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Are you using Gradescope to administer an assessment? Use the following links to jump to the desired step in the process.
What is Gradescope?
Gradescope is an assessment and feedback platform that may be used to administer and grade exams, homework, and other assignments. Gradescope integrates seamlessly with your Blackboard course site, so you can click through to review submissions and sync grades with your course's Grade Center. A variety of assessment types is available, and Gradescope may used to deliver assessments remotely or in-person. The the grading process features powerful question recognition and indexing tools that enable instructors to provide better and more timely feedback, resulting in improved learning outcomes.
A few highlights include:
- Various assignment types ranging from fully online with many question types to handwritten, or a combination of the two
- Dynamic rubrics that help streamline the tedious parts of grading while increasing grading consistency and decreasing bias
- AI-assisted grading which allows instructors to automatically group questions by number (rather than by student) and grade all the answers for any given question sequentially
- More timely, quality feedback, resulting in improved learning outcomes
Set Up Gradescope in Your Bb Course
If you haven't used Gradescope in your Blackboard course before, you will need to complete two steps to link it to your course site. The steps in this section only need to be followed once per class (or if there have been changes to the roster). If you have already linked your course and synced the roster, please see Create a Gradescope Assessment, below.
Link the Course
- Log in to Blackboard and navigate to the desired course.
- In your Blackboard course, open Gradescope. The tool link can be found in the following locations:
- Click Tools in the top part of the course menu (not the lower menu's Course Management > 'Course Tools'). On the topmost Tools page, scroll down and click Gradescope.
- Or, click the desired content area (1) in the Course Content menu on the left. Depending on the course, different content areas/folders may be available, such as 'Lessons', 'Assignments', or 'Tests'. In the menu at the top of that page, click Build Content (2) > select Gradescope Assignment (3) from the drop-down menu.
- Gradescope will launch in a new tab, with a dialogue box titled 'Link to University of North Dakota Course'. Here, you can select a Gradescope course to link with your Blackboard course. To create a new one, choose 'A new Gradescope Course'. Then click Link Course to continue
- Depending on which way you opened Gradescope, you will see:
- The Course Settings page - here, you can update the course title, description, rubric types, etc. Note: Adding information is optional. Any changes you make here will only appear in Gradescope, not in Blackboard.
- Or a menu where you can create a new Gradescope assessment. If you start creating an assessment now, you will need to come back and sync your course roster before sharing the assessment with students. If you would like to sync the roster now, click Close to exit this menu.
- Your Blackboard course is now linked to your Gradescope course (you may be prompted to click Update Course to finalize your changes/settings), and you can access it using the link you just created. Students can also access the Blackboard link, so you may wish to hide it until you are ready to share. Now, it's recommended that you sync your roster.
Sync the Course Roster
- Launch your Course Dashboard in Gradescope. If you're continuing from the steps in the section above, you will already be there. If not, log in to your Blackboard course and click any Gradescope link, or click Tools (the higher 'tools' link, not Course Management > 'Course Tools'), then on the Tools page, scroll down and click Gradescope, then click your course's title. This will launch your Course Dashboard in Gradescope.
- On your Course Dashboard, expand Gradescope's left sidebar (if needed) and click Roster to open your course's roster page. On your Roster page, click the Sync University of North Dakota Roster button (in the menu at the bottom of the page).
- A dialogue box will appear. Review the settings – see below for more information.
Sync With University of North Dakota Roster - Information
- All names, emails, and user-roles (like instructor or student) will be auto-synced from Blackboard.
- Section names or numbers will not be carried over from Blackboard, but you can manually add them and other identifying info after you've synced the roster (see Optional Customization note under Step 4).
- By default, Gradescope will email users to say that they've been added to the course. If you don't want users to be notified, un-check "Let new users know that they were added to the course" in the dialog box.
- Click Sync Roster.
- If students add/drop the course in Blackboard/Campus Connection, be sure to re-sync the roster in Gradescope – it will not update to match automatically.
- If you make changes to your roster, existing submissions and grades for dropped students will be preserved in Gradescope.
- See the Adding Students and Staff article more information. If you have any roster-syncing issues, please see Gradescope's Troubleshooting information.
- Optional Customization: To add section names, IDs, etc: After syncing, click Download Roster (on the Gradescope Roster page) to get a roster CSV file > Add your new column of info with a header to the roster CSV > If you want to be able to grade by section, make sure the column header contains the word "section" or "sections" > Click Add Students or Staff (Gradescope Roster page) > Upload the CSV back to Gradescope > Click the + sign on the roster import screen > Select the new column's header name from the drop-down > Click Import. The link with Blackboard and any existing submissions and grades will be preserved as long as emails stayed the same.
Create a Gradescope Assessment
After you have linked your course and synced your roster, you can get started with Gradescope assignments and exams. No matter which type you will be using, you will get started the same way. The steps below will also create a link to the assessment and a column in the Grade Center in your Blackboard course:
- In your Blackboard course, click the desired content area in the Course Content menu on the left. Depending on the course, different content areas/folders may be available, such as 'Lessons', 'Assignments', or 'Tests'. In the menu at the top of that page, click Build Content > select Gradescope Assignment from the drop-down menu.
- The Gradescope integration will open in a new tab. After it launches, you will see a dialogue box where you can decide if you would like to create a new Gradescope assignment or link to an existing one (if you have already created one in this course). If you would like to create a new assessment, click the radio button next to 'A new Gradescope Assignment'. Then, click the Link Assignment button.
- You will be prompted to choose an assignment type (click the titles below to jump to the corresponding section of this article, or scroll down to compare them in the next section, 'Types of Gradescope Assessment'):
- Exam / Quiz - The best option for assessments where students need to provide hand-written answers. They download/print the questions, write on the sheet, then scan /upload the completed assessment for grading in Gradescope. Non-printed options are also available.
- Homework / Problem Set - Instructors may upload an assessment document and use Gradescope to digitally define the regions where they anticipate that students' answers for every question will appear. After the submissions are received, Gradescope helps you grade more efficiently by displaying the questions to the instructor according to their number (so you will see all of the students' answers for question #1, then all of their answers for #2, etc.). You can choose whether students submit their documents individually or in groups – or instructors can manually submit the assessment.
- Bubble-Sheet - Like Scantron exams – Instructors fill out an answer key(s), then blank bubble sheets are printed, filled by students, batch scanned, and graded automatically. Instructors control whether the students or the instructor prints/scans the answer sheets.
- Programming Assignment - Code is submitted via Gradescope, then Instructors can grade each submission manually or use the built-in autograder. You can choose whether students or instructors submit the code.
- Online Assignment (beta) - Best if you want the whole exam to take place online, but also has a hand-written option. Instructors create questions on Gradescope (short answer, free response, multiple choice, select all, and file upload). Students log in and type and submit their answers directly within the Gradescope interface. The 'file upload' question type also allows users to include a hand-written answer by uploading an external file (like a scanned document).
- After you have selected the type of assessment you would like to use, click Next to edit its settings. Follow the prompts to add a name and other information (depending on the assessment type, more or less will be required).
- After you've finished editing the settings information, click Create Assignment. This will take you back to the your Blackboard Content page, where you and your students will now see a direct link to this Gradescope assignment.
Note: If you will be collecting bubble-sheet submissions in person, you may wish to hide this link from students, as they won't need to access it: Find the link you just created and click the grey arrow next to its title, then select Make Unavailable from the drop-down menu.
- Now you can finish setting up your assessment in Gradescope. Click the link you just created in Blackboard, and Gradescope will open in a new tab. See the corresponding section below to complete the assessment setup process.
Types of Gradescope Assessment
Please see the videos and links below to learn more about administering each type of assessment, or see the links below for overall information to help you decide which type of assessment to use:
Exam / Quiz
Instructors administer an assessment, then collect and scan hand-written student work. Students answer each question in designated regions, making it easy to grade – Gradescope will show you each students' answer to any given question in succession. For more information, please see:
Homework / Problem Set
Instructors specify a window of time that students can submit their work. Students upload their work via their phone or computer. For more information, please see:
Bubble-Sheet Assignment / Exam
Similar to Scantron exams. Using Gradescope's bubble sheet template, instructors can mark the correct answers for each question ahead of time, and all student submissions will be automatically graded. For more information, please see:
Programming Assignment
Instructors can automatically grade student code with a custom written autograder and/or manually grade using the traditional Gradescope grading interface. For more information, please see:
Online Assignment (Beta)
Instructors create questions directly on Gradescope. Students will be able to log in and submit responses within the Gradescope interface. For more information, please see:
Grade Submissions
After your students have completed the assessment, you can grade their submissions in Gradescope. Then, scores can then be sent to Blackboard using the instructions under Review Results & Post Grades to Blackboard, below.
- In your Blackboard course, find the assessment link you created and click it to be taken directly to the assignment/test in Gradescope.
- When your assessment is open, expand Gradescope's left sidebar (if it isn't already), and click Grade Submissions.
- At this point, the process depends on the type of assessment. For more information about grading each type of assessment, please see Gradescope's corresponding help page:
Review Results & Post Grades to Blackboard
After you grade the submissions, you can view the results, export data, and send grades to Blackboard, and more using the tools on the Review Grades page.
- On the Grading Dashboard, once you have finished grading submissions, click the Review Grades link to open the next page.
- On the Review Grades page, you can view results for each student (or the whole class), download data, and send grades to Blackboard Grade Center.
Review Grades Page - Information
- Settings - View/edit the assessment template, change upload option (student/instructor), enable anonymous grading, unlink from Bb, change grading settings, and edit rubric style/visibility to students.
- First & Last Name - Click a student's name to view their graded exam or manually re-grade questions.
- Email - compose an email to let students know that their grades are available in Gradescope (optional - send assignment statistics). Click Email to send a message to the whole class, or click any student's email address to send a message to them.
- Viewed? - See which students viewed their grades in Gradescope. To make this accessible to them, use the Publish Grades option, below.
- More - Download a CSV or XLSX (Excel-optimized) file - produces one file listing all student name, email, status (graded/not), score, submission date, number of views, number of attempts, and points awarded per question.
- Export Evaluations - Download CSV (spreadsheet) files - produces multiple files (one file per question) with submission and grading information for each student.
- Export Submissions - Download PDF files - produces multiple files (one file per student) with the submitted answers, points awarded for each question, and total score.
- Post Grades to University of North Dakota - Send grade information from Gradescope to Blackboard Grade Center. Grades will appear in the Grade Center, in the column that was automatically created when you added the assessment link in your Bb Course Content Area. (For more information, please see the LTI 1.3 tab here.)
- Publish Grades - Students will be able to see their grades in Gradescope only by clicking the assessment link in Blackboard (not in the Bb Grade Center, if you want students to see their score in your Bb course > My Grades, use the Post Grades option to send grades to Bb).
- In the menu at the bottom of the page, click Post Grades to University of North Dakota to send the assessment grades to your course's Blackboard Grade Center.
Gradescope Resources for Instructors
To view the complete guide including troubleshooting guidance, please view the Using Gradescope with Blackboard as an Instructor help document. UND uses the LTI 1.3 integration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Getting Help with Gradescope
Gradescope Resources for Students
To view the complete guide including troubleshooting guidance, please view the Using Gradescope with Blackboard as a Student help document.