Crowdmark Instructor Guide

Crowdmark is an application for grading online, designed for easing the challenges of grading collaboratively with a teaching team, particularly on exams. Crowdmark supports grading by distributing assessments and assignments to graders, helping them add grades and feedback to student work, returning graded work to students, and providing analytics for teaching teams to review the grading outcomes.
Access Not immediate You will need to request and access a course from us first. Once you have completed setup, you can log in to Crowdmark.
Cost Partial Faculties/Departments provide funding per student per course. Please contact your Instructional Support Unit to discuss funding availability.
Bandwidth Yes Low demand on internet connections.
Canvas Integration Yes Works in coordination with Canvas.
Privacy Yes Verified by UBC’s Privacy Impact Assessment process.
Similar UBC-Supported Tools Y Gradescope is also centrally supported for online collaborative grading.

What can I use it for?

You can use Crowdmark for managing the grading process of student work:

  • Creating, collecting, and grading fully online assignments and assessments
  • Using paper-based assessments that are then scanned, graded, and returned to students online
  • Allowing multiple graders to grade the same student submission and even the same question in parallel, without overwriting one another

A note about Crowdmark

The LT Hub’s support for Crowdmark will end on April 30, 2024. Starting in May 2024, Crowdmark will no longer be centrally licensed. This change means that teaching teams will not be able to use Crowdmark as part of Canvas and will not be able to receive LT Hub support.

We recommend that teaching teams instead use Gradescope, a different collaborative grading tool with more robust functionality. Gradescope can be used as part of Canvas and will continue to receive LT Hub support.

This tool guide was last reviewed in March 2023.

What do I need to use Crowdmark?

Funding for Crowdmark

Note first there is a cost for using Crowdmark at UBC. The cost is charged per student per course. You can check with your Instructional Support Unit to see if funding is available.


A supported web browser

Crowdmark runs in your web browser and supports using Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.


A Crowdmark course

Crowdmark courses must be requested and created through the LT Hub, as outlined below.

Tips

  • Xerox offers scanning services to assist with digitizing paper-based assessments for Crowdmark. Teaching teams will need to take care of securely delivering the paper versions to Xerox and picking them up. You can contact us in the LT Hub for details and pricing.

How do I use Crowdmark?

To get started with Crowdmark, you will request a course, set up collection of what you want to grade, and then get to work on grading.

Click any bar below for instructions and tips for using Crowdmark.

Expand All

Request and access a Crowdmark course

  1. To use Crowdmark, you will first need to request a course from us in the LT Hub.
    • Please note that funding will need to be approved by your faculty or department. If you can include the name of a financial contact with your request, it will expedite the process.
  2. Once we have created a Crowdmark course for you, you will receive a Crowdmark email invitation from no-reply@crowdmark.com. Click Go To Crowdmark in the email or paste the provided link in your browser.
  3. Log in to Crowdmark using your UBC CWL (Campus-Wide Login), if prompted.
  4. You may be asked to authorize Crowdmark's access to your Canvas account. Click Authorize.
  5. Provide an email address and click Continue. You may also be asked to verify your email address.
  6. Your Crowdmark course homepage will open and you can begin creating assessments.

Tips

  • Each member of your grading team should receive an invitation to the Crowdmark course, once we process your request—provided they have an email address in Canvas. Please contact us if anyone does not receive an invitation.
  • After accepting an invitation to a course, you can access Crowdmark at app.crowdmark.com/sign-in/ubc. Select the "Sign in with Canvas" option and use your UBC CWL.
  • Currently, only the LT Hub can run the sync function in Crowdmark to update your class list with the latest enrollment. You will need to request that we run syncing whenever there are enrollment changes in your course.

Create an assessment or assignment in your Crowdmark course

All work collected in Crowdmark is called an assessment, whether you want to collect an assignment or an actual assessment (e.g., an exam). Crowdmark supports collecting two types of assessments: Assigned (online from start to finish) and Administered (paper-based that is scanned and uploaded into Crowdmark after students complete it).

With assigned assessments, you will create an assessment and add questions to it using the Crowdmark interface. With administered assessments, you will upload a PDF of your paper-based assessment before you print it. This process allows Crowdmark to add a code on each page that will be used when the finished exams are later scanned.

To create a fully online assessment that will be graded with Crowdmark:

  1. Access Crowdmark, select Sign in with Canvas, and log in using your UBC CWL.
  2. Under "Courses", you will find all your Crowdmark courses. Click the course to open it.
  3. Click Create assessment.
  4. Enter the name of your assessment and click Next.
  5. Select Assigned (Online) as your assessment type.
  6. Select either Individual submission or Group submission, depending on how you want your students to submit.
  7. Click Done.
  8. Set which students the assessment will be assigned to and which instructional team members will grade it. Under "Roster", click Customize for the relevant group, select the individuals, and click Save.
  9. Click Questions to begin creating questions.
  10. Note that Markdown and LaTeX languages can be used to format text and attach files in the description and question boxes. To add more questions, click Add another question.
  11. Click Preview at any time to see a student's view of the assessment, or click Preview in a question box to view the formatting for that particular question.
  12. Once you are done, click Schedule your assessment.
  13. You can distribute the assessment to your students right away or schedule automatic distribution at a later date and time. Once you've finished scheduling and setting any time limit or lateness penalty, click Schedule distribution or Distribute now, depending on which you selected.
  14. Once you're all done, you can exit by clicking All Assessments on the top of the sidebar to return to your course's assessments.

To create a paper-based assessment that will be graded with Crowdmark:

  1. Access Crowdmark, select Sign in with Canvas, and log in using your UBC CWL.
  2. Under "Courses", you will find all your Crowdmark courses. Click the course to open it.
  3. Click Create assessment.
  4. Enter the name of your assessment and click Next.
  5. Select Administered (In-person) as your assessment type.
  6. Select Upcoming assessment.
  7. Click Done.
  8. Set which students the assessment will be assigned to and which instructional team members will grade it. Under "Roster", click Customize for the relevant group, select the individuals, and click Save.
  9. You will need to create an assessment template that Crowdmark will use to build your paper copies and an online grading outline. Click Template to begin creating your template:
  10. Crowdmark generates a unique PDF for each of the students the assessment has been assigned to. We recommend adding a few extra copies. Then click Generate preview.
  11. Review the images that are generated to see how your template looks with the Crowdmark-generated QR codes added at the top. Click Save template and generate unique booklets to continue, or go to the top of the page and select Upload a different file.
  12. Click Download booklets to download PDFs to print assessment booklets.
  13. Click Define your questions to begin defining each question's location, label, and points.
  14. Click Label questions, and then click Add a question label. Question labels designate where each question is located on the page, and the points each should be worth.
  15. When you are done, click Save.
  16. Once students have taken your assessment, you can complete the process outlined here to manage scans and match them to students.
  17. Once you're all done, you can exit by clicking All Assessments on the top of the sidebar to return to your course's assessments.

Tips

  • When you add questions to online assessments, it is quickest to type question text directly into the question content field. If you instead copy and paste questions from a Word or PDF document, the formatting will be lost and you will need to add it again in Crowdmark.
  • Once an online assessment has been distributed, you will be able to monitor which students have engaged with it, including who has received, viewed, or submitted each assessment. You can adjust an individual student’s due date, assessment timing window, or late penalty.
  • Using Crowdmark for paper-based assessments will add time to your current workflows. You will need to add a code to assessments before printing them and scan the assessments after completion. It can help to find out the capacities of your printers and scanners ahead of time, and consider off-site options, if local tools will slow you down too much.
  • For paper-based assessments, consider involving teaching assistants in printing and scanning to expedite the processes. Additionally, counting and sorting completed assessments by number before scanning can help ensure a smoother process. This approach provides a check on the final uploaded count (i.e., if not all exams were uploaded, which number was missed?) and a faster way to reference hard copies, if needed.

Grade student work in your Crowdmark course

Once available, student submissions will be organized by question in Crowdmark. You can divide up work between a team of graders to grade one specific question or student at a time. Note that for assigned assessments, you will not be able to grade submissions until the due date has passed. For administered assessments, you can grade at any time.

  1. Access Crowdmark, select Sign in with Canvas, and log in using your UBC CWL.
  2. Under "Courses", you will find all your Crowdmark courses. Click the course to open it.
  3. Click Assessments, then click the name of the assignment or assessment you would like to grade. You will see the grading options, provided that the assessment either is paper-based or is online and you have already distributed it.
  4. Click a question to start grading it. You will see the first student’s submission or, if grading has already been started by another grader, you’ll be taken to the first student submission that has not yet been graded.
  5. The grading screen shows the current student’s pages arranged vertically. You can scroll to see all of the student’s responses. On the right is the grading sidebar, where you can see the booklet number and question you are currently grading. Enter the points for the student's submission and click OK to save the points you've entered.
  6. You can use any of the tools in the grading toolbar on the left side to mark the student's work:
    • Comments tool (comment icon) - lets you click the student's work and leave written feedback. You can also build and use a comment library, which allows you and your teaching team to save time by reusing common comments.
    • Freeform annotations tool (pencil icon) - lets you draw directly on the student's work with your mouse.
    • Stamp menu tool (checkmark icon) - lets you add a checkmark, X, or question mark stamp on the student's work.
    • Rectangle tool (rectangle icon) - lets you create a semi-transparent box to highlight portions of a student's work.
    • Delete tool (trash icon) - lets you delete feedback you've added, except for comments, which must be deleted by clicking in the comment box.
    • Colour menu tool (colour drop icon) - lets you add colours to annotations, stamps, and highlight boxes.
  7. When you are done grading the submission, click Next ungraded at the bottom of the grading sidebar. Clicking will take you to the next student submission that has not been graded for this question. Crowdmark will alert you when there are no more submissions to grade.

Tips

  • When grading, you can also use the arrows beside the "Booklet" title in the grading sidebar to navigate between student submissions. You can click the "Overview grid" and select a different question.
  • Crowdmark includes specific shortcuts to help save time in marking. Train your teaching assistants how to utilize the keyboard shortcuts to mark more efficiently.
  • Be clear when training teaching assistants about your expectations for the feedback that they should leave for students (i.e., how much, how often, what kind of content). Students may expect more detailed feedback using this digital medium, especially if they will not be meeting with you otherwise to go over the results.
  • The comments that you write while grading assessments are automatically saved and added to a comment library. You can use the library to mark later assessments or share with your team to use in the same assessment.
  • Crowdmark provides basic stats to reflect how teaching assistants are doing with their marking, but look at the qualitative measures of how the team is doing too (e.g., checking on the feedback individuals are leaving), to ensure expectations set in the beginning are being met as marking progresses.
  • By default, graders in Crowdmark do not have access to each other’s grading, but you can change this. Follow the steps to allow graders to see each other’s feedback and grades.
  • As you mark, you can add tags to organize and bookmark student work and evaluations with your grading team. You might want to use tags to bookmark exemplary answers or to flag work that requires another set of eyes to review.

Review and release Crowdmark grades to students

After grading is complete, you can review and return the graded submissions to students. To return grades for paper-based assessments, you will also need to make sure you assign identities to each student's work using the "match booklets" feature of Crowdmark.

  1. Access Crowdmark, select Sign in with Canvas, and log in using your UBC CWL.
  2. Under "Courses", you will find all your Crowdmark courses. Click the course to open it.
  3. Click Assessments, then click the name of the assignment or assessment you would like to review.
  4. Click Students in the left sidebar. You will see a list of students, with student grades listed in the right-most column.
    • To view an individual student's score, locate the student, and then under the "View" column, click Score. A pop-up with the student’s scores and feedback will appear on the page.
  5. To view an individual student's score, locate the student, then under the "View" column, click Score. A pop-up with the student’s scores and feedback will appear on the page.
  6. For paper-based assessments, you will need to identify booklets:
    • Click the assessment name in the left sidebar to go back to the overview page.
    • Click Match booklets from the options on the right side.
    • Locate the student’s information on the cover page you see, and begin typing it in the search field on the right side. The list of students will be filtered as you type in identifiers. Once you’ve found the student, click their email address to match them.
    • Repeat this process on the next unmatched cover, until all the cover pages are matched to a student.
  7. Once you are ready to release grades to students, click Results in the left sidebar.
  8. Under "Grades", click Return grades to students. Note that for paper-based assessments this option will only appear after you've matched booklets.
  9. Crowdmark will send an email to each student containing a link to their score page, which includes their work, scores, feedback, and any other information you’ve chosen to include.

Tips

  • You can include a message to your students and/or a class results graph on the student score page. Do this by editing the student view options on the "Results" page.
  • Once you release grades, you may wish to lock the assessment from further grading. Locking an assessment makes it read-only, ensuring that scores and feedback will not be changed accidentally. You can unlock the assessment at any time.
  • Releasing grades to students has no impact on the Canvas Gradebook. To share Crowdmark grades in your Canvas course, follow the instructions in the next accordion.

Send Crowdmark grades to your Canvas course

Canvas and Crowdmark cannot share grades automatically. But you can send grades to Canvas manually from any Crowdmark assessment with the click of a button.

  1. Access Crowdmark, select Sign in with Canvas, and log in using your UBC CWL.
  2. Under "Courses", you will find all your Crowdmark courses. Click the course to open it.
  3. Click Assessments, then click the name of the assignment or assessment you would like to export grades from.
  4. Click Results in the left sidebar.
  5. Under "Sync grades", click Sync grades to Canvas.
  6. Your assessment grades will be posted to Canvas as a new assignment column in your Canvas Gradebook. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Grades in the Course Navigation to confirm your grades from Crowdmark.

Tips

  • Scores must always be manually sent from Crowdmark to appear in the Canvas Gradebook. This requirement means that if you make changes to the grades in Crowdmark after sending grades initially, you will need to send the grades again to also update the Canvas Gradebook.
  • You can download the list of grades from Crowdmark in a spreadsheet file. Click the "Export grades as CSV" option from the Results page (step 5). The CSV file can be opened and edited in a spreadsheet software like Excel, and can be imported into the Canvas Gradebook afterward.
  • You can also download grades from all assessments in a Crowdmark course. Follow the steps to export a list of the course grades.

Where can I get more support with Crowdmark?

Technical support

If you have trouble with Crowdmark:


Pedagogical support

  • The UBC Online Teaching Program includes a section on what makes effective feedback (Module 3.4), which can provide useful strategies to the teaching team involved in the marking process.

Student support

Learn more


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