Manually grade an essay question

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Annotations

Graded annotations

Highlighting

Keywords

An essay question can't be automatically graded by Möbius and requires you to manually define a grade for the student's response.

A Gradebook search is first performed to identify student essay responses that require manual grading (check out Search for class grades).

There are some grading tools that you can use while manually grading an essay in addition to the regular workflow of manually grading an activity:

  • Annotations
  • Graded annotations
  • Highlighting
  • Keywords

To simply define the grade for the essay response without using these additional grading tools, check out Perform manual grading.

TIP: Alternatively, you can use the Activity Grading View of the Grade Manager to manually grade a student's response to an essay question. Check out Access the Activity Grading View.

IMPORTANT: Assignment regrading isn't applied to questions that have been manually graded or have had their grades manually adjusted. Check out Perform manual grading for more information on manually editing grades in the Gradebook.

Annotations

The Essay Annotation palette can be accessed if you are manually grading an essay question.

The Essay Annotation Palette is on the left side of the Question pane.

The palette is a short-hand method to represent your corrections made to a student's essay.

Image depicting the list of symbols available from the Essay Annotation palette.

Annotations that you insert into student responses are visible to the student when they review their graded essay through their Gradebook.

To use essay annotations:

  1. Click anywhere on the collapsed palette to expand it to view a collection of pre-defined essay annotations in alphabetical order.

Click anywhere on the collapsed palette, which is on the left side of the Question pane.

TIP: Hover your cursor over an annotation in the expanded palette to view a description for each symbol.

When the cursor hovers over an annotation, its description appears at the top of the Essay Annotation palette.

TIP: You can customize your Essay Annotation palette:

  1. Click Add Symbol to create your own custom annotation.

The Add Symbol pane is highlighted at the bottom of the Essay Annotation palette.

  1.  Define the characters that you want to be displayed as your new annotation symbol in the Symbol field.

The Symbol field is highlighted underneath the Add Symbol heading.

  1.  Define the description of your new symbol in the Description field.

The Description field is highlighted underneath the Symbol field.

  1.  Click Add to insert your new symbol into the existing palette where it would fit alphabetically.

The Add button is highlighted below the Description field, which is below the Add Symbol heading.

TIP: Click-and-drag any unwanted annotations to the Drag here to remove section of the palette.

Click-and-drag the transpose annotation down to the highlighted area, which is under the Add Symbol heading.

TIP: Click the minimize iconThe minimize icon is a white minus sign inside a dark circleto collapse the palette.

The minimize icon is highlighted to the right of the Essay Annotation heading.

  1. Click-and-drag an annotation from the palette to the desired location within the student's essay response.

Click-and-drag from the Essay Annotation palette on the left to the students response on the right.

TIP: Click-and-drag the annotation from the student's essay response to the Drag here to remove section of the palette to remove an annotation from the essay (but not remove it from the palette).

  1. Click the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk.to save your annotation placements.

The save icon is highlighted beside the part grade field and below the annotated response.

  1. Your annotations and the associated descriptions are visible to the student when they hover their cursor over the annotation in their graded essay response in their Gradebook.

When the cursor is hovered over the annotation, the description appears above the annotation.

Graded annotations

You can award part grades by adding graded annotations within a student's essay response.

You can also choose to include a comment to accompany your graded annotation which is visible to the student when they hover their cursor over the annotated grade.

To add a graded annotation:

  1. Click-and-drag your cursor over the portion of text where you want to add a graded annotation.

The portion of text in the response is highlighted.

  1.  Right-click on the selected portion of text.

A menu appears underneath the selected text.

  1.  Click Annotate.

Annotate is the second entry in the menu underneath the selected text.

  1. Define the part grade between 0 and the weight of the response area in the Grade field of Add Annotation Editor that you want to award to this portion of selected text.

The Grade field is highlighted for changing the part grade.

NOTE: The weight of the response area is displayed as the part grade denominator and is defined when the question is authored. Example — If the weight of the response area is 5.0, define a part grade of 1 if you want the selected portion of text to be awarded a grade equivalent of 20%.

Part Grade

  1.  (Optional) Include a comment in the Comment field that explains the awarded part grade.

The Comment field is highlighted for adding a comment when changing the part grade.

  1. Click Done.

The Done button is highlighted.

  1. The defined part grade is then automatically included in the part grade field.

The updated part grade in the Question pane is highlighted.

NOTE: You can define as many graded annotations as needed. However, the sum of the graded annotations needs to be between 0 and the weight of the response area. Example — If the weight of the response area is 1.0, the sum of the graded annotations can be between 0 and 1.0.

  1.  Click the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk..

The save icon is highlighted beside the part grade field.

  1. The awarded part grade is automatically used in the total grade calculation to determine the student's overall grade.

The calculation and total of the question grade is highlighted.

NOTE: The question's status fields update to show that the question has been fully graded and that there are no remaining parts ungraded if you have added a graded annotation to all response areas of a question that require manual grading.

In the Status table next to Fully Graded there is a checkmark.

TIP: Click your graded annotation and then click:

  • Edit to modify the graded annotation by being navigated back to the Add Annotation Editor.

After clicking on the annotation, the first menu option is highlighted.

  • Remove to delete the graded annotation.

After clicking on the annotation, the second menu option is highlighted.

NOTE: Manually entering a part grade value in the edit part grade field overrides any graded annotation values that are used in the total grade calculation (and the overall grade). However, the graded annotation remains visible so that students can see where they earned specific part grades unless the graded annotation is explicitly removed.

The graded annotation values and the manually entered part grade value are highlighted.

Editing or removing a graded annotation will automatically recalculate the part grade based on the remaining and updated graded annotations. Remember to review your part grade totals after editing graded annotations. Example — If you have 2 graded annotations worth 0.1 each and you've manually edited the part grade field to be 0.9, removing a graded annotation will cause the part grade to only represent the remaining 0.1 graded annotation.

The partial grades from annotations and the recalculated grade are highlighted.

  1. Your graded annotations (and comments if they've been defined) are visible to the student when they hover their cursor over the annotation in their graded essay response in their Gradebook.

With the cursor hovered over the annotation, the graded annotation and comment is highlighted.

Highlighting

You can manually highlight selected text in a student's essay response.

NOTE: Highlighting doesn't affect the student's grade and is purely for drawing attention to a specific section of a student's response.

To highlight a portion of the student's essay response:

  1.  Click-and-drag your cursor over the portion of text that you want to become highlighted.

The portion of text in the response is highlighted.

  1.  Right-click on the selected portion of text.

A menu appears underneath the selected text.

  1.  Click Highlight.

Highlight is the first entry in the menu underneath the selected text.

  1.  Your selected portion of text displays a yellow highlight.

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  1. Click the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk.to save your highlights. The highlighted portion of text is also highlighted when the student views their graded essay response in their Gradebook.

The save icon is highlighted beside the part grade field and below the yellow highlighted text.

TIP: Click the highlighted text at anytime to remove the yellow highlight (and then click the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk.).

Keywords

You can define keywords (and synonyms) while grading an essay response.

TIP: Keywords can also be defined when the essay question is authored and is the recommended method. Check out Author an essay question.

Any keyword or synonym in a student's essay response will be automatically highlighted.

To use keywords:

  1. Click the add keyword iconThe Add Keywork icon is a black plus.to create a keyword.

The add keyword button is highlighted beside the keywords.

  1. Define the keyword(s) in the Keywords field of the Add Keyword Editor that you want to be automatically highlighted in the student's essay response.

The Keyword field is highlighted for defining a keyword.

  1.  (Optional) Define related synonyms in the Synonyms field that you would also want to be automatically highlighted in the student's response.

The Keywords field contains "STEM" and the Synonyms field is highlighted.

  1. Click Done to save your keywords (and synonyms if defined).

The Synonyms field contains science technology engineering math and the Done button is highlighted.

  1.  Click the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk..

The save icon is highlighted beside the part grade field and below the keywords.

NOTE: Keyword and synonym highlights don't affect the student's grade, but the save grade iconThe save grade icon is a floppy disk.should be clicked as best practice anytime a student response is manipulated.

  1. Your defined keywords (and synonyms if specified) become highlighted in the student's essay response. The highlighted keywords and synonyms are also highlighted when the student views their graded essay response in their Gradebook

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TIP: Defining keywords and synonyms through the Gradebook and then leaving the page won't maintain the list of keywords. The highlights are maintained (in your grading view and in the student's Gradebook) but not the defined list of words. Click the highlighted word if you return to the Gradebook and want to remove the highlighting from previously defined keywords or synonyms that are no longer listed. Define your keywords and synonyms when authoring the question in the Question Editor to maintain your word list even if you navigate away from the Gradebook.

NOTE: Keyword and synonym highlights aren't case-sensitive.

NOTE: You can list as many keywords and synonyms as needed.

 

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