What is Gradescope

From the vendor: “Gradescope streamlines the tedious parts of grading paper-based, digital, and code assignments while providing insights into how your students are doing. … Gradescope lets instructors save time on grading so that they can do more of what matters – teaching! With Gradescope, students receive faster and more detailed feedback on their work, and instructors can see detailed assignment and question analytics.”

Details directions for the use of Gradescope itself is beyond the scope of this Using Gradescope with Canvas document. If you want to learn more about Gradescope in general:

1. See if we have a training session scheduled.
2. Try the Gradescope Getting Started guide.
3. Request a 1-on-1 consultation using the form from the Canvas help menu on the left.

More Gradescope-provided Training

• Canvas & Gradescope Instructor Guide
• Canvas & Gradescope Student Guide

Configuring Gradescope for your Course

Add Gradescope to your Course Navigation Menu:

While it is not required to use it, you may add Gradescope to the course navigation menu for your course if you would like. This may allow easier access for you and your students, and might serve as a reminder to them that you are using Gradescope.

1. Click on Settings for your course navigation menu.
2. Click the Navigation tab.
3. Find “Gradescope” in the list of disabled items (the bottom list in this page).
4. Click the three dot menu (⋮) next to Gradescope.
5. Click Enable.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
   

You may (optionally) remove this after you have configured Gradescope for your course if you would prefer your students only access Gradescope through modules or assignments.

Creating your Course in Gradescope

Now you need to create your course in Gradescope and link it to Canvas.

1. Click Gradescope from your course navigation menu. It will open Gradescope in a new tab or window.
2. Gradescope may log you in automatically. If it does not, follow the log in process (log in with School Credentials).
   • If this is your first time using Gradescope, you may need to create your account first. Remember to use School Credentials for the University of Pittsburgh, which will log you in using the Pitt Passport service.
3. In the Link to Canvas Course window that appears, select A new Gradescope Course and click Link Course.
4. In the Edit Course page that appears, choose any options you would like. We recommend you use the defaults for most courses, and any options may be changed later if you need to.
5. Click Update Course.
   

Importing Roster to Gradescope

You need to tell Gradescope to import your roster from Canvas. You may need to repeat this process if students join your course later.

1. (Within Gradescope), click Roster in the left hand menu.
2. Click Sync Canvas Roster.
3. In the Sync with Canvas Roster window, you may optionally check “Let new users know…” and click Sync Roster.
   • We recommend you communicate with your students in some fashion before you allow Gradescope to email them. That is, we recommend you uncheck this box, unless you’ve already talked to your students about Gradescope.
4. You may need to (re)authorize Gradescope to access your Canvas account. If asked, click Authorize. (This may sometimes require logging in to Pitt Passport again.)
   • If you had to (re)authorize, you may need to repeat step 3.
     
     

Ready to go!

Gradescope now has been sufficiently configured to use for many courses. There are other options that may be desired, such as TA access, or rubric defaults. To learn more about these, find additional training material as discussed at the top of this page.

Creating Assignments

Important note: Gradescope recently added deeper integration with Canvas. You can follow the directions Gradescope’s Canvas help page (links above in What Is section) under Linking your Assignments for details on how to do the deep link from the assignments page. This only allows easier access to specific Gradescope assignments from Canvas, but does not yet sync assignment name, due dates, and so on, which are managed and changed separately in Gradescope from Canvas. We are excited for those new features to be implemented, but there is currently no timeline for it. You may view the Gradescope Roadmap if you would like more information about this, and any other news about Gradescope’s development.

Create the Assignment in Canvas

Create the assignment as you normally would, except:

1. Choose External Tool as the Submission Type.
2. Click Find to open the Configure External Tool window.
3. Scroll through the list to find Gradescope and click on it.
4. Click on Select.
5. You may choose to enable Load this Tool In A New Tab if your assignments are particularly long or complex.
6. Finish creating your assignment as you normally would.
7. Click Save. (It’s best not to publish the assignment until after you also create it in Gradescope so that students get full information and are less likely to get conflicting or missing information.)
   • You will need to return to publish your assignment later before you can post grades to Canvas from Gradescope. It is best practice to publish your assignment in Canvas (with the proper due dates) as early as reasonable, so that students can use Canvas’ calendar, to-do, scheduling, and reminder features.

You will now be taken to Gradescope where you can create the details of the assignment.

Create the Assignment in Gradescope

It is important to create the assignment in Canvas as well as Gradescope, so make sure you have done above. If you do not do that, you will not be able to link the assignment between the two systems for grades to appear in the student grade book within Canvas. As noted above, most aspects of the assignment are completely separate between the two systems.

Detailed directions for the use of Gradescope is beyond the scope of this Using Gradescope with Canvas document. To learn more about this, find additional training material as discussed at the top of this page.

Using Gradescope

Now, the teacher or students submit their assignments, and the teacher grade the assignments. Details directions for the use of Gradescope assignments is beyond the scope of this Using Gradescope with Canvas document. To learn more about this, find additional training material as discussed at the top of this page.

Posting Grades to Canvas

After you have graded within Gradescope, you may publish grades in that system (including using its email grades and statistics features, and regrade requests features). You now also can post the grades to Canvas.

1. (Within Gradescope), go to the graded assignment.
   1. Click Assignments at the left.
   2. Click on the assignment from the list.
2. Click on Review Grades from the assignment menu at the left.
3. Click Post Grades to Canvas from the menu bar at the bottom.
4. In the Post Grades to Canvas window, click (edit) under Linked Canvas Assignment.
5. The window will not change to a drop down list of your assignments in the linked Canvas course. This may take a few moments.
6. Click on the drop down menu and select the assignment in Canvas that this Gradescope assignment should post its grades to.
7. Click Link Assignment.
   • You may need to repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 after linking the assignments.
8. Click Post Grades.
9. Wait until you see the message ✓ Grades successfully posted to Canvas!.
10. Click Close.

If you need to synchronize the grades from Gradescope to Canvas again later (such as after handling regrade requests), repeat the above process, except you will not need to repeat steps 4 through 7.

See also: Gradescope Training Webinars and other recent updates.