date the student completed the assignment
• Version- used for the student to mark which version of the assignment they are assigned to
• Other- a field to enter any other information you have requested from your students
• Two hundred answer spaces- provided over two pages; only upload the used pages 

The template cannot be edited to add or remove answer fields or customized to contain question/answer content.You'll need to provide students with a question list and multiple-choice answers outside of Gradescope.

Creating a bubble sheet assignment

Bubble sheet assignments are available with an Institutional license. 

To create a bubble sheet assignment:

1. Access your course dashboard and select Assignments from the left navigation menu.
2. Select the Create Assignment button from the taskbar at the bottom of the page. 
3. Select Bubble Sheet from the list of assignment types and then select Next at the bottom of the page.

Assignment Settings

Next you'll enter the Assignment Settings. Settings for your assignment will change depending on whether submissions are uploaded by an instructor or student.

1. Enter a name for your assignment. 
2. Decide whether to enable anonymous grading to hide identifiable student information.

   We don’t recommend enabling anonymous grading for instructor uploaded assignments to ensure students and their submissions are matched correctly on the Manage Submissions page.    

3. Select whether the submissions will be uploaded by an instructor or by the students themselves. 
   1. If the Instructor is the uploader - select Create Assignmentat the bottom of the page and move on to creating your answer key. 
   2. If the Student is the uploader - move on to step 8 to finish setting up the assignment.

      Are students uploading their own bubble sheet? We recommend they use our Gradescope Mobile App to scan and upload their submission.

4. Set the assignment dates:
   1. Release Date- when the assignment will be available to students
   2. Due Date- the deadline for submissions
   3. (Optional) Late Due Date- allows students to submit after the due date up until the specified date.
   4. (Optional) Time Limit- the maximum time (minutes) permitted for students to complete their assignment.

      Setting a time limit for your students? We suggest sharing the bubble sheet template with your students ahead of time, instruct them to print it, and have the ability to scan it before they start their assignment timer. 

5. If students are submitting on behalf of a group, enable group submissions. 
   1. Limit Group Size- control the maximum number of students that the submitter can link to their submission.
6. Set the template visibility. If enabled, students will be able to view and download Gradescope’s bubble sheet template. 
7. Select Create Assignment to move on to creating your assignment’s answer key. 

Answer Key

On the Answer Key page, allocate the correct answers to each numbered question for your assignment. You can create multiple versions of the same bubble sheet assignment, each having individual answer keys.

Need to start again?Select Clear Answers to revert back to a new answer key. 

Any questions that do not have an allocated answer will not be graded. 

Once you are finished setting up your answer key, select Save Answer Key. You will be directed to the Manage Scans page, where you can upload the submissions.

Points and Scoring

Set the number of points that can be awarded for answering questions correctly. For questions with multiple answers, there are three scoring styles to choose from:

• Exact- Full points are only awarded when all correct answers for the question are selected. 
• Partial- Partial credit is awarded for each correct answer selected. Zero points are awarded if no correct answers are chosen or if any incorrect answers are selected. 
• Either/Or- Full points are awarded when any of the correct answers are selected. Zero points are awarded if no correct answers are chosen or if any incorrect answers are selected. 

The point value and scoring style can be changed for individual questions by selecting the settings cog beside the question number. 

Creating multiple versions

On the Answer Key page, you can create up to five different versions of the assignment by selecting the +Add Version button. Each version can have its own answer key, point value, and scoring settings.

Bubble sheet versioning, or any kind of assignment versioning, is not available for student-uploaded assignments. 

• To delete the last created version, select the red X.

Linking a Bubble sheet assignment with multiple versions to an LMS assignment

When you attempt to link a Bubble sheet assignment with multiple versions to an LMS assignment, you will have several options to choose from. Depending on the version, you can link to the assignment container, unassigned submissions, or to each individual version. Read the example below to know which version best meets your assignment needs.

In the following example, an instructor created a bubble sheet assignment titled “Bubble” and create three versions, version A, B, and C, when trying to link to this assignment from the LMS side, they will see the following four options.  

• Bubble
  • Choose the Bubble option to link the assignment with the version container, which would include all submissions' grades for posting grades, regardless of the version.
• Bubble Unassigned
  • Choose the Bubble – Unassigned option to link just the submissions which aren’t currently assigned to any version--neither version A, B, nor C.
• Bubble Version A or Bubble Version B
  • Choose the Bubble Version A or Bubble Version B options to link an LMS assignment to each of these individual versions.

Scanning and uploading multiple Bubble Sheet versions

If your assignment has multiple versions, instruct your students to mark their version on their answer sheet. Different versions of the same bubble sheet assignment can be scanned together as a single PDF file. You do not need to pre-sort the submissions by version; Gradescope does this automatically.

Managing uncertain versions

If we have been unable to automatically assign a version to a submission, you will be informed on the Manage Submissions page. The number of uncertain versions will be highlighted at the top of the page, and a question mark will be displayed under the Version column for the affected student(s).

Manually assigning a version

All students must be assigned to a submission before you will be able to manually assign a version to a specific submission.

To manually assign a version, select the Uncertain Versions notification. A modal will appear displaying

• the affected students’ names
• an image of the student’s version selection on their submission 
• the estimated scores they would receive with each version’s answer key

Select a version for your affected students and then select Confirm Versions to leave the modal.

Reviewing Uncertain versions

If anonymous grading has been selected for your assignment, the student’s randomized alphanumeric identifier will be displayed instead of their name. Selecting the identifier to view the full submission will display whatever has been written for the student name and may remove that student’s anonymity.