Grade essay questions in an exam

Steps

1. In “Exams”, click “Grade essays” on the exam card (or “Open grading board” on the results page, or “Grade now” on the dashboard).
2. The grading page lists the attempts, with counts for “Total submissions”, “Essays to grade” and “Grading complete”. Filter by “All”, “Not graded”, “Graded”, or search for a student by name or email.
3. Each attempt shows “Fully graded”, “Partially graded” or “Not graded” and how many essay questions have been graded. Click “Grade”.
4. The grading page for each attempt shows the student's name and the “Current exam score”. Use “Previous student” / “Next student” to move between attempts, and pick a question in the “Essay question” list.
5. Read the question and the student's answer (if it's blank, the page says “The student left no answer.”). Formulas written between two $ signs in the question appear as math; the student's answer is shown as typed.
6. Enter the “Answer score” (not more than the question's maximum points). If the question has a rubric attached, choose a level for each criterion and add notes if needed. Add “Feedback / Guidance”, then click “Save score for this question”.
7. The left column has the “Integrity log” block for the attempt you're grading (see the Integrity log guide). It loads separately; if it doesn't load, you can still grade as usual.

Common errors and how to fix them

• “Please enter a valid score” or “Score can't exceed … pts” → enter a score within the allowed range.
• “Please select a level for all … criteria” → choose a level for every criterion in the rubric.
• “This answer was graded in another session. Please reload before saving.” → this question was just graded in another tab or on another device; reload the page and check the score again.
• “Couldn't load the exam attempt to grade” or the attempt list doesn't load → click “Try again”.