Advanced marking roles

Synap’s Marking system supports highly configurable marking workflows to suit a range of educational, corporate, and certification use cases. This article explores the advanced marker roles to use along side provisional and moderating markers to add additional checks for your marking processes. With advanced marking you can give provisional and moderating markers a dedicated person or team to escalate responses to for a list of customisable reasons, backreaders can override system or human moderating markers. And auditing markers can perform post finalisation/release internal reviews for auditing purposes

Marking roles

The next steps in this guide will assume you are able to configure double / blind marking on an exam, see our guide below for more information on internal lists and the different allocation methods.

Escalation marking

Escalation marking can be configured for moderating markers as well as provisionals

From the exams marking configuration page go to advanced roles and enable escalation. Add an individual user or group to the internal list to be escalation markers. There is the option to allow moderating markers to escalate as well as provisionals (enabled by default).

Once configured you'll need at least one escalation reason, these can be anything - we suggest keeping them short and self contained to make it easier for your markers to understand.

Once a response is escalated by a marker, they will not be able to continue with their marking session and it will move to their completed list. Attempts will also be removed from any other markers who are assigned but have not started marking.

From the marking page the escalation marker will be shown the reason and comment left by the marker who escalated which they can view at any time. If it was already marked before escalation they will see these inputs too. The escalation marker will then have to decide between 2 options:

1. Accept an escalation and take over the marking, becoming the moderating marker for this attempt.

2. Reject the escalation and pass it back into the provisional workflow with a comment.

If they accept they'll be able to see the inputs up to the point of escalation, as well as the comments and reasons left by the provisional or moderator who escalated.

It is then the responsibility of the escalation marker to act as the source of the finalising marks, meaning attempts escalated will not be sent to moderators. Once the escalation marker has completed the marking the escalation will show as resolved on the attempts management table and the marks completed.

Backreading

Enable an extra step in marking after moderating by assigning backreaders to an attempt. Backreaders can override both human and system moderating markers and become the source of the final marks.

From the exams marking page enable the backreader role, add the group or list of individual markers to the internal list same as you would for other marking roles.

The difference with backreaders is that in order to send an attempt for backreading you must assign it to a back reader. There is no round robin option so it is manual allocation by default.

To send an attempt for backreading, find and select the attempt/s on the attempt management table, search for the backreader (making sure that it is someone in the internal backreading list). And apply changes. The attempt will be assigned to the backreader and sent to their inbox. Attempt marks must be in a pre finalised state.

If an attempt has been backread - the backreader assigned becomes the source of the final marks and essentially overrides previous moderators that have come before

Auditing marking

Auditing markers are designed as markers who are keeping an eye on the marking process or report on historical marking processes. They cannot be the source of the final marks or feedback, nor can they change or affect overall marks. They can add internal reviews and view other marker inputs, both pre and post finalisation / release ( ie at any point once the marking status is completed)

Similar to other marking roles, go to the marking configuration page on the exam and ensure auditing markers are enabled, and add auditing markers individually or by group to the internal list.

Then similar to backreading, to send an attempt for auditing marking you must assign attempts to the auditing marker/s in order to send them for marking.

Auditing makers access attempts via the markers inbox, and can choose whether or not to add an internal review. The auditing marking step does not have to be completed before results can be finalised or released. They can view the full set of marking inputs from others to date, as well as any conflicts or escalations.

Once completed they can save and submit their inputs the same as other markers.

Admins, educators or managers viewing an attempt where auditing is complete will be shown the auditing markers inputs, as well as information letting them know that the auditing markers inputs do not effect the finalised score, they can see who was the source of the final marks from the marking page as well