Gradescope Instructor Guide

Gradescope is an application for grading online, designed to ease the challenges of grading collaboratively with a teaching team, particularly for exams. Gradescope helps distribute student work to graders, facilitates adding grades and feedback, returns graded work to students, and provides analytics for teaching teams to review the grading outcomes.
Access Not immediate You will need to request and set up Gradescope with us first. Once you have completed setup, you can access Gradescope through Canvas.
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 N Gradescope is the only centrally supported tool for online collaborative grading.

What can I use it for?

You can use Gradescope for streamlining the grading of student work:

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

This tool guide was last reviewed in July 2024.

What do I need to use Gradescope?

Funding for Gradescope

Please note that there is a cost for using Gradescope 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

Gradescope runs in your web browser and supports using the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari. For more information on compatibility requirements, please check the Gradescope supported browser page.


A Gradescope course

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

Tips

  • We recommend that you and your students access Gradescope through the link in your Canvas course. But once you have set up your Gradescope course, you can also create an account to log in to Gradescope directly.

How do I use Gradescope?

To get started with Gradescope, you will request a course and make Gradescope visible for students in your Canvas course. You can then set up a collection of what you would like to grade and begin grading.

Click any accordion bar below for instructions and tips for using Gradescope.

Expand All

Request and set up Gradescope for your Canvas course

  1. To use Gradescope, you will first need to contact us at the LT Hub to request Gradescope access for your Canvas course.
    • Please note that funding for the course must be approved by your faculty or department. If you can include the name of a financial contact with your request, it will expedite the setup process.
  2. Once we have given you access, you will need to turn on Gradescope in your Canvas course:
    • Log in to your Canvas course with your UBC CWL (Campus Wide Log-In) and click Settings in the Course Navigation.
    • Click the Navigation tab.
    • Find the Gradescope menu item, click the options menu (the 3 vertical dots), and choose Enable.
    • Click Save.
  3. The Gradescope menu item will now be available for you and your students. Click Gradescope in the Course Navigation to open the Gradescope interface.
    • If you are teaching multiple courses with Gradescope, you will be prompted to create a new Gradescope course or use an existing course to link with your Canvas course. Select A new Gradescope Course and click Link Course.
    • A new Gradescope course will be created that is linked to your Canvas course. Edit any important course details and click Update Course when you are ready to save your changes. You can edit these details at any time by clicking Course Settings in the Gradescope navigation menu.
  4. Once the Gradescope course is created, reply to your LT Hub ticket and ask us to run an initial sync to enrol students from your Canvas course.

Tips

  • Students can also join your Gradescope course at any time by clicking the Gradescope link from the Course Navigation of your Canvas course. Although the LT Hub will enrol students in your Gradescope course initially, if students were not registered in your course during the initial enrolment sync, clicking the Gradescope link will still allow them to join.

Collect student work in your Gradescope course

You will collect work in Gradescope by creating what is called an assignment. All work in Gradescope is called an assignment, whether you would like to collect an actual assignment or an assessment (e.g., an exam).

These instructions cover setting up the assignment in Gradescope. If you would like to also connect specific Gradescope assignments to Canvas (so that students can access assignment links directly from Canvas and grades can be passed between Canvas and Gradescope), the next accordion section will cover that.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments in the navigation menu, then click Create Assignment.
  3. Select the Gradescope assignment type:
    • Exam / Quiz - for collecting assessments for manual grading.
    • Homework / Problem Set - for collecting assignments for manual grading.
    • Bubble Sheet - for collecting multiple-choice assignments or assessments for automated grading.
    • Programming Assignment - for collecting code-based assignments.
    • Online Assignment - for creating questions that students respond to online (because this type is currently in beta, we recommend using Canvas quizzes instead).
  4. Click Next.
  5. Give your assignment a name. Depending on the assignment type, you may be prompted to select a PDF file to act as the assignment's template. A template is a blank copy of your assignment or a copy of its instructions, such as a list of homework problems. The template will be used as the structure to apply grades.
  6. Complete the rest of the assignment details, and click Create Assignment.
    • If you don't see this option yet, click Next. Choose the sections you would like to assign the assignment to (or leave this blank to assign to everyone), and then click Create Assignment.
  7. The newly created assignment will open and you can begin editing it by adding questions (for online assignments) or creating a Gradescope assignment outline (for other scanned assignments). An outline shows Gradescope the areas of each page where you want grades applied by the teaching team and the areas where students' names will appear. Once you are finished, click Save Outline.

Tips

  • You can see all currently active assignments on your Gradescope dashboard, but inactive ones will be hidden. Assignments become inactive if three conditions are met: the grades have been published, there are no pending regrade requests, and there have been no updates in a week. You can access both active and inactive assignments by clicking "Assignments" in the navigation menu of your Gradescope course.

Set custom rubrics for grading with Gradescope

Before or after your students have completed an assignment, you can create question-level rubrics in Gradescope for your entire teaching team to use in grading. These rubrics can be applied with written comments and submission-specific adjustments (i.e., assigning points for individual answers, outside of the rubrics), when grading student work.

You can modify your Gradescope rubrics at any time. For example, if you would like to increase the weight of a rubric, you can adjust the points value directly. Gradescope will automatically apply this change to all student submissions that have been graded using the rubric.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the navigation menu, and then click the assignment name.
  3. Rubrics in Gradescope can be created before or as part of the grading process. Click Create Rubrics in the navigation menu, and click the question that you would like to set rubrics for.
  4. The grading rubric will be displayed. The rubric default is always a negative scoring rubric (points are subtracted from the maximum scoring amount).
  5. Click Rubric Settings to change the default scoring, if you would like:
    • Positive Scoring - start from zero and subtract or add points by clicking rubric items
    • Negative Scoring - start from the total points available for the question and subtract or add points by clicking rubric items
  6. Click either Add Rubric Item to create a single rubric or Create Group to create a group of similar rubric items together. For each rubric you add, set a description and the points.
    • You can use what is called Markdown syntax to format your rubric items (e.g. insert images, links, code blocks, tables, lists, bold or italicize text). In the description box, select one of the Markdown icons.
  7. After you finish setting up rubrics for a question, continue through the assignment until you have added all the custom rubrics you would like the teaching team to use.

Tips

  • You can re-use rubrics in Gradescope instead of creating new ones. To re-use a rubric that you have already created, click "Import" to select from your existing rubrics.
  • Update rubric descriptions as you go to reflect how the rubric is being applied. Making descriptions more specific in response to student answers will help the grading team maintain consistency in applying the rubric.
  • When selecting rubrics, consider what rubrics would be meaningful for students to understand their grades and for your teaching team to review class-wide analytics. Try to avoid basic points-based rubrics (e.g., one item wrong, three items wrong) and those that require graders to choose from a list (e.g., which of the following items best applies), as students will not be able to see the non-chosen options. Instead, opt for descriptive rubrics to provide clearer feedback.
  • Keep in mind that Gradescope requires assigning at least one rubric item for each question to consider an assignment graded. Therefore, you will always need to assign a rubric item to each question to indicate when an answer in positive scoring is entirely incorrect (i.e., add no points) or an answer in negative scoring is entirely correct (i.e., subtract no points).
  • When practical, choose a positive or negative scoring scheme based on what will be fastest for the teaching team to enter, especially in large courses. For example, use negative scoring if students are expected to do most of the questions right. This setup can save on clicks/keystrokes needed when grading and add up to significant time-savings.
  • For further efficiency, break any question with ten or more rubric items into more than one part. This approach will ensure that graders do not need to scroll when marking, which will also save time.

Grade student work in your Gradescope course

Once available, student submissions will be organized by questions in Gradescope. You can divide up work in a team of graders so that each grader focuses on one specific question at a time.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the navigation menu, then click the assignment name.
  3. Click Grade Submissions in the navigation menu, and click the question that you would like to grade.
    • If prompted to choose a grading method, choose Grade Individually, so that you and your teaching team can divide up the questions more easily. Click Grade Individually to apply these settings.
  4. The student's submission will be displayed on the left and the grading rubric(s) will be displayed in the rubric panel on the right, or you may need to click Grade at the bottom of the screen to see this. You can click inside the numbered box for any rubric item to apply it, but you may find it faster to use the corresponding keyboard number or letter (whichever is in the box for the item).
    • Note that you will need to apply at least one rubric to each question for Gradescope to consider the student's submission graded.
  5. Add any submission-specific adjustments (to change points for individual answers, outside of the rubrics) and, if appropriate, write a custom comment or add an existing comment from the drop-down.
  6. If a student wrote an answer on a different page than expected for a question, you can hover over the submission and use the left and right arrows to navigate to other pages of the submission.
  7. PDFs and images also include annotation tools for grading, in the top right when you hover over the submission:
    • Navigation icon - click and drag to move around the submission.
    • Text icon - type comments directly on the submission.
    • Pencil icon - mark directly on the submission.
    • Box icon - draw boxes to highlight areas of the submission.
    • Star icon - select emojis to leave directly on the submission.
    • Eraser icon - remove any annotation you have added.
  8. Click Next Ungraded to see the next student’s submission for the same question. Continue until you have completed the available submissions.

Tips

  • As you grade, you can get an overview of how the grading is progressing for the question. Click the total submission number in the lower left corner. This overview lists all the submissions for the question, including their status, grader(s), and score.
  • To check your consistency as you go, you can view student answers by rubrics applied. In the rubric panel, hover over any rubric item, and click the magnifying glass icon. You will see which student answers the rubric item has been applied to so far.
  • Share with your teaching team how to use Gradescope's keyboard shortcuts for efficient marking. You can view available shortcuts in the grading interface by clicking "Keyboard Shortcuts" or pressing "Shift" + "?" on your keyboard. Additionally, explain how comments can be reused for multiple students, if entered without too much specificity initially.
  • Let your teaching team know to stay aware of what is happening on their screen when grading with shortcuts. Small adjustments to hand placement on the keyboard can result in not clicking the right rubrics.
  • Be clear in training teaching assistants about your expectations for the feedback that they leave for students (i.e., how much, how often, what kind of content). Some 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.

Review and release Gradescope grades to students

After grading is complete, you can review and return the graded submissions to students by publishing the grades.

  1. Log in to your Canvas course, and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  2. In your Gradescope course, click Assignments from the navigation menu, then click the assignment name you would like to release grades for.
  3. If there are submissions that have not been matched to a student (i.e., you uploaded scanned exams and these have not yet been identified), click Manage Submissions in the navigation menu.
  4. Once all submissions are matched and graded, click Review Grades in the navigation menu.
  5. At the top of the page, you will see an overview of how your students did on the assignment. Below this, you can click any student name to view that student’s graded submission. Students will see a similar view once you publish their grades.
  6. For students to see their grades via Gradescope, grades must be published. From the "Review Grades" interface, click Publish Grades at the bottom.
    • If you change your mind, you can unpublish grades by clicking Unpublish Grades. You may need to click More first to see this option.
  7. Publishing grades makes graded work visible for students to review, but publishing does not notify students that their graded work is available. To notify students when their grades are available, click Compose Email to Students (which appears after grades are published), customize the message to be sent, and click Send Email.
  8. Gradescope will send an email to each student containing a link to their graded work, which includes their submission, scores, and feedback.

Tips

  • Once grades are published, you can see which students have viewed their grades. Look at the "Viewed?" column on the "Review Grades" page in Gradescope.
  • By default, all rubric items are shown to students, to help them learn from their work and assure them that grading was fair and accurate. If there are any rubrics that were intended for internal use only, you can choose to hide those rubric items. Click "Assignments" in the navigation menu, click the 3 vertical dots next to the assignment name, and select "Assignment Settings". Adjust the settings under "Rubric Item Visibility" and click "Save".
  • Gradescope allows students to make regrade requests. You may want to consider formalizing the process of asking for a regrade. For example, require clear written justification from students in addition to their request in the application. To view regrade requests for an assignment, click the assignment in Gradescope, and then click "Regrade Requests" in the navigation menu.
  • You can download the graded assignments when students submit PDFs or images. Downloading can be useful if you prefer to email graded work to students outside of Gradescope. When viewing any student's graded submission, select from the download options at the bottom of the page.
  • Publishing grades to your students on Gradescope will not send grades to Canvas. To send grades to your Canvas course, follow the instructions in the accordion section below.

Send Gradescope grades to your Canvas course

Gradescope cannot send grades to Canvas automatically, but you can manually send grades from a Gradescope assignment to Canvas, provided it has been linked to Canvas.

When sending grades to Canvas, student scores of zero will remain blank in the Canvas Gradebook. Blanks may therefore reflect that the student has not attempted any answer, the student has answered incorrectly for all questions, or the grade has not saved correctly in Gradescope. You may want to review grades of zero prior to sending Gradescope grades to Canvas.

  1. If you have not already, link the assignment to Canvas by following the instructions in our earlier accordion section.
  2. Log in to your Canvas course and click Gradescope in the Course Navigation.
  3. Once the assignments are linked, click the assignment name that you would like to send grades from in Gradescope.
  4. Click Review Grades in the navigation menu.
  5. Click Post Grades to Canvas.
  6. Verify the information in the pop-up window, and click Post Grades.

Tips

  • You may need to re-sync your course roster if Gradescope grades are not being sent to your Canvas course. Please contact us at the LT Hub for help with this.
  • You do not have to publish grades in Gradescope to send grades to Canvas, but we recommend doing both. Publishing grades in Gradescope can allow you to share more detailed feedback with students about their marks. When sending Gradescope grades to your Canvas course, students will only see their final mark for the assignment in Canvas.

Gradescope FAQ

Find UBC-specific answers to frequently asked questions by clicking any accordion bar below.

Due to the confidential nature of our vendor contract, we cannot publish the exact amount on our website. However, feel free to contact us at the LT Hub to request an estimate for your course(s).

Please also check with your Instructional Support Unit to see if funding is available.

This button does not work because instructors cannot sync student enrolment between Canvas and Gradescope on their own. UBC considers personal student email addresses to be private information. To protect these email addresses, only the LT Hub may run the initial sync to enrol students from your Canvas course into your Gradescope course.

Where can I get more support with Gradescope?

Technical support

If you have trouble with Gradescope:


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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