User:DukeEgr93/Grading Electronically

This document will cover how to grade students' work electronically. It has been partially updated for Fall 2021

Making Groups

• Dr. G will create the groups once drop/add is over and assign students to them.
• In Sakai, when grading, whenever you are viewing Assignments, your lab group should be an option in the View dropdown menu above the list of students' names. Group names are based on TA first name (with more identifying information if there are multiple TAs with the same first name).

Process

• Go to Assignments, figure out which assignment you want to grade, and click the Grade link for it.
• If you have a group set up as above, in the View drop down, go ahead and select your group.
• Find a student whose work you are grading and click their name.
• Depending on what they named things, Sakai may show "Failed to load document" because the first thing it sees isn't viewable (for instance, a zip file). If you look at the right under their name, there should be a Submitted Attachments section and you can click on what you want to see (most likely the PDF).
• If you are going to annotate their work and send the annotated version back to them, download the Submitted Attachment(s) to your local machine where you will grade. Maybe add the word "Graded" to the filename when you save.
• Grade electronically (see below) - be sure to clearly indicate where things went wrong and how many points were taken off as a result.
• In Sakai for that person, go to the Feedback Attachment(s) section, click Add Attachments and upload the graded version if you made any marks on it. You can also upload a filled-out rubric if one was provided and if you filled it out. Otherwise, at least in the Feedback Comment section, write any appropriate comments that would help the student understand what is wrong and how to correct it.
• Put the grade in the Grade box.
• Be sure to click the Save and Release to Student button.

Anecdotes

• Brendon C.: Just using preview (the basic mac PDF viewer) I attached a graded rubric onto the back of their assignment that I downloaded. I then made text notes on their document and put the grades on the rubric and uploaded that. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't too big of a hassle.
• Brody K.: I used FoxIT (very quick download) to edit the rubric as I graded and just uploaded it to the attachments. The "Typewriter" button on the toolbar works just like a regular text box. It was pretty painless to click and enter scores and comments. It does take a bit longer than grading a physical copy, due to the constant switching back and forth between student's lab, lab solution, rubric, and Sakai, but it was fairly straightforward. It does generate a lot of files for each TA to keep track of (10 rubrics and 10 student labs for every assignment)
• Dr. G: I use Adobe Acrobat, but that costs money for me. For you, Acrobat is free with the Creative Cloud OIT Download; I just leave comments in the locations that need them.
• Tyler J.: I found that students often don't look at (or know of) the individual comments that I or other graders make on their labs, so my strategy is often to leave remarks in as many places as possible. I use Dr. G's Acrobat strategy as well as marking directly on the rubric. For small errors I just leave a note in the PDF, whereas recurring or larger errors I will usually say in both the rubric and the Sakai upload to "refer to page 3 of the attached PDF" or something similar.
• Jackson K.: I use an iPad for schoolwork and download all PDFs into a newly created folder on Notability for each assignment. I then go on my laptop (using Duke Box or iCloud to sync files) and export as a .zip then upload to Sakai and score. It works amazingly well, but unfortunately requires a touch-enabled device.