What are the Grading and Feedback options for an assessment?

Grading and Feedback settings include options to:

  • Send grades to Gradebook (or Gradebook Classic),
  • Specify the score that is recorded if a student has multiple submissions, and
  • Set the types of feedback you will make available to students.

For information on editing additional settings, see:

Access the assessment's settings.

Action menu with Settings selected

For steps to access the Settings page, see How do I inspect and adjust the settings of an assessment?

Select Grading and Feedback.

  1. Select Grading and Feedback on the assessment's Settings page.
  2. Or select the Expand All link to open all the sections on the Settings page.

Recorded Score

If multiple submissions or a retake are allowed, the recorded score determines which submission is counted for the student's assessment grade.  Options include:

  • The submission with the highest score (selected by default),
  • The score of the last submission,
  • Or an average of all scores submitted.

Anonymous Grading

The default grading setting is to show students' identities to graders.  Select Hide student identity from grader to display anonymous submission ID numbers on the assessment's Scores screens instead of students' names.  This allows for unbiased grading of student submissions.

You CAN change the Anonymous Grading setting after grading to display the students' names with their submissions.

Note: The Anonymous Grading setting differs from the option to release the assessment to Anonymous Users.  Use Anonymous Users to deliver a completely anonymous survey such as midterm feedback.

Gradebook Options

Select the check box, Send assessment score to Gradebook immediately, regardless of options below, to include assessment scores in the Gradebook's course grade calculation.

When this option is selected, assessment scores will be sent to the Gradebook on submission.

To postpone availability of assessment scores to students in the Gradebook, wait until you have graded all question responses, then return to Grading and Feedback settings for the published assessment and enable this setting.

Note: If an existing item in the Gradebook has a title identical to the assessment's title, the score cannot be sent to the gradebook.  You will need to edit the title of either the assessment or the conflicting gradebook item.

Feedback Authoring

Question-Level Feedback (enabled by default) allows the instructor to provide feedback for correct and/or incorrect answers for each question.

Selection-Level Feedback allows for feedback per answer choice.

Select Both to be able to author feedback at both the question and selection levels.  

Note: You must select either Selection-Level Feedback or Both BEFORE authoring or editing a question to add feedback at the selection level.

Feedback authoring with Question-Level Feedback enabled

If you have chosen either Question-Level Feedback or Both, you can enter Correct or Incorrect Answer Feedback when authoring or editing a question.

Feedback authoring with Selection-Level Feedback enabled

If you have chosen either Selection-Level Feedback or Both, you can enter Feedback for each answer option when authoring or editing a question.  This feedback can be displayed to students who select the corresponding answer.

Note: For steps to author questions, see How do I add a new question (with the assessment builder)?

Tip: If you have already created a question without Selection-Level Feedback available, enable this setting, then edit the question to add feedback for selections.

Types of Feedback

The type of feedback a student receives controls if and when students are able see their submission results.  

  • No Feedback (the default setting) does not display any feedback to the student.
  • Immediate Feedback is recommended for self-tests only, as it will display the answers immediately - PRIOR to the student submitting the assessment.
  • Feedback on submission displays feedback to the student as soon as they submit the assessment.
  • Feedback on a specific date releases assessment feedback at the date and time specified.

WARNING: If you select Feedback on a specific date and set the date BEFORE the latest submission date for the assessment, any student taking the assessment after the feedback date will have access to Immediate Feedback.

Tips:

  • If you are concerned about students sharing their exam results with one another, you should choose either No Feedback or Feedback on a specific date.  For the latter, selecting a date after the closing date for the assessment will prevent students from sharing feedback with other students who have not yet taken the test.
  • You can change the feedback settings after an assessment has been completed by going to Published Copies tab in Tests & Quizzes and selecting Settings from the drop-down menu for that assessment.  Many instructors prefer to select No Feedback and edit the assessment settings after they are done grading to release the grades.

Feedback Options

If you have enabled feedback, you need to select the types of feedback to release to students:

  • Choose Only Release Student's Assessment Scores so students only see their grade on the assessment, not individual questions.  
  • Choose Release Questions and the following and select the items to make available to students from the list below.  For more information on the feedback options, see below.

When you release the assessment questions, you can also select to display one or more of the following:

  1. Student Response: The answer the student entered in response to a question.  Recommended to allow students to verify their answers.
  2. Correct Response: The Answer Key for automatically graded questions, e.g., multiple choice or true false.  You can see an example of an Answer Key in How do I view the feedback on my assessment (i.e. test or quiz)?
  3. Student's Assessment Scores: The student's total point score for the assessment.
  4. Student's Question and Part Scores: How many points the student received on each question and part.
  5. Question-Level Feedback: Text you entered in the Correct Answer and Incorrect Answer feedback boxes.  For more information on Question-Level Feedback, see above: Feedback Authoring: Question-Level Feedback.
  6. Selection-Level Feedback: Text you entered in the selection-level Feedback boxes.  For more information on Selection-Level Feedback, see above: Feedback Authoring: Selection-Level Feedback.
  7. Grader's Comments: Comments you enter in the Scores screens for students.  For more information on entering comments, see How do I grade Tests & Quizzes?  Graders can enter comments for the overall assessment and/or for individual questions.  To display individual question comments, Student Response must also be selected.
  8. Statistics and Histograms: The assessment's Statistics screen.  For instructor access to statistics, follow the steps in How do I view statistics about a completed assessment?