How to view and mark submissions : Setting up assessments, marking work and giving feedback : ... : Educational Enhancement : Staff Hub : University of Sussex

Find out how to view and mark submissions in Canvas SpeedGrader.

Before Marking

Before marking

Consider how you will make use of Canvas Speedgrader tools for marking. If part of a marking team it is important to clarify expectations around the style and content of feedback. This might be, for example, in relation to the use of annotations, rubrics or grading forms, and free text comments, the use of audio feedback, and so on. Ideally this will form part of calibration meetings.
Check whether your School or Department has its own feedback policies, for example, regarding the use of rubrics or on what should be included in feedback. If in doubt, check with your Course Convenor, Assessment Convenor or the chair of your Board of Studies.
Read the following guidance:

Efficient and consistent marking and moderation provides guidance on steps you can take before, during and after marking to ensure marking processes are effective and sustainable.
Effective feedback explores the principles of providing effective feedback to enable students to understand their marks and how to act on the feedback they receive.

Making marking more accessible

When leaving comments for students with hearing disabilities, we recommend instructors leave a text-based comment instead of a voice recording.

When leaving comments for students with vision impairment, we recommend instructors include the original text alongside their comments so that students can associate the instructor’s comment with the text of their submission.

Marking Canvas assignments

Wherever possible, you should take steps to anonymise student submissions in Canvas before marking, as per the instructions below.
The University does not allow resubmissions to Canvas during the late period (where one applies), but there is no way to prevent this happening in Canvas. Therefore you must check that you are viewing the correct submission before marking, as per the instructions below

Instructions

Go to the module in Canvas
Choose Grades in the left-hand module navigation menu
To anonymise the Gradebook

In the student name column, in the column header, select the Student Name options (vertical elipsis) button).
Choose Display as > Last Name, first name

If you need to restrict submissions to a specific marking group

Select Apply Filters
Choose Sections, then choose your marking group

In the GradeBook, ocate the column for the assignment you are marking. Check that the word MANUAL appers in the column header.

Set the assignment's Grade Posting Policy to "Manually" before you start marking
If some submissions have already been marked, then Hide Grades for the assignment to esnure that marks are not released to students early.

Hover over the assignment column header and select the Options (vertical elipsis) icon.
Choose SpeedGrader
To anonymise SpeedGrader
1. At the top-left of Speedgrader, click the Settings (cog) icon
2. Choose Options.
3. Click to select the Hide student names in Speedgrader checkbox.
4. Click Save Settings.
  Speedgrader will remember these settings for next time, unless you use a different web browser or device.
Use the arrows at the top-right of Speedgrader to move between submissions.

If you have filtered by marking group, you will only be able to see submissions for that marking group. You can change the marking group by clicking on the student number drop-down at the top-right of the screen.

It is not possible to show Candidate numbers or search for a submission by Candidate
Number within Speedgrader. If you need to find the submission for a particular candidate, you must do this via the Gradebook.
For each student, check that you are viewing the correct submission before you start marking. The University’s assessment regulations do not permit students to make a resubmission in the late period, but there is no way to prevent this in Canvas.

If a student has submitted more than once, use the Submission to View box to choose which submission to mark. Submissions made after the assignment’s on-time deadline will show as LATE
1. If a student has submitted before the deadline, you should only mark the last submission before the deadline (even if they have also submitted after the deadline).
2. Where a student has only submitted after the deadline, you should only mark the first submission after the deadline.
3. Where a student has a permitted late resubmission, your school office will notify you to mark outside of Canvas, to ensure that late penalties are correctly applied in our central student database.
  
  Canvas will indicate if the submission you are viewing is not the most recent one. You can ignore this warning if you have checked that you are marking the correct submission.
  
  Do not change the status indicator (see step 18 for more details).
Click on the filename within Submitted Files to view a file. If a file cannot be viewed in Speedgrader, you can download it from here.

Do not rely on the word count in Speedgrader, as this can be inaccurate. If you suspect that a submission does not meet the word count requirements for the assessment, you can download the file to check the Word count.
Turnitin similarity reports will be available for eligible files on assignments set to generate similarity reports.

You should not take the similarity score into consideration until after you have marked the submission.

To view a report click on View Turnitin Similarity Report. See Turnitin's guidance for how to interpret the similarity report.

The message "The file was not accepted" indicates that it was not possible to generate a similarity report, usually because a file does not meet Turnitin's file requirements.

If no Turnitin similarity reports are showing on an assignment where they are required, this indicates that the assignment is not set up correctly. Check the assignment settings include the Turnitin Document Processor. Once this is added, you can generate the similarity reports when marking each individual submission in Speedgrader.
Speedgrader offers several feedback annotation tools including text comments, highlights, strikethrough, shapes and freehand drawing. See Canvas' guide for adding annotated comments.
Use the assignment comments area to give overall feedback for the submission via text, video or audio recording, or by uploading a file.

You must click Submit to save a comment, please note if you do not do this, students will not be able to see your feedback, even though it will still be visible to you. When recording audio or video comments, check your comment has finished uploading before clicking Submit. See Canvas' guide for leaving feedback comments.
It is possible to re-use comments, by saving them to your Comment Library.
If you are using a rubric, the rubric will show in the right-hand pane. See Canvas' guide for using a rubric to grade submissions. Also see our Principles of rubrics and grading forms page.
Type the mark for the submission in the Grade box.
Do not edit the Status. Late penalties are applied automatically in our central student database, not Canvas, so do not edit the status here as this may disrupt that process.
Click the Gradebook icon to exit Speedgrader.

Marking Canvas Quizzes

Most Canvas quiz questions types are marked automatically. However you will need to mark your quiz manually if:

the quiz includes Essay and/or File Upload-type questions
you need to adjust the scores manually for a quiz attempt.

To mark a quiz, you use Gradebook and Speedgrader to access the student submissions and leave general feedback, as described above.

To mark individual questions:
A view of the Canvas Quiz marking interface

In the Points field, type a mark for the question
Type any additional comments into the Additional Comments box.
To adjust the scores manually for questions that were marked automatically, you can use the fudge points options in Speedgrader.
Scroll to the bottom of the quiz and click Update Scores to apply the marks.

If a multiple-choice type question needs regrading because of an error in the set-up of the question, for instance if the wrong response was marked as incorrect, you must follow these instructions to regrade the quiz.