Basic Question on Using Gradescope

• Am I required to use Gradescope?
• Can I use Gradescope for only some (but not all) assignments?
• Can my GEs grade student work in Gradescope?
• My course has multiple discussion sections, labs, etc. Should I make a separate Gradescope course for each section or just a single Gradescope course for all?
• I am teaching multiple sections of the exact same course. Can I use one Gradescope course for all the classes?
• Do I need to give students instructions about using Gradescope if I don't plan to have students use it any way? 

Questions on Assignment Design

• Can I use Gradscope for <specific type of assignment>?
• I have assignments in Canvas already. Can I copy my Canvas assignments into Gradescope?
• I have quizzes in Canvas already. Can I copy my quizzes or question bank into Gradescope?
• I have a rubric for an assignment already (either in Canvas or another format). How do I get my existing rubric into Gradescope?
• When should I use fixed-length or use variable-length assignments?

Questions on Grading Student Work

• How does Gradescope use AI to assist in grading?
• Should I allow regrade requests in Gradescope?
• Can I use Gradescope if I don’t use a rubric to grade my student’s work?
• Can I copy work that students submit in Canvas into Gradescope?
• Does Gradescope check if students copied work from other students?
• Does Gradescope check if students used AI, copied answers from somewhere, or otherwise plagiarized?

Am I required to use GradeScope?

No. 

Can I use Gradescope for only some (but not all) assignments?

Yes! Gradescope just an additional method to submit and grade assignments. 

When you create an assignment in Canvas, you just set the submission type to use Gradescope for that assignment. It doesn't restrict how you can grade other assignments. You can still have students submit some assignments in Canvas that you can grade with Speedgrader. You can grade some assignments outside of Canvas (for example, for student presentations) and manually add their grades to the Gradebook. You can use Canvas quizzes for some assignments. You can use iClicker and important results. You can use discussion boards in Canvas. All of the other ways you evaluate students are still possible. 

Can my GEs grade student work in Gradescope?

Yes! You can add TAs to Gradescope just as you would add students. Gradescope has a lot of benefit to teaching teams as it helps spread the work out between team members and keeps their grading aligned through shared rubrics. There are a few limitations on TAs in Gradescope (they cannot, for example, delete your course by accident), but they can definitely help grade.

My course has multiple discussion sections, labs, etc. Should I make a separate Gradescope course for each section or just a single Gradescope course for all?

It depends on how you plan to deal with assignments for the discussion sections/labs. 

If all students complete the same assignments regardless of which discussion section or lab they are in, you can just use a single Gradescope course and have all assignments in it. Lab and discussion section work will mixed in with your other assignments (exams, homework, etc.). 

If you use just one Gradescope course, You, or others in your teaching team, can assign students in Gradescope to different sections. This lets you sort student submissions by section so that you could, for example, have labs leaders only grade lab reports for students in their section.

If students in different sections might do different assignments, you might want to have separate Gradescope pages for each section so students don't get confused about which assignments they need to do for their section. If there are some assignments shared between sections, you can duplicate an assignment from one Gradescope course into another. 

If you have a Gradescope course for each section, Gradescope recommends that you do not link all the courses in Gradescope to one main Canvas site. For example, if you have one lecture Canvas site and four discussion section Canvas sites, do not link all the discussions sections in Gradescope to the lecture Canvas site. Instead, you should link each the Gradescope course for each section to their appropriate Canvas site. 

If you have a Gradescope course for each section, grades will also be stored in separate places in Gradescope. You can export Gradescope grades and then combine the results from all sections. If you wanted to add these to Canvas, you'd have to import the combined results (link goes to Canvas instructions on importing grades to the Gradebook).

I am teaching multiple sections of the exact same course (same course number but different CRNs). Can I use one Gradescope course for all the classes?

You should not. Students may be able to see who else is in the Gradescope course (for example, when adding others to group assignments). If a student in one class can see the names of students in your other classes, that would violate FERPA privacy protections for the students in the other classes. You also cannot link one Gradescope course to multiple courses in Canvas. You would not be able to automatically synch all student rosters nor directly import grades from Gradescope into the classes' individual Canvas gradebooks.

You should use a separate Gradescope course for each section. You don't have to re-do all your work in each Gradescope course; you can duplicate assignments from one course to another. So make the assignment in one course, and just copy it into the others. If you've started a rubric for the assignment, it will copy over as well. If you create or update the rubric after you copied the assignment, you can copy just the updated rubric over to the other classes to use for grading.

Do I need to give students instructions about using Gradescope if I don't plan to have students use it any way?

You are probably considering using Gradescope to help you grade student work that you upload to Gradescope. You might be in this situation if you are using Gradescope to grade Bubble Sheets (in place of Scantrons) or to grade final exams that you wouldn't return to students anyway. Consider these questions:

1. Will students upload their own work to Gradescope?
2. Do you want students to see a copy of their work that you have uploaded to Gradescope?
3. Will students review your grading or feedback through Gradescope?

If your answer to all of these is no, students probably don't need to know about Gradescope because they won't engage with it.  The only results students will see from your grading of work in Gradescope is a numeric score imported to Canvas. If students are going to do any of those three questions, they should at least have instructions on how to log into Gradescope to review your feedback. 

Can I use Gradscope for <specific type of assignment>?

See our page on Gradescope for Different Assignment Types. If your assignment type isn't there, please reach out to us to talk about what sort of benefits Gradescope might have for that type of assignment.

I have assignments in Canvas already. Can I copy my Canvas assignments into Gradescope?

Gradescope doesn't allow you to copy assignment information from Canvas. You can leave the assignment in Canvas as it is, but update the Submission Type in the assignment's settings to use an External tool and then choose Gradescope. Then you build the assignment in Gradescope by selecting the assignment format and setting up a few options and details about the assignment. You do not need to copy all assignment directions to Gradescope; all the instructions can stay in Canvas and Gradescope is just used for students to submit the assignment.

I have quizzes in Canvas already. Can I copy my quizzes or question bank into Gradescope?

Gradescope does not have this ability. But you are able to do some assignments in Canvas quizzes and some in Gradescope. There is not a need to use just one method for students to submit work. So you could leave the quiz in Canvas and use Gradescope for other assignments.

If you wanted to replace the quiz with an assignment in Gradescope you could use either the Online Assignment format or the Homework/Problem set format.

• For the Online Assignment format, you will have to recreate the questions individually.
• For the Homework/Problem set format, you need build the assignment in Gradescope by telling it the number and types of questions in the assignment. You do not add questions prompts to Gradescope, so you will also need to share the question prompts with students through Canvas.

I have a rubric for an assignment already (either in Canvas or another format). How do I get my existing rubric into Gradescope?

You will have to manually add it to Gradescope; you cannot import it to auto-create, but you can just copy and paste text from your rubric into a rubric in Gradescope. See Gradescope's instructions for Grading submissions with rubrics.

When should I use fixed-length or use variable-length assignments?

It depends on if you have a template with space for students to fill in answers.

• Use a fixed-length assignment if you have a template for the assignment that students will fill in. This could be an exam with individual questions or a worksheet with space to write in answers. You can add the template to Gradescope and tell it where on the template each answer is. This lets Gradescope can easily identify where answers are to each question when students upload their completed template.
• Use the variable-length assignment if you do not have a template. This could be for an essay or a list of problems to solve. When students upload work, they will be prompted to mark where each answer is in their submission. They can mark regions of a page or picture, or even upload a different picture for each question.

Also check out Gradescope's descriptions of submission types.

How does Gradescope use AI to assist in grading?

TEP has been told by Gradescope that its "AI" is just applied optical character recognition (OCR). OCR scans text in an image or a PDF and turns it into digital text. Gradescope then matches short text phrase between students to form groups of answers. 

For example, your quiz has a hand-written, fill-in the blank question to name the first US President. After you upload a scan of your students quizzes and you let Gradescope group students answers on this question for you. Gradescope's "AI" would be able to match text and identify that

• 11 students wrote "Washington",
• 6 students wrote "George Washington",
• 2 students wrote "G Washington",
• 1 student wrote "George W. Washington",
• 1 student wrote "George Wasington",
• 1 student wrote "Ben Franklin", and
• there are 3 answers that Gradescope did not understand (so you will need to figure out what it says).

That is all the "AI" does. It does not appear to do any other analysis of answers. You must double check the grouping done by Gradescope (you can reassign answers to different groups, create new groups, combine existing groups, etc. as needed), and then you must assign a grade and feedback to that group. All Gradescope's "AI" does is form the original groups by matching short phrases, words, letters, or numbers.

This is helpful because's Gradescope's OCR is robust. It does a very good job turning short hand-written answers into digital text. It struggles, just like you might, if student handwriting is not clear. Gradescope has had this ability for many years before "AI" became a thing. It's now called "AI" because that is what is currently marketable in the tech-world.

Should I allow regrade requests in Gradescope?

It is good practice and can be useful to you. Students will probably email you anyway if you've made a mistake in grading them. Using the regrade requests in Gradescope keeps a record of student requests (and your replies to them) in Gradescope, rather than spreading individual student emails about it throughout your inbox. 

If you allow for regrade requests, you should let students know about them. Leaving them for students to discover on their own may unfairly benefit students who do happen to know about them. Students who don't know about them may not have the same access to fixing their grade if you've made a mistake while grading.

When communicating with students about regrade requests, you should be clear that they are for fixing mistakes in grading they've found. For example, maybe you overlooked a section of their answer that had key information, just clicked the scoring option when grading, or you didn't notice their answer continued on a second page. The regrade requests should not be used for students to argue their answer is better than you think it is and they should get get points. If students want to discuss the quality of their work with you, doing so in person during office hours or a meeting is a better route than using a regrade request.

Can I use Gradescope if I don’t use a rubric to grade my student’s work?

You certainly have some rules you use for grading, even if it’s not a “traditional” rubric arranged in a grid. Gradescope calls all grading rules a “rubric.” All of these examples are possible grading strategies and how you could use of Gradescope's rubric for them. 

• If you ask students to solve problems, your rubric in Gradescope for each problem may just be a list of common errors students make and the number of points they’ll lose for making that mistake. As you grade, you just select what errors students made (or select a “-0 points, excellent work!” option).
• If you have students answer multiple questions choice questions, your rubric in Gradescope maybe have one entry for each answer choice that describes why that answer is right/wrong along with a score. As you grade, you just select the matching rubric entry to a student's answer. When students review their grade, they’ll see that their answer of D earned 0/1 points and see your note for why D was incorrect.
• If you have students complete short answer questions, you rubric in Gradescope may be a list of the key ideas students need to reference along with a point for each one. As you grade, you just check off which ideas appeared in the answer.
• If you use a traditional rubric to grade essays, projects, etc, you can build your rubric in Gradescope as a grid or as a list of rating descriptions grouped by the criteria they evaluate. As you grade, you can select items in the rubric just as you would on paper or in Canvas's SpeedGrader. 

Even though most of these are not "traditional" rubrics, all of them can be set up to grade using Gradescope's "rubric" structure.

Can I copy work that students submit in Canvas into Gradescope?

No, there is no "import student work from Canvas" feature. If you've set up an assignment in Canvas to use Gradescope, there shouldn't be a way for students to submit anything to that assignment in Canvas.

A student could, though, accidentally upload a Gradescope assignment to a different Canvas assignment. To fix that, you could manually fix it for them by downloading their assignment from Canvas and re-uploading it to Gradescope. You could also reach out to the student and ask them to correct their mistake themselves. If the deadline for the assignment has passed, you can give them an extension to resubmit the work. 

Does Gradescope check if students copied work from other students?

In general, no. Gradescope doesn't "read" student work except for identifying short phrases for fill-in-the-blank questions. However, for programming assignments only, Gradescope does offer a code similarity check tool.

Does Gradescope check if students used AI, copied answers from somewhere, or otherwise plagiarized?

It does not.