Mark/Score attempts
Learn how to assign markers to attempts and view the marking modal as an admin
If you're and admin or exam creator and haven't already please see our guide below on how to set up marking for an exam and the different configurations and roles
🖋️Marking - Double & BlindQuestion types such as free text, file upload or audio recording questions require manual marking before the scores can be finalised. When creating these question types you have the option to have a custom credit value and add a rubric / mark scheme to them to guide markers on where to award marks. Once an attempt has been submitted depending on the results configuration, the results may not be released automatically to users as there are questions that require marking. This doc will walk you through the steps to finding and marking attempts
Adding custom marks & a mark schemeMarking roles
Marking / scoring on Synap is split into 3 distinct roles, if double marking is not enabled on an exam then there will only be the Moderating and Finalising makers. Please note in order to mark as an admin you will need to self assign and become the Moderating marker for an attempt.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
Provisional marker | Provisional markers are assigned to an attempt when double marking is enabled. They input their own set of marks, feedback, and comments on responses. Importantly, the marks and comments from each provisional marker are not visible to other provisional markers to maintain independent assessments. An attempt can have one or more provisional markers, and their contributions are reviewed by the moderating marker. |
Moderating marker | This individual oversees the entire marking process, reviews the inputs from provisional markers, and has the authority to override and finalise the marks for each question. The moderating marker ensures the consistency and accuracy of the final marks. Regardless of the number of provisional markers, each attempt will have only one moderating marker. |
Finalising marker | The finalising marker is responsible for finalising the marks on an attempt, making it ready for release. This role can be assigned to an admin, educator, or manager and is configurable via global or specific permissions for an exam. The finalising marker ensures that all marks are thoroughly reviewed and validated before release. |
Marker management
As an admin you can find attempts ready to mark on the exam users table. Attempts in any state can be assigned markers, but only attempts with a marking status 'Unmarked' can start to be marked. You can self assign attempts to your admin account to mark as a moderating marker.
There are several marking states an attempt can be in:
| State | Description |
|---|---|
Unmarked | Attempt has been submitted, is ready for marking. In double marking this state means it can be marked by the provisionals. |
In progress | Attempt has had some marks inputted, but has not been set as completed |
Completed | Attempt has been marked, and a marker has manually set this attempt's marks to completed - changes to marks can still be made if Marks is in this state |
Finalised | Marks on this attempt have now been finalised by a marker, no further changes can be made - the student is not yet aware of their marks |
Released | A marker has released the marks for the attempt to the student & they have been notified |
Attempts must be marked individually but you can bulk complete, finalise and release results using the select all checkbox in the top left of the user table.
Marker inbox
For users who are only of user type 'Marker' they will have access to the Marker inbox, which is a dedicated page to view the attempts assigned to them which are ready for marking. Markers can search for attempts by id or exam name, and by default the inbox is ordered by attempt submission, showing the longest waiting first. This page can be enabled for admins, managers and educators via the portal page settings
Marking modal
When marking an attempt you'll be navigated to the marking modal, you'll see questions eligible for marking noted with a blue dot. From here markers can award credits, and leave feedback comments for users to view in the question feedback.
From the marking page, all responses that require marking will show as blue with an unmarked status which will update marking once inputs have been started then marked once completed. Once all of the blue status's are gone all the required questions for marking are completed.
Points - Are what is awarded for a correct / partially correct response. If negative marking is being used then points are what are deducted for an incorrect answer
Credits - The maximum points up for grabs for answering a question correctly
The feedback box contains a rich text editor, so you can leave links, photos, tables, lists and even videos as feedback for candidates
Mark schemes
Using a mark scheme splits out specific areas where credits are awarded, create different areas where credits are awarded. Markers cannot input higher values than the maximum credit allocation. See our mark scheme docs for more on creation.
Information for marking
Configure questions to have a box for information for markers, which supports rich text formatting if you want to link out to an external mark scheme or modal answer
Feedback to candidate
Feedback to candidate will be shown to the candidate when the results are released if the questions breakdown page is enabled.
candidates will be able to see comments left about their answers, it will show under 'Markers comments'
Internal notes
Leave notes / comments for fellow markers, Student users won't be able to see these, they are available in the marking modal only
🛫 Releasing results
Once all questions have been given marks the status will move to Completed. When you're ready you can select these results to finalise, using the checkbox and and tick icon. You can use the tick boxes to select multiple or all attempts.
Once finalised, no further changes can be made to the marks.
Once marks are finalised no further changes can be made. The final step is to select all the finalised attempts you want to release and use the release results button. This will give students access to their results, feedback and anything else on the results page.
👩🎓 What students see
Students get a detailed view of each question from their exam attempts question page. Where a mark scheme has been used or comments left, they can see exactly what marks (points) they achieved. Students will not see inputs left by provisional markers they'll only see what the moderating marker has left.
📌 Assign a marker
Any Educator in the default or moderating an exam group will be able to mark attempts in that group, you can also assign specific markers to an attempt. To do so select the user or users, and use the Assign a marker button. The assigned marker/markers will show in the in the Assigned markers column.
The Finalised marker is who ever changes the attempt status into finalised. Multiple markers can mark and override marks on attempts. Once assigned markers will be able to use the Attempts - Marking page to filter by attempts assigned to them.
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