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Marking essays and assignments online with A.nnotate

If you are going paperless, "less paper", or paper-light, then A.nnotate can help with the marking!

A.nnotate provides an easy and efficient way to mark essays and assignments online. Documents can be uploaded or emailed in as PDF file, MS Word documents, or in OpenOffice formats. It can also be integrated with Moodle and other learning management systems to provide feedback for online assignments.

You can select text and add a tag or write a note to give feedback. It is just like using a highlighter pen or writing notes in the margin, except you do it online, from any browser with no software to install.

Several tutors can mark the same document if necessary, even at the same time. And when it is ready, the student can be given access to the annotated on-line version.

A.nnotate is a low-cost standalone system that is easy to use and can be used today for online assessment. It can also be incorporated in existing document management systems - just get in touch for details.

Sign Up Now - all new accounts come with 150 free credits per month (enough for 30 online pages). Find out more... about other ways to use a.nnotate.

The A.nnotate Document annotator runs in the browser. There are no plugins or extra software to install, and it works seamlessly on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. You do not need to wait for Adobe Reader , Acrobat or even Flash to start up as the A.nnotate PDF Annotator simply requires standard web browser technology. Everyone can annotate the same shared read-only copy of the PDF document online, so you can eliminate the usual problems associated with PDF comments - no need to merge and keep track of different edited versions send as attachments.

Other benefits and applications

A.nnotate is not just for online marking - you can use it give or provide feedback on drafts of documents and in everyday web research.

Your Personal Index of Annotations

Annotate text with notes, tags and replies, the a.nnotate pdf annotator displays pdfs in high quality.

Log in with your Gradescope account

Or log in with, deliver and grade your assessments anywhere.

Grade All Subjects

Gradescope supports variable-length assignments (problem sets & projects) as well as fixed-template assignments (worksheets, quizzes, bubble sheets, and exams)..

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Apply detailed feedback with just one click. make rubric changes that apply to previously graded work..

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See question and rubric-level statistics to better understand what your students know. easily export grades and data..

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Return graded assignments with a single click (optional). handle regrade requests online, freeing up office hours..

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Administer and grade online and in-class assessments

• How does Crowdmark work?

Some of our customers include:

Whether you are online, hybrid or back to class, Crowdmark meets all your grading and assessment needs.

See how Crowdmark works for your subject:

Give detailed feedback

Give feedback on each part of a student’s solution (not just the final answer), so students know exactly what they did right or wrong.

Include additional learning resources

Incorporate pdfs, images, graphs, videos, and other resources to enrich feedback and enhance student learning.

Express symbols and equations

Use Markdown and LaTeX to show appropriate equations and notations to facilitate understanding. Both students and instructors can use this feature to illuminate their thought processes.

Attach resources to enrich assessment

Assess group work

Students can work in groups for case studies, presentations, papers, and labs. Assign groups or allow students to form their own groups.. Then, groups submit just one assignment per group.

Give feedback on each part of a student’s solution (not just the final answer), so students know exactly what to focus on.

Use markdown and LaTeX to show appropriate equations and notations to facilitate understanding. Both students and instructors can use this feature to illuminate their thought processes.

Students can attach files to text entry questions to support answers. Files can include coding assignments, presentations, advanced excel calculations and much more.

Download and run code

Students can attach code notebooks and use LaTeX and markdown in text responses. Code is easy to download in bulk to run in other programs.

Why leading institutions choose Crowdmark

How it works

Crowdmark lets you use your existing paper assessments and assignments so you don’t need to re-create anything.

1. Set Up Assessment

Generate and print exam booklets with features like multiple choice or create assignment questions and distribute them to students.

2. Upload Completed Work

Instructors can scan and upload student work or students can upload assignments using mobile phones.

3. Grade and Return

Leave rich feedback with flexible grading tools and share frequently-used comments with your team. Grades can be returned to students online, instantly.

4. Analyse Learning

See detailed information about student performance on each question. You own your data. Extract deeper insights with Crowdmark’s API.

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How to digitally mark students’ schoolwork

Clawing back time taken reviewing work, grading and giving feedback on schoolwork can be a challenging feat for teachers.

Luckily, there are tools for teachers that can make the process a little less painstaking. Marking schoolwork using a digital markup tool like Drawboard PDF can help teachers drive major efficiency wins. Here are some other benefits of marking digitally:

• Digital marking is totally paperless.

The environmental benefits of this are clear; turning one tree into 17 reams of paper releases 50kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. On top of this, the tree is no longer able to absorb a further 32kg of CO2 per year.

For teachers, going paperless also means that some of the classroom budget that would otherwise be used for paper can be allocated to other equipment and classroom necessities.

• Having all of your documents and students’ work on your device or saved to the cloud means you can mark from anywhere without going through the hassle of printing
• Marking digitally also means you can avoid having to carry stacks of students’ work to and from home or wherever you do your marking
• You can easily share marked work directly with students or collaborate on the same documents with students and colleagues

So, what grading tools for teachers are there on Drawboard PDF? Here are 4 ways that teachers can use the free app to review and grade students’ schoolwork.

Using a digital pen

Use your finger or a stylus like the surface pen or Apple pencil to write your notes, give feedback and grade with the feel of pen on paper.

Give feedback with callouts

Insert callouts (PRO) to draw attention to errors, mistakes or to give feedback on particular sections of work.

Highlight errors

Use text highlight to freely highlight text, sections, or pieces of work and spotlight areas that require editing or attention.

Bookmark to never lose where you’re up to

Use bookmarks to indicate where you’re up to. Ensure you never lose your spot so that you can easily resume your marking another time or call attention to a section that requires further review.

Drawboard PDF is a free PDF markup app that teachers can use for grading, giving feedback and marking up students’ schoolwork. Instead of messing around with hundreds of pieces of paper, marking schoolwork with Drawboard PDF means you can keep all of your students’ work in a centralised location, either saved locally on your device or on the cloud so that you can access it from anywhere. Your progress will be synced across devices meaning you can do your marking from your desktop, continue it on a tablet and review on your phone. Helping you work faster and better.

Click here to get started with Drawboard PDF for free.

About Drawboard

We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste. Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight. Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams. At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.

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GradeMark for online marking of assignments

Keywords: Turnitin, GradeMark, efficiency. 

Faculty: Education

Lecturer and researcher Donna Rooney initially started using Turnitin when she was a casual tutor for the Bachelor of Adult Education and the Bachelor of Arts in Organisational Learning. She had previously been copying and pasting phrases into Google that she thought might have been plagiarised, but this process was time-consuming. She found that Turnitin made originality checks relatively straightforward. Donna's marking workload increased considerably when she began teaching full-time, resulting in as many as 290 submissions to mark in the final week of session. To cope with the larger number of assignments, Donna began to use Turnitin for marking as well as monitoring for plagiarism. Donna felt that the time she took in setting up Turnitin for her classes paid off, especially as she improved gradually by using the program. She found that while her colleagues were still struggling with marking, she was getting incrementally faster and her students were still getting the feedback they needed to get better at the task for their next assignment. 

Assessment activity

Benefits for staff and students, hints and advice.

• The combination of a marked-up paper, rubric and voice comments are what students really appreciate. 
• When marking up the student paper use a variety of coloured highlighters, so that students get a clear picture of how to improve their work.
• Give students a lot of detailed feedback on their first assessment task and then reduce the number of comments until their final assessment task has a few general observations.
• Think of the time you put in setting up the system, like developing criteria, as an investment that pays off at the end just as other people start pulling their hair out under the pressure of end-of-session marking.

Photo credit: Chris Shain

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Learning and Teaching

• Assessment & Feedback

How to mark an Assignment online in Moodle

Preparing to grade an assignment.

Before beginning marking it’s important to understand how your assignment has been setup, so that you can ensure that you are not showing marks and feedback to students before you are ready for them to see them .

By default, Moodle assignments hide grades and feedback from students through the ‘Marking Workflow’ option.

When you create an Assignment, the ‘Marking Workflow’ setting will be enabled. This automatically hides any marks and feedback that you upload for students until you take specific steps to release the marks and feedback. This is a ‘safer’ option for the requirements of most Teachers .

Guidance on  releasing Marks and Feedback, and sending a notification to students  with a few clicks, using marking workflow can be found below.

If you prefer instead to turn off the marking workflow option you can do so within the Assignment’s settings, under the ‘Grade’ settings.  Note that doing this will mean that any marks and feedback added to Moodle will be immediately visible to students!

If you have turned off Marking Workflow, but you  also  don’t want students to see marks and feedback as soon as they are uploaded, you will need to hide the Assignment link and Gradebook item until you are ready to reveal the marks and feedback.

The guidance below shows how to turn off Marking Workflow (if you wish) and how to hide the Assignment link and Gradebook item:

• Find your Assignment and select Settings

• Scroll down to ‘ Grade ’ settings and expand them
• Set  use marking workflow  to  no
• Save changes

Note: Any marks and feedback you add will now be immediately visible to students!

To manually hide marks and feedback from students you will need to hide the Assignment’s  Gradebook item  and the  Assignment link  (which is often not practical where there are late submissions)

To hide the Gradebook item:

• Go to the  Course Homepage  and choose the Grades tab
• From the Grader Report drop-down menu, choose Gradebook Setup .

• In the row for the Assignment that you wish to hide, in the  Actions  column, choose  Edit  then  Hide .

• Save Changes .
• The Gradebook item will now appear to be greyed out to show that it is not visible to students.

To hide the Assignment link from students:  

• Navigate to the Assignment and, from its  Edit  drop-down menu, choose  Hide .

• You can now begin marking.

Note : When are ready to release marks and feedback to students, don’t forget that you’ll need to make the  Gradebook item  and  Assignment  link visible again.

Lock submissions to prevent changes

Before you begin marking it’s a good idea to lock submissions. This will prevent students from making any changes to their submissions once marking is underway. To do so, navigate to your Assignment and View all submissions .

• Tick the box at the top of the ‘select’ column to select all user submissions.
• From the ‘ With selected…’ drop-down menu choose Lock Submissions .

Note: If you have a large number of students you will need to select the option under the table to ‘show all students on one page’.

Moodle grading interface overview

Moodle has a built-in grading interface that allows you to annotate student assignments, add summary comments and award marks. Student submissions are displayed in PDF form and include a link to the Ouriginal similarity report (where activated).

The image below gives an overview of the built-in grading interface:

• Use the next and previous arrows to move to the next page of the student’s document or choose a page from the drop-down menu.
• Add an annotation to comment (with option to choose background colour).
• Use the arrow tool to select, move or delete existing annotations.
• Other tools such as the pen (squiggly line) for free form drawing or writing, shape tools, line, highlighter)
• Stamp tool/x tool.
• Anchor for an annotation (if you hover over it, it expands to reveal the annotation)
• An annotation
• Click the sub-menu icon in annotation (top right corner) to delete or add annotation to a ‘quicklist’ for the assignment).
• Use navigation to see Previous/Next student’s assignment or filter.
• Add grade here in the right-hand pane.
• Summary feedback can be entered here
• Don’t forget to save any changes made!
• Click to cycle through the options for screen layout

The video below provides an introduction to the grading interface, shows how to annotate student scripts, view Ouriginal reports and award marks. It also details how you can lift anonymity (where anonymous marking is being used) at the end of the marking process.

Marking Assignments Online

Marking a Group Assignment

Where one student has uploaded a file on behalf of her Group, the file will appear against all Group members, and any of these can be marked. On the individual student grading page, an option to ‘ Apply grade and feedback to all members of group ’ will appear. If ticked the grades and feedback will be applied to all group members. 

Allocate Assignments to another Marker

You can use the  Marking Allocation  feature to assign student submissions to a specific marker in your Moodle space.

• Marking allocation  – this allows allocation of markers to work after the deadline.  Marking allocation  depends on  Marking workflow  being enabled.

Marking Workflow  and  Marking Allocation  must be enabled in your assignment settings.

Once these have been enabled, you can allocate assignments to a marker.

• Click on your Assignment link
• Click on  View all submissions

• Tick the box to the left of the student whose assignment you want to allocate, then choose  Set allocated marker  and click  Go .
• At the prompt click  Ok , then on the next page select your allocated marker from the drop-down menu and click  Save Changes .

How to lift anonymity in an Assignment

If you are using Anonymous Marking (blind marking) in Moodle, once you have completed marking, it is necessary to lift anonymity in order to release grades to the Gradebook. Please note that lifting anonymity can only be done once, (you cannot return the assignment to an anonymous state once it has been lifted), so ensure that you have completed all marking before going ahead. 

To lift anonymity.

• Click on the assignment link, then click on  View all submissions
• From the grading actions menu choose  Reveal student identities:

This video also shows the process for lifting anonymity: https://uniofbath.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=dbdb18a7-e4f2-40af-a7fe-acd800a3803c&start=0

Lifting Anonymity

Related Articles

• Anonymous marking in Moodle
• Advanced Grading in Moodle
• Group Peer Review for Teachers
• How to mark an Assignment offline and upload feedback
• Using Ouriginal
• How to create an Assignment

Article Contents

• Online Assessment, Grading, and Feedback , Online Education

The Online Educator’s Complete Guide to Grading Assignments, Part 1

• May 1, 2012
• Errol Craig Sull

Students know that in any online course assignments will be required, and students expect the online educator to read the assignments and give feedback that can help them improve their understanding of the subject and improve grades on future assignments in the course. All instructors give feedback—but there is an approach to grading assignments that is merely okay, and another that involves grading mini lessons in the subject matter while also motivating the students to do better. It is this latter approach that must be practiced so that the student can do the maximum learning in the online environment.

The following suggestions (broken into two parts: outside the assignments, i.e., for the course in general, and inside the assignments, i.e., approaches to grading each major assignment) will ensure that you offer students the most useful and positive grading.

Post a worksheet that helps students view your online assignment comments. Many students are new to online courses, and thus have not had experience with assignments being marked and graded online. This could translate into students not having their computers correctly set so they can see your reviewing/tracking feature comments. To minimize this problem, post a sheet—on day one—somewhere in class that students can always access, to give them instructions on how to properly set their computers to view your comments.

Send the students an email indicating that you expect the first assignment grade to be their lowest of the course. Students are often shocked by their first grades in a course, especially if they are new to college, new to the subject (or have not taken a course in the subject for quite some time), and/or you are the type of instructor who is especially thorough. These low grades can be discouraging, but you can offset this by posting an announcement that lets students know you expect their first grades to be the worst in the course (as they have not had prior feedback or assistance from you), and that what is most important in your course is their overall improvement. Further, tell the students that rather than being upset by the grade they should use it as a guide to help them improve. Add that you are not concerned about it because you know the students will simply build on it and become better.

Be sure there are ample resources available to assist students throughout the course. Students will have textbooks and other course-mandated resources, but anything additional you can add to help students understand their lessons in the course, and thus give them as much information as possible to do quality assignments, is a huge plus. Remember that any course set up by a school offers information for the general class; it is you, the instructor, who can augment these resources through additional readings, helpful websites, audio/video clips, and other items that offer additional insights, explanations, and information on the subject(s).

Prior to each upcoming major assignment, post motivational and reminder announcements. Start off each week or session prior to the next major assignment with an announcement, using an audio file such as .mp3 or creating audio using NanoGong, to personalize your concerns and interests in students doing well. This message reminds students of major errors you have seen in the most recent assignment, your suggestions for doing well on the next assignment, and the connection between this academic assignment and their real world of work. This last item is especially important, as it is a nice link between what may seem like work to merely get a grade and preparation to enhance their efforts in the professional workplace.

No matter how clear and detailed your comments, expect students to write “I-don’t-get-it” emails. You could win a Nobel Prize for assignment feedback clarity and students will always write to you about how they are confused, don’t understand, or need more clarification. This is a great thing, actually, and seldom has anything to do with your feedback not being good enough. Rather, you have students who really are interested in improving, to the point that they want to fully understand what you’ve pointed out. These students have taken the time to ask for more feedback (with some exceptions, the ones who really don’t care are not going to take the time to ask for additional assistance). Even if the student’s primary reason for asking is to receive a good final grade in the course, this gives you an opportunity to teach a bit more. So be sure to respond to the student in a timely manner by email, audio message, or phone.

Note: Part 2 of this article will appear on Thursday.

Errol Craig Sull has been teaching online courses for 17 years and has a national reputation in the subject, and in writing about and conducting workshops on distance learning. He is currently putting the finishing touches on two online-teaching books.

Excerpted from Teaching Online with Errol: The Online Educator’s Complete Guide to Grading Assignments. Online Classroom (April 2011): 6,8.

• Errol Craig Sull has been teaching online courses for more than 15 years and has a national reputation in the subject, both writing and conducting workshops on it. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his next book—How to Become the Perfect Online Instructor.

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Revolutionize Your Writing Process with Smodin AI Grader: A Smarter Way to get feedback and achieve academic excellence!

For Students

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Deviation from real grade (10 point scale)

Graph: A dataset of essays were graded by professional graders on a range of 1-10 and cross-referenced against the detailed criteria within the rubric to determine their real scores. Deviation was defined by the variation of scores from the real score. The graph contains an overall score (the average of all criterias) as well as each individual criteria. The criteria are the premade criteria available on Smodin's AI Grader, listed in the graph as column headings. The custom rubrics were made using Smodin's AI Grader custom criteria generator to produce each criteria listed in Smodin's premade criterias (the same criteria as the column headings). The overall score for Smodin Premade Rubrics matched human scores 73% of the time with our advanced AI, while custom rubrics generated by Smodin's custom rubric generator matched human grades 82% of the time with our advanced AI. The average deviation from the real scores for all criteria is shown above.

* Rubrics created using Smodin's AI custom criteria matched human scores 82% of the time on the advanced AI setting. Smodin's premade criteria matched human scores 73% of the time. When the AI score differed from the human scores, 86% of the time the score only differed by 1 point on a 10 point scale.

** The AI grader provides 100% consistency, meaning that the same essay will produce the same score every time it's graded. All grades used in the data were repeated 3 times and produced 100% consistency across all 3 grading attempts.

AI Feedback

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Elevate your essay writing skills with Smodin AI Grader, and achieve the success you deserve with Smodin. the ultimate AI-powered essay grader tool. Whether you are a student looking to improve your grades or a teacher looking to provide valuable feedback to your students, Smodin has got you covered. Get objective feedback to improve your essays and excel at writing like never before! Don't miss this opportunity to transform your essay-writing journey and unlock your full potential.

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As a teacher or as a student, writing essays can be a daunting task. It takes time, effort, and a lot of attention to detail. But what if there was a tool that could make the process easier? Meet Smodin Ai Grader, the best AI essay grader on the market that provides objective feedback and helps you to improve your writing skills.

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Traditional grading methods can often be subjective, with different teachers providing vastly different grades for the same piece of writing. Smodin eliminates this problem by providing consistent and unbiased feedback, ensuring that all students are evaluated fairly. With advanced algorithms, Smodin can analyze and grade essays in real-time, providing instant feedback on strengths and weaknesses.

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Smodin can analyze essays quickly and accurately, providing detailed feedback on different aspects of your writing, including structure, grammar, vocabulary, and coherence. By identifying areas that need improvement and providing suggestions on how to make your writing more effective, if Smodin detects that your essay has a weak thesis statement, it will provide suggestions on how to improve it. If it detects that your essay has poor grammar, it will provide suggestions on how to correct the errors. This makes it easier for you to make improvements to your essay and get better grades and become a better writer.

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For teachers, Smodin can be a valuable tool for grading essays quickly and efficiently, providing detailed feedback to students, and helping them improve their writing skills. With Smodin Ai Grader, teachers can grade essays in real-time, identify common errors, and provide suggestions on how to correct them.

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For students, Smodin can be a valuable tool for improving your writing skills and getting better grades. By analyzing your essay's strengths and weaknesses, Smodin can help you identify areas that need improvement and provide suggestions on how to make your writing more effective. This can be especially useful for students who are struggling with essay writing and need extra help and guidance.

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Grade assignments with this free annotation tool

Provide feedback on student work anywhere from any device.

There are many tools to aid teachers with their professional development and help their students achieve academic success. One handy tool that educators can use to facilitate student understanding in the physical, hybrid, and virtual classroom is the PDF annotation tool . 

How can annotation tools help in online learning?

An annotation tool allows educators to quickly give feedback on student submissions saved in PDF format and return their work in a few clicks. It eliminates the need to print out assignments and return the marked copies in person, making it a ‘must-have’ for remote or hybrid learning.

Free PDF Editor Software like iLovePDF provides instructors with easy annotation tools to markup and add short comments to PDF files inside an intuitive grading interface. Being available online and downloadable on iOS and Android , you can use the tool to markup file submissions with precise feedback on any device. 

Option 1: Markup file submissions online

If you need to mark an essay, group project, or a short homework assignment, just upload the file to iLovePDF’s online Edit PDF tool . Its PDF viewer displays the PDF file to be graded. Then, directly from the annotations toolbar, you can access a range of PDF marking tools including options to:

• Add direct text to PDF file submissions to give short feedback. You can change the transparency, font size, and style.
• Make handwritten notes on schoolwork using the draw feature with your mouse or touchpad. You can also adjust the pen width and color.
• Create your own arrows or callout boxes using lines and shapes.
• Grade schoolwork by inserting check marks, cross symbols, and emoticons.

To start grading assignments online, head directly to iLovePDF’s Edit PDF tool and upload your first PDF file.

Read and navigate school work with ease

For a user-friendly experience, iLovePDF’s Edit PDF tool includes built-in features to facilitate marking. To help you view and navigate through student submissions, you will find the following options in the toolbar:

• Pan mode . Click on the hand icon to easily move through different sections of the individual submission pages. 
• Zoom feature . Select the magnifying glass icon to zoom in on specific paragraphs or elements in the document. When you have finished annotating a section, simply click on the zoom-out icon to continue grading the rest of the assignment.

Option 2: Highlight and add notes to school work on iOS/Android

Looking for more advanced annotation options? iLovePDF also has an extensive mobile application equipped with professional markup tools for educators. You can use the app wherever you go to:

• Highlight text in different colors to draw attention to words that need correcting
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• Add or erase handwritten comments using the draw and eraser tools

The iLovePDF Mobile App is compatible with iOS and Android devices so that you can add comments on student work directly from your personal smartphone or tablet.

To start marking college assignments on the move, download the iLovePDF Mobile App in the App Store or Google Play .

Get file submissions marked in record time

Be it for online learning or a helping hand in the physical classroom, a reliable annotation tool can help teachers save heaps of time and be more efficient. For any assignment your student submitted in the Portable Document Format, iLovePDF makes it possible for you to annotate PDF files at your convenience.

Need more tools to facilitate teaching?

To enhance the learning experience, iLovePDF offers a range of different educational technology tools to empower teachers and students.

If you are looking for more ways to optimize teaching and communicate more effectively in the virtual classroom, you could start by reading our post, How to improve parent-teacher communication with e-signing . Or, click on the button below to begin marking schoolwork using iLovePDF’s free PDF Editor.

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Helping Educators Thrive and Lead with Excellence Online

Dr. Bethanie Hansen  

Educator and Coach

#26: Strategies for Effectively Grading Online Assignments

by Dr. Bethanie Hansen | Oct 7, 2020 | Best practices , Podcast , Teaching Online , Time Managment

This podcast and article were originally published on  Online Learning Tips.Com.

The COVID-19 pandemic  created a major shift in U.S. education . K-12 schools, colleges and universities switched from in-person classes to online education, a transition which was  challenging for many instructors and school administrators .

Grading assignments in online classes can be difficult and time-consuming due to the high workload and lack of support that’s often found in traditional classrooms. In this podcast, Dr. Bethanie Hansen provides a comprehensive strategy for online teachers to effectively grade assignments. Learn about FOCUS-EQx2, a teaching strategy to help online instructors streamline their grading and manage their time so they can provide students with effective comments, feedback, and evaluation.

Read the Transcript

Dr. Bethanie Hansen : This podcast is for educators, academics, and parents who know that online teaching can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, engaging, and fun. Welcome to the Online Teaching Lounge. I’m your host, Dr. Bethanie Hansen, and I’ll be your guide for online teaching tips, topics and strategies. Walk with me into the Online Teaching Lounge.

If you’ve taught in traditional settings, traditional on-the-ground universities in live classes, you’ve likely used a lot of different approaches to grading your students’ work. Here are some that might be missing when you’re online teaching.

First of all, in a live class — especially at larger universities — there might be a testing center. A testing center is a place where your students can go — their identity is verified, they are monitored to ensure they’re doing the work honestly and without tools, notes, or other items, and then the answers might be run through an automation that grades it. For most online teaching, there is no testing center, especially if your students live far from the university or the college.

You might have a second tool like teachers’ assistants who took your class previously and now they’re back because you trust them. And those teaching assistants might’ve taken attendance or collected assignments and graded students’ work for part of the class or even much of the class. Teaching assistants have lightened the load for faculty to focus on teaching strategies and methods, so you can help your students learn most effectively.

Teaching assistants are largely absent in online education. I’ve seen some universities try this approach, and there are a few pilots out there doing it. But it really is a lesser-known model in online higher education, so it’s unlikely that you have a teacher’s assistant helping you grade your work.

Thirdly, you might’ve had peer-evaluation practices. On an assignment, this might help everyone improve and you might use an entire class session where students do sort of a workshop together. And when students see the assignment from an evaluator standpoint, they take on a new perspective and they might make some more connections to the subject matter.

Peer evaluations can be a really great way to help students improve their work while they’re lifting your grading load. And usually, this activity is done in real time and you’re guiding it and telling them what to do with each other and what to look for.

Now, this can be done online, but it does require a lot more guidance to be done well. That’s helpful to know; peer evaluation might not be totally absent, but it’s not as strong of a practice.

In your online teaching, it’s very possible that you’re missing these elements and so your grading load is a little bigger, but also we have the physical demand. And instead of writing just a few comments or a grade on the paper, giving it back to the student face-to-face, and talking about the general strengths and areas for growth to an entire class when they’re seated right in front of you, all that you need to tell the student must be typed on the essay.

It actually has to be typed somewhere, unless you’re using a really innovative strategy of providing something like video feedback, which can also be time-consuming. So there is a physical demand involved in online grading.

And lastly, the truth, right? Some teachers just don’t like grading, and it’s easy to put off. If you’re a person who dislikes grading and when you get a large number of assignments all at once, it can feel like a huge task to evaluate them quickly and to get them back to your students in a timely way.

Managing that time and the work of doing it is very challenging if your favorite part of teaching is the class, the face-to-face stuff where you’re helping others explore the subject.

With all of this said, I want to dive into the idea of effective online grading. And I’m going to give you a strategy today that I hope will really help you rein it in, put some limits on this and make it more manageable for you.

The problem is that grading assignments and online classes can be difficult and time-consuming. And if you’re typically a face-to-face teacher and now you’re teaching online, it’s also a big mindset change. There’s a lot that’s different about this.

Now, at a basic level, the work your students are going to submit does need some kind of grading and evaluation from you as the instructor, and this grading needs to be clear. There are a lot of different ways you might grade things, which could include rubrics, grading to a standard or a set of standards. You might have a pass/fail type of grade depending on the item, grading on a curve, and there’s also holistic grading.

Whatever approach you’re going to use, your students just need to know it up front before they submit their work. And they need to receive your grading clearly tied to whatever method or model you’re using.

For example, if you’re using standards in your grading, you would want to include these standards in the assignment description so students know it. If you use a rubric, you would provide a copy to students with the assignment description and then return a marked-up rubric with the graded assignment so they can see their performance in each area.

Understanding your grading is the most important thing here because if you give a student a B, or a C, or a D or whatever on their assignment, they definitely need to know how they earned it, why they got that grade, what they need to improve in the future, and so forth. All the different information that you need to give your students is in your grading and evaluation process.

For anyone who normally teaches live classes in higher education, when you begin teaching online and students are not coming to campus, your experience is missing a lot of those supports that used to be there to minimize the grading workload and to make it a lot easier.

Your online teaching experience is basically asking for much more from you in the grading and evaluation of students’ work. This is why grading assignments for online classes can be difficult and time-consuming, especially if you compare it to traditional experiences I’ve just described.

You might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed with the way your workload has changed and maybe some of the ways you need to evaluate your students’ work.

So let’s look at what will happen if you don’t give students the clear grading and evaluation of their work. First of all, they’re going to continue to make mistakes, or they will fail to grow in their learning. It’s difficult for a student to know if they’re even on track when they don’t get feedback. And of course, there’s the possibility that they will complain that you are not helping them, and they will eventually appeal the grades you give them and the final grade for the course.

Your grading and evaluation must be supported and without support, it’s very difficult to defend it. What will happen if you’re too thorough? Have you ever been too thorough when evaluating your online students’ work? I know I have, especially early in the game when I was first learning how to do this.

And if you’re too thorough, this takes a lot more time, and it can be overwhelming when you have many classes to teach and a lot of assignments to grade. Ultimately when you’re teaching online, you need some kind of strategy and you need a few tools to help you give your students effective, genuine guidance through your grading and evaluative feedback. And you need a system that’s going to help you have efficiency while you’re doing it.

Today, I’m sharing a strategy for grading online students that I’m calling “FOCUS-EQx2.” This strategy is going to help you effectively move through a student’s assignment while you provide the evaluation and feedback. The FOCUS-EQx2 strategy is going to give you specific areas to look at for truly effective grading, and it will help you focus your evaluation overall.

Now in a future episode, I’m also going to tell you about a few tools to help you become more efficient so that you can manage your time well and create a system that works for you. So we’re not talking about tools today; we’re talking about strategy.

Now, let’s dive into this strategy. I’ve been an educator for 25 years, and I’ve taught online for more than 10 years in higher education. I’ve managed hundreds of faculty at an entirely online university in two different schools and in six different departments.

I’m only sharing this background with you today so you know that there are a few details about my background really pertinent to this topic, and I have some perspective on these teaching topics and particularly grading. When I’m managing faculty, one of my roles is to evaluate them and I’m often looking at the quality of their grading and the type of grading they provide.

Now, I want to tell you a little bit about my early experience when teaching online. I struggled to know what I should include in grading comments. I really wanted to help students and I evaluated essays and pretty soon I was putting a lot on there.

It seemed to take me just a lot of time, and it was a lot of effort to provide all of those comments. Some were about grammar and writing and some were about the content and some were about the way things were organized, but it was really just all over the place. So I was making a lot of comments and thinking about a lot of different areas of grading all at once.

And I’ll give you an example of why this was such a big deal. I had one eight-week upper division writing class that I was teaching, and it had one written assignment every week. Each assignment built on each other until the final Week 8 essay, which was a 10-page paper.

Now, all of these assignments needed comments and guidance from me on the paper itself, and they all built on each other leading into that paper, so the feedback was critical. Now that final 10-page paper also needed detailed feedback. You can imagine with very many students this is a large load of grading, right?

Every week, this feedback had to be returned quickly. I was teaching several other online classes at the same time and I sat for hours at the computer; I found it to be really challenging. There were some really late nights and giving all of this evaluation was taking away from time I wanted to be putting into other parts of my teaching, like being in discussions and sending messages to less active students and all those kinds of things, and maybe even making some instructor videos or creative announcements or things like that.

I asked a colleague for tips about how to make this more effective; I really wanted to focus my strategy. She suggested looking at a few key areas and doing them well, and she listed them for me and I started to do them.

Since then, I’ve added to that strategy and it has made my grading so much more effective. This is going to reduce your overwhelming grading load, it really is, and it reduced mine. It also gave me a lot of focus to the process and made the whole practice of giving effective feedback much more streamlined and much more effective.

The strategy can easily be remembered through this acronym: FOCUS-EQx2.

Focus stands for formatting, organization, content, understanding and support. And EQ stands for editing quality, and it also stands for evaluation and qualitative comments. There are two EQs in this strategy and that’s why I’m calling it EQx2.

As you begin to read your student’s paper, you’re going to notice that each area of the FOCUS-EQx2 strategy is going to change. It’s going to be based on and the type of assignment that you’re looking at.

For example, if you have a formal essay or a research paper, we’re going to use all of these areas in detail. And if you’re a grading a multimedia assignment or just a short written reflection, maybe you’re only going to use a few of them.

Regardless, it doesn’t really matter what kind of assignment, having a helpful strategy like this is just going to help you keep yourself organized and avoid getting runaway with just one part of this process or ignoring things that you should really pay attention to.

Let’s talk first about formatting. For each assignment, your students are going to submit, there’s some kind of formatting involved. These are things like the appearance of the assignment and the heading that might be used, the way sources are formatted at the end, how the spacing is between the lines, those kinds of things.

To evaluate the formatting, you can just scan the visual appearance of the assignment. And if that paper should be double-spaced or have a heading in a certain spot, or maybe it needs to use a style like APA or MLA or Chicago, you can add a brief note to commend the student for their excellent formatting or give some guidance about their errors and how to fix them next time.

It’s really important to give this kind of feedback about formatting because we want students to keep learning throughout their education. And we also want them to know what academic writing or different formats that you might be asking them for should look like.

The truth is formatting is very superficial; it’s a really small part of any assignment and you shouldn’t overdo it here. You just want to give it some attention, make a comment, keep it brief and move on quickly.

Second, look at organization. As you start to read through your student’s assignment, you’re going to look for the way the information and the ideas are organized. You’re going to give some feedback here. And in the case of something like a formal essay, maybe the paper usually begins with a paragraph that introduces the topic.

That’s going to give some kind of thesis that tells the main point or the argument or the claim that you’re going to read about in the paper. There’s going to be a body paragraph or many body paragraphs, and each paragraph should be clearly about a topic or an idea that’s organized in a way that makes sense.

Most of the paragraphs in the essay should have a topic sentence at the beginning and the topic sentence really just tells what’s in that paragraph. At the end, there should be a closing paragraph or a conclusion that ties it all together, restates the main point, and brings the important ideas to bear.

When you look over the assignment to evaluate organization, thinking about this kind of structure, all you need to do is look at the opening paragraph and read the first sentence of each body paragraph, and then read the last paragraph to see the organization.

If you can’t find the flow of the topics or really get an idea for what the student is writing about just by reading the topic sentences, then there’s probably a problem with the overall organization of that assignment or essay.

Here you might need to make a suggestion. Maybe you want to suggest using topic sentences in the paragraphs, or you might have bigger advice to give about the overall way that the paper is laid out and organized. Either way, the organization will either be very clear or somewhat unclear, and you can give some commentary and some feedback about that without dwelling on it too long.

The third area is content. This is, of course, one of the bigger parts that you will be evaluating and this is what the student actually addressed. Did they use the right topic, for example? Did they use the academic words they’re supposed to be using? We call that academic vocabulary.

For example, if I’m teaching a music appreciation class, are they using words like tempo, dynamics, form? Are they using those words correctly? Are they actually giving enough description that I can tell what they’re describing? Is the scope of what was covered appropriate to what should have been covered?

Now, that area you want to really focus on because that is the main point of the assignment, right? To cover the content and the next couple of areas, understanding and support.

So when you start to make comments on the content you can do this by way of suggestion, you can make a statement; you can note where they actually covered the key points that you’re looking for. Either way, there should be some kind of comments you’re providing your student about the content.

The fourth area, the understanding, now this is where you’re going to find out the student’s ideas. There are many, many areas that they might go into.

For example, a student might describe something; they might discuss it. They might have analysis that they’ve created. They might make connections between two different ideas. They might show how they demonstrated their understanding and learning through what they’ve written, but what they understand about the topic that they’ve written about, it must be obvious and it needs to be clear.

If you have a student who is taking a lot of sources, they’re paraphrasing and they’re quoting a lot and there’s just not a lot of content they wrote, it’s very difficult to see what they understood. This area could be missing entirely or it might be incredibly pervasive throughout the whole assignment, but you want to look for understanding and evaluate it and give some feedback about that as well.

And then lastly, the support. Support is a tricky area. This is the details, the examples and evidence that were used to support their ideas. And it also includes sources — how they were used, how and where they were included — and potential plagiarism.

If a student uses a lot of supports without citing them and quoting them and all of that kind of thing and if it shows up high on your originality checker, whether it’s SafeAssign or Turnitin or something else, you definitely want to address that. Coach students, if necessary. Deal with the plagiarism concerns and so forth, so support is both about ideas and also about sources.

As you review each area, you want to find a way to at least evaluate and give a little comment about those things. You’re coaching the student in their academic learning, but you’re also mentoring them somewhat in the subject itself.

Now after you’ve reviewed focus, formatting, organization, content, understanding and support, the next area is the EQx2. And this is the editing and quality, and finally the evaluation and qualitative comments.

The editing would be just notes that you might make about writing errors. For example, if you think they’re not using capital letters, if they’re using texting lingo, if they talk about themselves in first person but it should be in third person. If there are just run-on sentences or fragments, things like that, I always suggest marking a few of them in the beginning paragraphs and not dwelling on them throughout the rest. It will take all of your time if you spend time editing a student’s paper; that’s not your job.

If you use something like Grammarly or if you use the features in Turnitin’s GradeMark suite, there is an editing area there and you can actually have students find the editing mistakes themselves. If there are a lot of errors you want to make some kind of comment about that, and you might even direct them to writing help or a tutor if those things are available to you.

The quality is the writing quality. So that also has to do with their tone, their language, the way they’ve presented their writing overall, and again, if necessary, a comment or two could be made there.

Now in the evaluation and qualitative comments, I consider these to be the summary comments you would give at the end of the assignment. So all the rest of these things that I’ve mentioned would be given on the body of an essay or an assignment, or depending on your learning management system you might actually have the ability to highlight, tag, or put little notes next to the paper.

There’s a lot that can be done nowadays in a learning management system, but also in Turnitin’s GradeMark suite. Or if you really want to download the student’s paper in Microsoft Word and just use track changes and put reviewer’s comments and bubbles on it, you could do that as well.

All of the things I’ve covered so far under focus would be brief comments made on the actual assignment. These last two, evaluation and qualitative comments, those could be done at the top of the essay or assignment just in a paragraph. Or they could be done in the grading feedback box when you’re returning this assignment to the student.

The evaluation is your overall statement about the essay. What did they do well, and where do they need to improve?

What did they do well is really important. As faculty and as teachers, it’s really easy for us to always be looking for mistakes. That’s also the default of the human brain; it’s a problem-solving machine so we’re often looking for what’s wrong.

When you give your evaluation, be sure to say something that was strong in the paper, even if it was only the topic choice and is a very weak paper overall. Give some encouragement through that evaluation, but also be specific and tell them what the main area is to focus on for improvement.

And then, the closing is the qualitative comments. That’s part of your summary and that would just be your pros, what you’re writing to the student. You want to say something encouraging and close it and wish them the best on the next assignment and move on.

When you use this method of FOCUS-EQx2 a few times, at first it’s going to take a lot more thought and effort to touch on each area, but soon this strategy is going to give you the effective grading and evaluation that you’re really looking for to help your students the most.

You also want to give structure in your approach to keep it organized and help your time stay in check, and this FOCUS-EQx2 strategy will do that for you. Although your online teaching asks a lot more of you in grading and evaluation detail, this is also an area where you can keep teaching and keep getting to know your students.

I encourage you this week to try the FOCUS-EQx2 strategy on your next round of grading, and I wish you all the best in your online teaching.

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Assessment Marking Tools: Streamlining Grading for Educators

Unlocking the Power of Assessment Marking Tools in Education

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, educators constantly seek ways to enhance the teaching and learning experience. One critical aspect of this journey is efficient and effective grading. Fortunately, the introduction of assessment marking tools has transformed the way teachers evaluate students’ work. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the world of Assessment Marking Tools, the reasons they matter, key features to consider, top tools in the market , and the promising future that lies ahead.

Understanding Assessment Marking Tools

Assessment marking tools, also known as grading software or evaluation tools, have become a teacher’s best friend. These digital instruments streamline the process of grading assignments, tests, and projects. They are available in various forms, ranging from traditional rubrics to cutting-edge online platforms and automated grading systems. The primary goal of these tools is to simplify the grading process, allowing educators to focus on what truly matters: providing meaningful feedback to their students.

Why You Need Assessment Marking Tools

Grading manually, whether a stack of assignments or a pile of tests, can be a time-consuming and exhausting task. Assessment marking tools offer several advantages , making them indispensable in the world of education:

Time Efficiency:

Bid farewell to those hours spent tediously grading. Assessment marking tools expedite the process significantly, freeing up valuable time for educators.

Consistency:

Every student’s work is evaluated based on the same set of standards, reducing subjectivity and ensuring fair grading.

Data-Driven Insights:

These tools collect valuable data that provides insights into student performance trends and areas that may need improvement.

Faster Feedback:

With marking tools, educators can provide timely feedback to students, helping them learn from their mistakes and make progress in their learning journey.

Types of Assessment Marking Tools

The market offers a wide array of assessment marking tools, each catering to different grading needs:

Traditional Rubrics:

Rubrics are structured scoring guides that break down assignments into specific criteria and performance levels, allowing teachers to evaluate student’s work based on predefined standards.

Automated Grading Software:

These tools use algorithms to evaluate multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, or short-answer questions, reducing the burden on teachers for objective assessments.

Online Platforms:

Learning Management Systems (LMS) and dedicated assessment tools provide a centralized location for creating, distributing, and grading assignments.

Peer Review Tools:

These tools allow students to evaluate each other’s work, promoting collaborative learning and reducing the teacher’s workload.

Effective Use of Assessment Marking Tools

While these tools are undoubtedly game-changers, their effectiveness relies on how educators use them. Here are some tips to make the most of assessment marking tools:

Set Clear Expectations:

Before using any tool, ensure students understand the grading criteria and what you expect from their work.

Customize Tools to Your Needs:

Don’t hesitate to tailor the tools to fit your specific assignments and teaching style.

Provide Detailed Feedback:

Use the extra time saved to offer constructive and informative feedback to help students grow.

Analyze Data:

Leverage the data collected to identify patterns and areas where students may be struggling, allowing for targeted interventions.

The Future of Assessment Marking Tools

As technology continues to evolve, so do assessment marking tools. The future promises even more advanced features, such as AI-driven essay grading and virtual reality simulations for assessments. These innovations will further enhance efficiency and provide educators with valuable insights into their students’ progress.

Are assessment marking tools suitable for all grade levels?

Yes, assessment marking tools can be adapted for various grade levels, from elementary school to higher education. They are versatile and customizable to fit different educational needs.

Can assessment marking tools completely replace manual grading?

While assessment marking tools are incredibly efficient, they may not fully replace manual grading for subjective assignments, like essays. However, they can significantly reduce the grading workload.

Are there free assessment marking tools available for teachers?

Yes, many free and open-source assessment marking tools are available, making them accessible to educators with budget constraints.

How do assessment marking tools handle plagiarism detection?

Some assessment marking tools integrate plagiarism detection features to identify potential academic dishonesty, preserving academic integrity.

Do students benefit from assessment marking tools?

Yes, Students benefit a lot from assessment marking tools. Assessment marking tools provide timely feedback, allowing students to learn from their mistakes and improve their performance, fostering a more effective learning process.

In Conclusion

Assessment marking tools have revolutionized the way educators evaluate student work. They offer efficiency, objectivity, and the ability to provide constructive feedback. Whether you are an educator in primary or higher education, the integration of these tools can streamline your grading process, benefiting both you and your students. Embrace the power of assessment marking tools and witness the positive transformation in your grading process. Your students will appreciate the consistency, and you’ll enjoy the time saved and the opportunity to provide more targeted feedback. It’s a win-win for educators and learners alike.

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Teachers can save time and paper with digital tools for online grading.

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More than an online grading tool

Make worksheets easier

Make edits easier

Keep work organized and accessible

Help teachers give meaningful feedback

Foster student learning

Take all teaching work online

Why grade online?

More and more education has gone remote, so teachers and students have adapted to the virtual classroom experience. With digital document tools, teachers can easily get their grading done wherever they are. And as PDFs prove much more efficient and convenient than paper, even teachers who conduct classes in person can assign, collect, and grade student work online.

Go digital with Acrobat

More than an online grading tool.

To move from paper to PDF, you don’t need a specialized learning management system or a school district-approved assessment tool. With Adobe Acrobat Pro, teachers and students can use a single app for much more than simple grade submission and online report cards . Beyond online grading, Acrobat Pro can help you simplify and organize your classroom systems.

Make worksheets easier.

With PDFs, educators can create fillable worksheets that students can interact with from any device. Teachers can use Acrobat Pro to convert documents from other formats to PDF, or they can scan paper worksheets and add fields to make them interactive.

To create a worksheet in Acrobat:

1. Click the Tools tab.

Once there, select Prepare Form.

2. Find your sheet.

Select any worksheet file or scan your paper worksheet with the Adobe Scan mobile app, and Acrobat will automatically analyze your document and add form fields.

3. Add or adjust.

Use the top toolbar to add additional form fields if needed, and adjust the layout with the tools in the right pane.

4. Save and share.

Click Save. Then send it by email or upload it to Google Drive or Google Classroom. You can also click Distribute to collect responses automatically.

Make edits easier.

Teachers can also use the editing features in Acrobat Pro to modify PDF files without having to find the documents in their original formats. Easily update grading rubrics, worksheets, quiz or exam templates, or mix up the order of questions for different sections of your class.

To edit a PDF:

1. Find your file.

Open it in Acrobat Pro.

2. Click Edit PDF.

Select the Edit PDF tool in the panel to the right.

3. Choose your tool.

Select the appropriate tool to add new text, edit text, or update fonts with selections from the Format list to the right.

4. Adjust your images.

Add, replace, move, or resize images on the page with selections from the Objects tools to the right.

Name your file and click Save.

Keep work organized and accessible.

With Acrobat Pro, educators can share links to any assignment or exam. Then students can add comments or questions, and teachers can respond right in the document. This kind of online grading will keep your feedback accessible to students. And with all student work just a click away, teachers can spend less time grading assignments and more time developing lesson plans.

Help teachers give meaningful feedback.

Educators know how important it is to give frequent and substantive feedback. Several studies have shown that this type of formative assessment improves student performance and teacher effectiveness.

Detailed comments from teachers can help students understand their strengths and areas for improvement and aid in their ability to meet learning goals. Plus, teachers gain a better understanding of their students’ capabilities and comprehension.

Done correctly, formative assessment can take up a lot of a teacher’s time. It’s just not efficient to write notes longhand or switch to a separate document to add comments. But with PDF tools, teachers can annotate text , add highlights, add strikethroughs , ask questions, and even draw pictures. Free tools like the Acrobat Reader PDF viewer enhance teachers' online grading efficiency by enabling them to add comments as thoroughly as traditional paper grading. With these tools, efficient online grading can be as thorough as the typical paper grading that teachers are used to doing.

Foster student learning.

Online documents ensure that students can’t lose their homework. That work lives in the cloud throughout the school year. If students have questions about a reading or assignment, they can ask by adding a comment to the PDF. They can also collaborate on group work, even if they’re learning online, by using the same link to add comments to a PDF.

Students can also submit almost any assignment electronically. With Adobe Scan, a paper full of equations or hand-drawn diagrams can become a PDF with the quick snap of a photo. The student can then share it right from the app.

No matter where they are, no matter the assignment, students can submit their work and receive feedback and password-protected grades.

Take all teaching work online.

Educators can digitize and protect everything from gradebooks to student progress reports with Acrobat Pro. Whatever the grading system, these PDF tools have the functionality to help teachers, students, and parents stay connected from anywhere.

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Gradebook with intuitive interface.

ThinkWave Educator has an intuitive, easy-to-use, interface that can be learned quickly. Multiple classes can be maintained in a single gradebook. There is no need to login multiple times to access different classes.

Easy to Use From All Devices

ThinkWave Educator is completely cloud based which means there is no software to install and teachers can access data from school or home. ThinkWave can be used with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari and Chrome on PC, MAC, Linux, iOS and Android devices.

Get the Gradebook That's Right for You

ThinkWave Educator is great for solo teachers who want a basic, free gradebook. ThinkWave Educator Premium is for teachers who want a full-featured gradebook with 100 GB online storage.

Upload Assignments and Handouts Online

Save on paper and toner cartridges. ThinkWave Educator provides the functionality of a learning management system with the ability to upload homework and handouts online. Uploaded files can be up to 25MB each and the Premium gradebook includes 100 GB online storage. Many file formats are supported including .pdf, .doc, picture files, movie files and others. Homework is available for students and parents to download online. The upload function can also be used to organize handouts in one place. No need to email files between home and school -everything is available online from any computer.

Online Portal for Students and Parents

ThinkWave improves communication by providing individual, password-protected accounts for students and parents to access classroom information. Detailed, day-to-day summary of student progress includes overall results, graded assignments and upcoming assignments. Grades Online enables student achievement by improving organization and allowing for early intervention.

Assign and Collect Homework Online

ThinkWave Educator offers the powerful ability to collect homework from students online. Students upload their homework files with an easy-to-use upload function. Files are immediately available to the teacher in the gradebook. Uploaded files are organized for the teacher by assignment and date.

Messaging and Group Emailing

ThinkWave includes ability to post messages and announcements. Messages can be directed to all students and parents, particular groups of students or specific classes. Files can be uploaded with blog posts. Messages can be sent by email to the entire group with one click.

Flexible Grading Options

Use an all-points grading system or a flexible grading system that combines points, letter grades, check, check plus, and custom grades. Create your own assignment types and use assignment type weighting, for example, making Tests 30%, Homework 40%, Projects 15% and Participation 15%.

Powerful Reports

ThinkWave Educator includes powerful report capabilities that generate professionally-formatted, ready-to-print, .pdf documents. Reports can be customized with a logo and header and multiple other customization options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can all the teachers in my school use the gradebook.

There are several options to provide online gradebooks for teachers in your school. For schools that want to provide pre-populated gradebooks with students and classes already enrolled, the ThinkWave Administrator school management system is the best option. It combines data from all teachers into progress reports, report cards, transcripts, student summaries, and other reports. There is even a tool to upgrade a solo gradebook to a schoolwide version. If there is no need to combine teacher information, options include site licenses for the premium gradebook. Finally, any teacher can always use the gradebook free of charge.

How do I start a new year in the gradebook?

The online gradebook provides a powerful rollover feature, which copies students, classes, custom field data, and more from year to year. This makes it easy to have a fresh start each year, while information from previous years remains readily available. There is even a feature to copy assignments from previous years, simplifying the setup process. For teachers who will be teaching a new set of students during the upcoming year, there is an option to not copy previous-year’s students.

Can I copy assignments from previous years?

Yes, a copy assignments function makes it easy to copy assignments from a teachers gradebook to a different class, term, or year. In the Setup menu, select Copy Assignments, then select the class and specific assignments you want to import.

Can I have different grading options for different classes?

Yes. You first establish default grading options, then customize them for individual classes and even terms. Grades can be calculated using pure points or flexible grading options, which handle letter grades, pass/fail grades, custom grades, assignment-type weighing, and more. Grades can also be calculated by weighting subterms, so for example, the semester grade can be calculated from the quarter grades and final exam.

Can I drop the lowest assignments?

Yes. In the grading options screen for a class, you can drop the lowest scores for any assignment type, such as homeword, projects, tests, or quizzes. These parameters can be set in default grading options, or different classes or terms.

Can I email all the students in a class?

Yes. The messaging function includes email capability, so that when you post a message to students and parents of a class, it can also be sent by email. You can also email reports such as student summary reports or report cards.

Can students and parents access their grades online?

Yes. Every student (and optionally) parent has a personal online account to access grades, assignments, assignment results, messages, and attendance. Each student can have multiple parent accounts, and each parent can see all their students’ data in one view.

Can I send and receive messages from students and parents?

You can post messages to all the students and parents in a class, and enable a public discussion regarding the message. Each assignment can have a class-wide discussion associated with it, and teachers and students and parents can maintain private discussions regarding assignment results.

Am I limited to points-based grading systems?

No. Flexible grading options let you use points, percentage, letter, pass/fail, complete/incomplete, and custom grade scales for assignments, tests, and quizzes. You can use assignment-type weighting, as well as drop lowest assignments. Of course, Pure Points grading scale is also available.

Are there limitations to the number of students, classes, or assignments?

There are no limitations for students, classes, or assignments. There are even instances when an entire school manages all their data using a free gradebook. Of course, the school management system is preferable for schoolwide use, because it combines data from multiple teachers into a consolidated environment. But even so, the free gradebook does not maintain any artificial limitations.

Can the gradebook work for homeschooling?

The gradebook, as well as the student management system , is a perfect solution for a homeschool environment.

Can the gradebook work for college, trade schools, or other environments?

The free solo gradebook is used by teachers and processors in the widest possible range of educational settings. The upgrade to student management software is also used by colleges, trades schools, international schools, parochial schools, foster care environments, and much more.

Can I distribute and collect assignments online?

Yes. The gradebook provides learning management functionality. Teachers can post assignments with rich text and file attachments. Students can submit their work, and teachers can return corrected student work. Public discussions can be associated with assignments, and private discussions between the student and parent are available with each assignment result.

Can I weight grades by assignment type?

Yes. There is the option to use existing or create custom assignment types, as well as the option to calculate the final grade as a weighted average of assignment types.

Can I record custom data in custom fields?

Yes. Custom fields can be defined for students, teachers, parents and classes. Data can optionally be automatically copied to subsequent school years during the year rollover procedure.

Can I import students?

Yes. There are three options to choose from. Simplest is to add students one at a time. Next is a quick add function, which lets you cut and paste a large list of students and import them all at once. There is also an import wizard, which lets you import students from a delimited file, with advanced capabilities including addresses, parent data, and custom field data.

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Helping you work at home and make money online

Get Paid to be an Online Test Grader

By Angie Nelson

Last Updated February 14, 2023 . Disclosure: We may receive compensation if you sign up for or purchase products linked below. Details on offers may change, and you should confirm them with the company prior to taking action.

One  work-from-home job loved by many in my community is contracting as an online test grader. In this position, you are working online grading tests, essays, and other papers. In many cases, these essays are submitted as part of standardized tests like the ACT or SAT. In some cases, they are in conjunction with Engish as a Second Language, or ESL , studies.

To qualify for many of these positions, you often need a bachelor’s degree. Some companies allow that degree to be in any subject. Others may be looking for specific degrees like English. Make sure you read through the company’s current job openings for specifics.

Online grading work opportunities are seasonal in most cases. We see many companies hiring in the fall and spring as this is when most standardized testing is done. That being said, don’t be afraid to check for openings in the off-season as well. And once you are accepted as an online scorer, most companies will invite you back year after year provided you do a good job and meet the workload requirements.

8 Legit Online Grading Jobs

1. measurement, inc..

Measurement, Inc. is one of the most popular scoring jobs with my readers. They require a bachelor’s degree in any subject. Their projects include test items in English Language Arts, mathematics, science, and other areas.

For most remote positions with this company, they do expect you to work Monday through Friday for the duration of your temporary contract. Their busy season is March through June. Available hours may vary by project.

Onsite positions are usually open year-round. Hiring for remote work is typically done from November through March. Openings were listed on the site at the time of writing this post.

Pearson is a well-known name in the learning community. They hire tutors , at-home test developers, online test scorers, and more. The company was named as a Top 100 Company with Remote Jobs by FlexJobs  and they have a solid review rating on Glassdoor of 3.6 out of 5 stars.

Opportunities vary throughout the year and some may be  location-specific . Most positions are temporary and project-based. A bachelor’s degree is required.

One of their most recent scoring openings was for an edTPA Scorer. This particular test makes sure new teachers are ready for the classroom. This was a more specialized scorer job and required not only a bachelor’s degree but also teaching experience or experience working with teachers.

You can often find Pearson’s most recent needs and requirements on FlexJobs .

Educational Testing Service, or ETS, provides scoring and test development for a variety of tests from student leader proficiency tests to high school equivalency exams (examples: Pravis, GRE, TOEFL.) As such, the requirements can vary greatly for each position. Some positions require a bachelor’s degree. Some require a Master’s. Some require applicants to possess a current teaching certificate while others do not.

4. Write Score

The Write Score site states that orientation for their scoring season will begin in late July to early August though positions are available throughout the year.

Unlike other companies, Write Score only requires a two-year degree and the ability to pass their qualifying test. They do accept resumes for their waitlist and applicants are contacted as needed.

ACT hires Readers to read and score student papers for the ACT Writing Test. This is an opportunity to read and score anytime and from any personal computer.

The site states this is performance-based work. Your earnings will depend on the accuracy and number of essays scored. The company does say Readers can earn $12 per hour or more.

To qualify, you will need a bachelor’s degree or higher, reside in the U.S., and have current teaching experience. Teaching English to high school students (junior and senior level) is preferred.

6. Creative English Solutions

Creative English Solutions, or CES, provides evaluations for students wishing to take the TOEFL, Testing of English as a Foreign Language, and TOEIC, Test of English for International Communication. As such, applicants must be native English speakers and possess a University degree.

Positions at CES offer a lot of flexibility. Though they do ask for a commitment of at least 10 hours per week, Evaluators can accept and decline assignments as they wish and on their own schedule.

In addition to hiring Evaluators, CES also hires freelance writers and voice actors.

7. Literably

Literably is a little different in that their scorers evaluate oral recordings of elementary students. Transcriptionists listen to student audio recordings and transcribe errors.

This position does not require any experience or special degrees. You simply need to pass their sample tasks. As with most transcription jobs, pay is based on performance, speed, and accuracy.

This is a flexible position and you can set your own hours.

8. ALTA Language Services

If you possess native fluency in another language, ALTA Language Services currently has several testing evaluator positions available. These are typically on-demand, part-time positions.

A degree is required, as is a minimum English proficiency level of a 2+/2+ on the ILR proficiency scale. As with most companies in this industry, training is required and paid.

At the end of the day, you aren’t going to get rich as an online test grader. At the time of writing this post, most positions offer average pay of $10 to $13 per hour. That being said, it can be flexible, fulfilling work at home for the right person. Most people report being happy with these positions. The biggest complaint is often that the work isn’t available year-round, but many consider it a nice supplemental income source.

About Angie Nelson

Angie Nelson began working from home in 2007 when she figured out how to take her future into her own hands and escape the corporate cubicle farm. Angie’s goal is sharing her passion for home business, personal finance, telecommuting, and entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on Recruiter, FlexJobs and Business News Daily..

Angie Nelson began working from home in 2007 when she figured out how to take her future into her own hands and escape the corporate cubicle farm. Angie’s goal is sharing her passion for home business, personal finance, telecommuting, and entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on Recruiter, FlexJobs and Business News Daily.

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Online Marking

Marking assignments online to improve feedback for students, opportunity.

Historically, The Centre for Extended Learning at the University of Waterloo coordinated the marking of thousands of student assignments annually. Assignments were received at the Centre, sorted and shipped to instructors for marking. Once marked, the Centre would mail them back to the students. The mail delivery of the marked assignments meant the feedback was delayed, and students often expressed concern that it was not received in time to help them with preparation of subsequent work. In addition, this consumed about 25,000 sheets of paper per term, significant printing and mailing costs, and considerable staff time.

Online marking was introduced in order to provide a superior learning experience for students in terms of turn-around time and richer feedback and an opportunity for the Centre to reduce costs.

The Centre implemented an online marking system to replace its previous paper-based system in a number of its undergraduate courses. Instructors were invited to participate and offered training. Initially, 10 tablet PCs with the ability to digitally mark assignments using a stylus were purchased and lent to the instructors. The students submitted the assignments directly to the course using electronic dropboxes in the learning management system, and the instructors used the tablet to mark and return the student assignments electronically. The stylus was used as it would allow instructors to use a familiar tool.

The program has now been expanded to 30 tablets that are loaned to instructors. Those comfortable with typing may use Track Changes or Track Markup in Microsoft Word. Others use GradeMark in Turnitin, which also allows them to check for plagiarism and capture the final grade. Instructors can access these tools on the tablet or use any PC to do their online marking.

To facilitate the use of Word, the Centre for Extended Learning has started to build macros – shortcuts that allow the insertion of pre-set text for comments that are commonly used when marking assignments. Custom sets of macros are also being developed for the comments that are more specific to a discipline or an individual instructor.

A complementary strategy to augment the use of online marking has been to design assignments differently so that they can be completed online, such as quizzes, or to take advantage of the marking offered within the learning management system. The Centre works with instructors to find the online marking options that work best for their courses and students and meet identified learning objectives.

Outcomes and Benefits

Online marking achieved its goals of providing students with improved turn-around time and richer feedback and an opportunity for the Centre to reduce costs.

The positive impact on the environment was expressed through the slogan ‘saving the planet, one assignment at a time’.

Student reaction to online marking has been positive, as it provides them with more timely return of their assignments and the opportunity to incorporate the feedback into their next project. There have been comments about the handwritten comments provided via the tablet being more personal.

Instructors have also praised online marking as making corrections clearer and more professional, reducing concern about losing papers, easy and comfortable once you get used to it, and effectively reducing paper usage. One comment indicated an enthusiasm for moving to online marking for all his/her courses.

To date, 64 of the 81 courses with printed assignments have been converted to online marking. The saving in paper and other costs amounts to over $100,000 annually. The three goals for the innovation have been met.

The shift has also had an impact on how courses are designed as instructors and instructional designers now work together to incorporate new marking strategies into the course development or revision. This may include new types of electronic assignments, the use of online marking, or the use of the Learning Management System.

Challenges and Enhancements

As in any change, one challenge is instructor resistance or concern with impact. Some of the instructors are more comfortable with marking paper assignments and some tried but could not adapt to the technology. Workshops and support, as well as commitment by department chairs to have all courses in the departments marked online, have facilitated the adoption of online marking.

In some courses, such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, the nature of the assignments themselves makes a shift to online marking more difficult. Handwritten assignments may be easier, especially for first-year students, than learning the complex programs necessary to insert formula electronically.

The initial financial outlay for the technology was significant and the maintenance, replacement, and training continue to be important cost factors. With more use of Microsoft Word, training demands have lessened, while familiarity with and willingness to use the technology have increased.

The Centre for Extended Learning seeks to expand the alternatives for online marking. One enhancement is the use of audio feedback as both Desire2Learn (D2L) and Word can record audio comments. D2L also has a marking application for the iPad in development and that, along with other possibilities, will be tested when it is released.

The Centre for Extended Learning is also looking at online proctoring, especially as an alternative to the current system of individual proctors for those students who do not write exams at the University or in exam centres.

Aldo Caputo, the Associate Director of Waterloo Online, sees online marking as the future for the handling of assignments for online courses. The University of Waterloo will share its experience with other post-secondary institutions in Ontario as well as participate in discussions on issues of joint concern. Other topics of interest to the University of Waterloo are discipline specific software to support math and science courses, credit transfer for online courses among universities, and supporting online students with special needs.

Further Information

Aldo Caputo Associate Director, Waterloo Online Centre for Extended Learning University of Waterloo [email protected]

Online Marking – Marking assignments online to improve feedback for students at the University of Waterloo

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