Gradescope

Gradescope is a feedback and assessment tool that dramatically reduces the time associated with grading exams, homework, and other assignments. It is widely used for delivering assessments remotely. Gradescope enables instructors and graders to give better and more timely feedback, resulting in improved learning outcomes. Dynamic rubrics help streamline the tedious parts of grading while increasing grading consistency. AI-assisted grading allows instructors to automatically group similar answers and grade all the answers in each group at once. Gradescope also helps with grading programming assignments at scale and can automatically grade printed bubble sheets.

For support, please visit the Gradescope help page at https://help.gradescope.com/ or contact them at help@gradescope.com.

Getting Started

Blackboard Users

Please visit the USC KeepTeaching section on Gradescope.

D2L Brightspace Users

Gradescope connects with Desire2Learn as an External Learning Tool. In order to add Gradescope to your D2L Brightspace course, you can add it in the content area, and as a menu item in the navigation bar area.

Once you create the Gradescope link in your course you can:

Link Gradescope course to D2L Brightspace course roster
Create D2L Brightspace assignment to add item to grade book
Link your Gradescope assignment to D2L Brightspace assignment/gradebook
1. Do I need to link my Gradescope assignment to Brightspace? Yes, but not until you're ready to post Gradescope grades to your Brightspace Grades page. At that time you will need to connect your Gradescope assignment to a Brightspace grade item that you've set up to have the same overall point value as your Gradescope assignment. See Steps 1-3 of Posting grades if you'd like to do this now. Then perform the steps in Linking your assignment to Brightspace section.
Refer to these support articles or this video for additional detail.

Creating your Gradescope Exam

Before sending your exam for printing, your team must create the exam file inside Gradescope.

Please visit the Gradescope Getting Started page to learn how. Gradescope provides easy-to-follow tutorial videos on creating an exam. If you need our services for printing your on campus exams, you must read the following guidelines:

You must use our official USC Gradescope coversheet as the first page of your exam template. Gradescope will identify each coversheet by the logo, reducing upload errors after the exam. Please provide the course and exam title in the appropriate areas. You may add your own information to the coversheet, but do not remove anything already on it. Keep the coversheet to one page. Click the link below to download.

USC Gradescope Coversheet

Create the exam outline in your Gradescope course first. Read the instructions or watch a video to learn how to create one, set your regions and learn automated roster matching tips.
You must use our coversheet as the first page of your exam (clink the link inside the Gradescope Exam Coversheet section to download). Gradescope will identify each coversheet by the logo, reducing upload errors after the exam. Please provide the course and exam title in the appropriate areas. You may add your own information to the coversheet, but do not remove anything already on it. Keep the coversheet to one page.
Scratch pages: We do not recommend creating blank "scratch work" pages at the end of the Gradescope exam template. This leads to unnecessary regions for Gradescope to identify and makes the grading process less efficient. Instead, our Technical Support team can provide you (instructors or TA/grader proctors) with our Gradescope colored scratch pages upon request. Room proctors should only distribute these to students upon request during the exam time. Students should loosely insert any used scratch pages into their stapled exams. Before scanning, be sure to remove all colored scratch pages and scan them at the end, in their own batch. If dropping off to our Technical Support Center, please remove the colored scratch pages and put them into their own batch (each scratch page must have the student's full name and ID number at the top).
Uploading Submissions setting, we recommend selecting "Student." Having students use the Gradescope app to scan and upload their solutions drastically reduces uploading errors after the exam. Select "Instructor" if you wish to scan and upload the exams to Gradescope yourselves or if you request assistance from our Technical Support Center. Please read the Scanning and Uploading Options below for guidance.
Update the roster in your Gradescope course before creating each exam.
We do not recommend selecting the "Printed Labels" setting, as this is still in beta function.

If you request our services to print your on-campus exams, you must submit the Gradescope exam file to our print request form. This file must be the same exact file that is downloadable in your Gradescope assessment's settings. Our print request form is linked below.
Exams may be single or double-sided. If the exam is single-sided, students’ work on back pages will not be scanned. If the exam is double-sided, there must be sufficient print on both sides of every page. If you require our Technical Support Center to print, you can select either on the print request form linked below.
Please submit the form below at least three business days before your exam to give our team enough time to complete the request.
Multiple Exam Rooms: Please also let us know how many exams to assign each room when you get those numbers. Our technical support team will print the total number of exams assigned to all the rooms (which usually include extras your TAs include with those numbers).

Print Request Form

Please pick one of the two options below. We highly recommend "Option 1 - Student App Upload", as this method eliminates most uploading errors after the exam is over. When sending our teams the Gradescope exam file for printing, please also let us know which scan/upload option your course is using.

Please note if you select "Option 2 - Instructor Upload" and request scanning/uploading services from our Technical Support Center, your course team is responsible for fixing any upload errors in the Gradescope upload area. More information included below.

Students Scan/Upload Using the Gradescope App

When the exam is completed, we recommend having your students scan and upload their solutions via the Gradescope app on their mobile devices. This has proven to be the most accurate way to upload exams into the Gradescope platform, in addition to providing much higher quality scans than relying on our high speed scanner. If your course chooses the student upload method, please have the students install the Gradescope app on their phones and distribute this tutorial link to them before the exam date:

https://www.gradescope.com/get_started#mobile-app-link

The app upload method requires selecting “Student” upload when creating the exam, in addition to providing an “end time” at least 20 minutes after the “due time” to allow students to scan and upload their solutions:

If your instructor approves alternate exam times for remote DEN students, you will need to provide special access per approved student. Communicate with denexam@usc.edu for the list of students and their approved times when creating each Gradescope exam. Your team is responsible for providing this special access to approved students within the Gradescope exam's "Extensions" area:

https://help.gradescope.com/article/1c39ek2y94-instructor-assignment-extending-dates-times

Instructor or Technical Support Center will Scan/Upload to Gradescope

Your team has the option of scanning and uploading the exams to Gradescope yourselves after the exam is over. The alternative is dropping off the exams to our Technical Support Center in OHE 142. This method is not recommended for two reasons: our high speed scanner does not provide as high quality scans as modern mobile devices via the Gradescope app (Option 1). More importantly, this method often results in matching errors that the TA-grading team must manually fix within the Gradescope platform. Fixing these errors include reordering, splitting or merging submissions within the Gradescope assessment:

How to Fix Uploading Errors in Gradescope

If you choose this method, you must follow these guidelines:

Pen is preferred, but dark pencil if necessary.
If using the labeled printouts feature, no writing near the top code on each page. We do not recommend selecting this feature, as it is in beta stage.
Keep the exams stapled if you drop them off to the Technical Support Center.
If any scratch pages were used by students, your team should separate them from the exams and put them in their own batch. Students must write their names and ID numbers at the top of each scratch page used. Only distribute the colored DEN Gradescope scratch pages to students upon request (do not give them to every student). Ask our Technical Support Center for a stack of these colored scratch pages before the exam.
If there are any matching errors in the “Manage Scans” area of Gradescope, your team is responsible for fixing them. The link above provides more information.
Please give our technical support team up to two business days to complete the scanning/uploading.
TA/Grading team must pick up exams when scanning is concluded.

Published on September 9th, 2020Last updated on December 13th, 2024