Since a lot of people are or will be administering exams, I want to put in a plug for the wonderful Gradescope (with which I have no association other than as a former user, and they sent me a t-shirt). I used it in my classes a couple years ago when I was a graduate student. It massively streamlines the process of grading. Relevant to the current outbreak is the ability to easily return graded items to the students through the service. You can even handle regrade requests, should you choose to enable them. They also now seem to have some test-administration capabilities, but I've never used that.
The process for using it goes like this:
1. Upload a blank exam and mark where names and answers are (so, e.g., they'll know where on each exam to expect the student's answer to 2(b)).
2. Scan and upload the finished exams. Most copying machines can handle this pretty easily.
3. Use an OCR-assisted process to match exams to names or student ID numbers. Without ID numbers, this took me under 2 minutes for 40-50 students.
4. As you grade each problem, you make notes and deductions as you go. e.g. "You forgot the +C, -1 point". If you see the same error again, you can use a hotkey to affix the same note and deduction to subsequent exams. You can also grade additively, if you prefer. And you don't have to deal with stacks of paper exams.
5. If you decide to alter a note, or that you were to harsh or lenient on a particular error, the changes are applied to all exams with that mark. This takes a lot of pressure off of your initial grading decisions ("Oh, shit, it looks like getting that was harder than I thought. Should I go through all the exams and lower their deductions?"). The notes support LaTeX math symbols.
6. Once you're finished grading, you don't have to tally and enter the grades. No more worrying about final-grade-altering addition errors. You can export the results as a spreadsheet. You get granular, question-level data on how everyone did. You can publish the results to students. If you choose to accept regrade requests, you can do so without worrying about post-return alterations of answers.
This is all without their upgraded AI-assisted service. It slashed about 75% off of the time I spent on grading and 90% off the stress of grading fairly and consistently. And it gets even better if you have multiple graders with their team service; no more coordinating the passing around of exams! Everyone can work at the same time.
It's an absolute godsend if you have a lot of grading to do. I can't recommend it highly enough.
The process for using it goes like this:
1. Upload a blank exam and mark where names and answers are (so, e.g., they'll know where on each exam to expect the student's answer to 2(b)).
2. Scan and upload the finished exams. Most copying machines can handle this pretty easily.
3. Use an OCR-assisted process to match exams to names or student ID numbers. Without ID numbers, this took me under 2 minutes for 40-50 students.
4. As you grade each problem, you make notes and deductions as you go. e.g. "You forgot the +C, -1 point". If you see the same error again, you can use a hotkey to affix the same note and deduction to subsequent exams. You can also grade additively, if you prefer. And you don't have to deal with stacks of paper exams.
5. If you decide to alter a note, or that you were to harsh or lenient on a particular error, the changes are applied to all exams with that mark. This takes a lot of pressure off of your initial grading decisions ("Oh, shit, it looks like getting that was harder than I thought. Should I go through all the exams and lower their deductions?"). The notes support LaTeX math symbols.
6. Once you're finished grading, you don't have to tally and enter the grades. No more worrying about final-grade-altering addition errors. You can export the results as a spreadsheet. You get granular, question-level data on how everyone did. You can publish the results to students. If you choose to accept regrade requests, you can do so without worrying about post-return alterations of answers.
This is all without their upgraded AI-assisted service. It slashed about 75% off of the time I spent on grading and 90% off the stress of grading fairly and consistently. And it gets even better if you have multiple graders with their team service; no more coordinating the passing around of exams! Everyone can work at the same time.
It's an absolute godsend if you have a lot of grading to do. I can't recommend it highly enough.