Legacy Portal: Grade Essay Questions

Assessment admins and graders can grade essay questions online and can include individualized comments for each essay response. Depending on your institution's settings, you can grade with or without a rubric.

Procedures

• Navigate to the Grade Essays Tab
• Grade an Essay Question with Points
• Grade an Essay Question with Rubrics

Navigate to the Grade Essays Tab

1. Navigate to the assessment that you need to grade.
2. Select the Grade Essays tab.

   

   This takes you to the Grading Setup screen, which lists the essay questions in this assessment.

   

3. Continue to the appropriate procedure:
   • Grade an Essay Question Without Rubrics
   • Grade an Essay Question with Rubrics

Grade an Essay Question Without Rubrics

1. Navigate to the assessment, and select the Grade Essays tab.
2. If there's more than one question, determine which one you want to start with.
3. For Grading Type, keep the default option, Points, and then select the Manage Settings/Grade button.

   
   
   This brings you to the Basic Grading tab. 
   
   Note: You won't be using the Advanced Grading Assignments tab in this procedure. If you want information about grading assignments, see: Legacy Portal: Create and Manage Graders

4. Select Grade Question.

   
   
   
   The grading application opens in a pop-up window.

   

   • At the top of your screen, you'll see a Grading Progress bar for each exam-taker as well as an Overall Grading Progress bar for the assessment.
   • In the list of exam-takers, a Grade button appears for each exam-taker who has uploaded the exam.
5. Determine which exam-taker you want to start with, and then select Grade.

   This will bring you to the grading screen.
   
   

   Notes:

   • At the top of the screen, the progress indicates the percentage of essay responses that you have graded so far.
   • On the left side of the screen, you can see the question as well as the exam-taker’s response.
     • Above the question text, you can select a different question (if there are multiple essay questions to be graded).
     • In the toolbar above the response, you can change the spacing and font size for easier reading.
     • To increase the space available for the response, you can select Hide Question.
     • If you would prefer to read from a hard copy, select the Print Essay button (below the response). 
   • On the right side of the screen, you can see the area to enter your Score and Comments.
6. Read the response, and then enter the Score and Comments (on the right side of the screen).
7. Select Save.
8. Use the buttons at the lower left corner of the screen to navigate to the Next Question or the Next Exam Taker.

   

9. Continue until the progress bars show that you have completed the grading for this question.

Grade an Essay Question with Rubrics

Note: If there are multiple rubrics and you selected the All Rubrics option, you can use the Prev Rubric and Next Rubric buttons to navigate among them.

1. Navigate to the assessment, and select the Grade Essays tab.
2. Select the Rubrics option, and then select the Add Rubrics button.

   

3. In the pop-up window, select the rubric(s) that you want to use to grade this question.

   

   • To explore the available rubrics: Scroll up and down to view the Folders list (on the left). When you select a folder, its rubric(s) will be listed at the top of the pop-up window. Select Preview to see more information about a rubric.

     Note: If you've scrolled down to find a folder, the main area of the screen will be blank. You'll need to scroll up to the top of the pop-up window to see the list of rubrics. 

   • To add a single rubric: Locate the rubric in the list, and then select the+symbol in the Actions column.
   • To add multiple rubrics: Select the checkbox for each rubric, and then select Add Selected to Question (at the bottom of the window). 
   • When finished: Select the Close button to return to the Grading Setup screen.

   After you close the pop-up window, the Grading Setup grid shows the selected rubric(s).

   

   Notes:

   • You can edit the weight of each selected rubric in the Weight column.
   • You can use the buttons in the Actions column to view or remove a rubric. 
4. If you are satisfied with the selected rubric(s), select Save (at the bottom of the Grading Setup grid).
5. To start grading, select the Manage Settings / Grade button.

   This will bring you to the Basic Grading tab for this question. Each selected rubric is listed.
   

6. Select Grade Rubric to start grading. Or, if you selected multiple rubrics, use one of these options:
   • If you want to have access to all rubrics as you grade: Select the Grade Question (All Rubrics) button (above the list of rubrics). With this option, the grading window will allow you to navigate among the rubrics while viewing and grading each essay response.
   • If you prefer to work with one rubric at a time: Select Grade Rubric button (on the right side of the screen). With this option, the grading window will show only the selected rubric. After you've graded all of the essay responses with that rubric, you'll come back to the grading grid, select the next rubric, and go through the essay responses again.

   
   The grading application opens in a pop-up window.

7. Determine which exam-taker to start with, and select Grade.

   

   This brings you to the grading screen.

   

   • At the top of the screen, the progress indicates the percentage of essay responses that you have graded so far.
   • On the left side of the screen, you can see the question as well as the exam-taker’s response.
     • Above the question text, you can select a different question (if there are multiple essay questions to be graded).
     • In the toolbar above the response, you can change the spacing and font size for easier reading.
     • To increase the space available for the response, you can select Hide Question.
     • If you prefer to read a hard copy, you can use the Print Essay button (below the response) to print the essay. 
   • On the right side of the screen, you can see the rubric and the Overall Comments area.
8. In the rubric, hover over the i buttons to see the descriptions, and then select the i button for the rating that you want to give.

   When selected, a cell has a colored background. The colors correspond to the ratings, from bright green at the highest level to bright red at the lowest level.

9. In the Comments column, select the comments icon to enter comments for each row of the rubric.
10. Enter Overall Comments for the essay as a whole.
11. When finish grading this response, select Save.
12. Use the buttons at the lower left corner of the screen to navigate to the Next Question or the Next Exam Taker.

    

13. Continue until the progress bars show that you have completed the grading for this question.