From 0ac79f7b13f4630c726d715831aff19328b4dc79 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rebecca Phuonghanh Dang Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:04:44 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 1/4] Add section on creating rubrics to Exam Grading article --- course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 32 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md index 1c94511..c6eff63 100644 --- a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md +++ b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md @@ -58,7 +58,37 @@ yet, you can complete 98% of the grading overhead simply by category grouping. - The answer groups you create serve as a log of the responses your students provide, as well as how many students wrote each response. Such is useful data for the future. -## Assigning points +## Creating Rubrics + +Hopefully during the [exam writing]({% link logistics/exams/writing-exams.md %}) phase, +the exam writers wrote the question with some idea of how they wished to grade the question. +However, even after you have scanned the exams, there are some things to consider: + +- **Look at a few submissions (e.g. 10-20 of them) to see how students *actually* answered the questions.** This can give you more ideas for alternate solutions or how to award partial credit. It can also provide a signal of whether the question was too easy or too hard (and to adjust grading accordingly). +- **Be aware of any clarifications that were announced during the exam that may affect grading.** +- **Be aware that there may be multiple ways to solve a particular problem.** +- **Avoid double jeopardy wherever possible, e.g. don't penalize students twice for the same mistake** if a problem builds off a previous one. +- **Unless that is the learning objective for the exam, avoid penalizing small "formatting" mistakes such as minor syntax or spelling errors.** + - If you do decide to penalize students for errors like these, make it clear in your rubric what you penalized so that graders can apply the rubric consistently. For example, rather than `-0.5 Minor error`, the rubric item could say `-0.5 Minor syntax error`. +- **Make your rubric items as specific as possible.** This can make grading more efficient (staff don't need to refer back to an answer key) and make point adjustments much easier. For example, if halfway through grading you realize that your MCQ had 2 correct answer options instead of 1, you can quickly change the point value for the previously incorrect option and that will automatically affect all students with that rubric item applied. + - Have different rubric items for `+0 Incorrect` and `+0 Blank`. You may wish to be even more granular and record every single incorrect answer option as a separate rubric item (this is useful for changing point values and to see if there are patterns of misunderstanding amongst students). + - For MCQ or multi-select questions, have a rubric item for each option, even if it's incorrect. + - Gradescope can automatically calculate useful statistics such as what percentage of students have a rubric item applied, which can be useful for pedagogy. +- **Build partial credit into the rubric.** For example, here is a rubric you might have for a short answer coding question in Python that awards partial credit for an off-by-one list indexing error: + - `+1 Correct: lst[i + 1]` + - `+0.5 Partial: lst[i]` + - `+0 Incorrect` + - `+0 Blank` + +### Multi-Select Question Grading Schemes + +| Scheme | Description | Pros | Cons | +| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | +| All or nothing | Students must select exactly the correct subset of options to get full credit on the question. Otherwise, they receive 0 points on the question. | Students must be very precise in answering, which discourages frivolous guessing. | There is no partial credit, so even if students demonstrate some understanding they won't get rewarded for it. | +| Additive partial credit | Let `n` be the total points possible for the question and `m` be the total number of options (both correct and incorrect). In this grading scheme, each option has a rubric item of `+n/m` points for correctly selecting that option or correctly NOT selecting that option. | This scheme does not punish students for incorrect selection or lack of selection. | This scheme rewards students who have a strategy of selecting all answer options if a majority of the options should be selected. Conversely, it rewards students who have a strategy of selecting nothing if a majority of the options should NOT be selected. | +| Additive and subtractive partial credit | Let `n` be the total points possible for the question and `k` be the total number of **correct** options. In this grading scheme, each **correct** option the student selects awards them `+n/k` points and each **incorrect** option they selected awards them `-n/k` points. Additionally, to prevent negative total points or more points than the question is worth, have a point floor of `0` and a point ceiling of `n`. | This scheme discourages frivolous guessing while still allowing students to get partial credit. It also ensures that a student who selects all options or selects none of the options gets 0 points. | It can be frustrating for students to receive 0 points in a question even if they selected some correct options. For example, this can happen if they selected an equal number of correct and incorrect options. | + +### Assigning points A quick note on point assignment. The purpose of an exam is to test a student's understanding on certain topics. The most objective way we currently have is assigning points on questions for student answers. @@ -92,3 +122,4 @@ their own exams and how framing exam grading in this way might influence rubrics - [Managing Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/21586609950477-Managing-Assignments) - [Exam/Quiz Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/27893603774605-Exam-Quiz-Assignments) - [Answer Groups](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/24838908062093-AI-Assisted-Grading-and-Answer-Groups) +- [Rubrics](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/22249389005709-Grading-submissions-with-rubrics) From 18df2e6637299e9fc781c6f1d13bee980f9a4909 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rebecca Phuonghanh Dang Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:28:34 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 2/4] Add notes about Gradescope autograding, rubric updating, and exams with multiple versions --- course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md index c6eff63..48ebe73 100644 --- a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md +++ b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md @@ -79,6 +79,9 @@ However, even after you have scanned the exams, there are some things to conside - `+0.5 Partial: lst[i]` - `+0 Incorrect` - `+0 Blank` +- **Be aware that Gradescope autograding feature for online assignments is very particular.** For example, if you have a short answer question box, it will only mark answers correct if the string is an exact match. If there is extra whitespace or difference in uppercase vs. lowercase, it will mark the answer as wrong. Thus, you may wish to manually grade all short answer and long answer text boxes. +- **If you update the rubric while grading, make sure to go back and check previously graded submissions** to see if the rubric changes apply to those submissions. +- **When grading exams with multiple versions on Gradescope, you can import the rubric from the first version of the exam.** ### Multi-Select Question Grading Schemes From 8cd0af92947d23050fe444c020fea6e2befc1030 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silas Santini <70163606+pancakereport@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 14:06:08 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 3/4] wording --- course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md index 48ebe73..2180daf 100644 --- a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md +++ b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md @@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ A quick note on point assignment. The purpose of an exam is to test a student's The most objective way we currently have is assigning points on questions for student answers. On one hand, the most important part of exam grading is having a consistent rubric that is applied equitably for every student. In addition to this though, it matters too that the answers that are neither fully correct -nor fully incorrect are assigned points roughly proportionally to how correct they are. +nor fully incorrect are assigned points roughly proportionate to how correct they are. For instance, suppose you give students a question, "Explain how an inode-based file system works." A fully correct response might be one that briefly describes direct pointers and indirect pointers, From 426a87b3fb7cf70222ce0a332641f7dc5a95649d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rebecca Phuonghanh Dang Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 14:30:56 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 4/4] Elaborate on Gradescope autograding of online assignments --- course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md | 15 +++++++++------ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md index 48ebe73..333896f 100644 --- a/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md +++ b/course-software/gradescope/exam-grading.md @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ However, even after you have scanned the exams, there are some things to conside - `+0.5 Partial: lst[i]` - `+0 Incorrect` - `+0 Blank` -- **Be aware that Gradescope autograding feature for online assignments is very particular.** For example, if you have a short answer question box, it will only mark answers correct if the string is an exact match. If there is extra whitespace or difference in uppercase vs. lowercase, it will mark the answer as wrong. Thus, you may wish to manually grade all short answer and long answer text boxes. +- **Be aware that Gradescope autograding feature for online assignments is very particular.** For example, if you have a short answer question box, it will only mark answers correct if the string is an exact match. In the assignment [settings](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/22066784117901-Grading-Online-Assignments#h_01HH379F1XK4P0TC6G2QN41P36), you can strip leading/trailing whitespace and enable case insensitive matching for short answer questions. Otherwise, you may wish to manually grade all short and long answer text boxes. Similarly, for multi-select questions, Gradescope will autograde those using the all or nothing [grading scheme](#multi-select-question-grading-schemes); if you wish to use a different scheme you will need to manually grade those questions. - **If you update the rubric while grading, make sure to go back and check previously graded submissions** to see if the rubric changes apply to those submissions. - **When grading exams with multiple versions on Gradescope, you can import the rubric from the first version of the exam.** @@ -120,9 +120,12 @@ what percentage of complete understanding does the student have to grasp to arri These questions will be left as a thought experiment for the reader, who is encouraged to think about their own exams and how framing exam grading in this way might influence rubrics. -## Relevant Gradescope Docs +## Resources -- [Managing Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/21586609950477-Managing-Assignments) -- [Exam/Quiz Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/27893603774605-Exam-Quiz-Assignments) -- [Answer Groups](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/24838908062093-AI-Assisted-Grading-and-Answer-Groups) -- [Rubrics](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/22249389005709-Grading-submissions-with-rubrics) +- Relevant Gradescope docs + - [Managing Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/21586609950477-Managing-Assignments) + - [Exam/Quiz Assignments](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/sections/27893603774605-Exam-Quiz-Assignments) + - [Answer Groups](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/24838908062093-AI-Assisted-Grading-and-Answer-Groups) + - [Rubrics](https://guides.gradescope.com/hc/en-us/articles/22249389005709-Grading-submissions-with-rubrics) + + \ No newline at end of file