How do I connect my Quercus course to Crowdmark?

Updated on Sep 11, 2024

This guide details how to connect your Quercus course to Crowdmark. To use this application within your course, you'll be creating, setting up and distributing your assessments to students via Crowdmark. Through the Crowdmark integration, grades will be synced to your Quercus course.

Remember to plan for scanning! As of September 1st, 2020, the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering has acquired a faculty-wide license for Crowdmark. While the faculty is licensing the tool, scanning of Administered Assessments (paper-based) remains the responsibility of each instructor (and their department). If you are a first year course, you can contact the Registrar's Office for scanning support.

Before you begin

If you are using Crowdmark for the first time, we highly recommend attending a Crowdmark training session prior to using the tool. You can also review all of Crowdmark's documentation on getting started as an Instructor.
For the Assigned Assessment workflow, students will not require access to a printer, as Assigned Assessments are are different than Administered Assessments which require printed QR codes.
If you require any assistance within the Crowdmark platform, please contact the Crowdmark Support Team <[email protected]>. You might also reference the Crowdmark Getting Started Instructor Guide for more information.
There are two kinds of Crowdmark assessments: Administered Assessments (paper-based) and Assigned Assessments (digital submission). You can use either or both as part of our license.

To ensure successful administration of a Crowdmark assessment for you and your students, it is recommended to distribute a practice assessment before the real assessment to give everyone an opportunity to understand the Crowdmark workflow. In addition, this guide can help prepare your students for a Crowdmark Assessment: Completing and submitting an assignment

1. Log in to Crowdmark via your browser

Navigate to Crowdmark's U of T Sign in page in your browser
Select the Sign in with Quercus button
Enter your UTORid
Enter your UTORid password
Select the log in button

1.1. Authorize Crowdmark to access your account

Select the "Authorize" button.

1.2. Confirm that you've successfully logged into the Crowdmark Dashboard

Once you have successfully authorized Crowdmark to access your Quercus course, you will see the Crowdmark Dashboard. If you do not see the Dashboard, please contact Crowdmark support <[email protected]> to obtain help with the authorization process.

2. Import your Quercus Course

Select Import Course to import your Quercus Course into Crowdmark
Under Course to Import, choose your course from the dropdown list of courses available to you
Select Import Course

3. Synchronize student enrollments between Quercus and Crowdmark

You can choose to enroll your students automatically or manually via CSV file or adding their emails.

To ensure that your enrollment is up to date with Quercus, use the Enroll students from Quercus button to synchronize.
Less often, you might choose to add students manually using the Enroll students button. If you choose this option, this CSV file must contain a column with student email addresses, but it is recommended to also include columns with first and last names, student numbers and section names.

Enrollments are not automatically updated in Crowdmark as students add/drop your Quercus course. You are responsible for synchronizing the enrollments.

3.1. Sync and Map Quercus Data with Crowdmark

To ensure that Crowdmark understands Quercus's student roster structure, you must map the data to the variable it corresponds to.

For "name" data, the corresponding item is Name.
For "email" data, the corresponding item is Email.
For "sis_user_id" data, the data that is imported are students' UTORids. If you would like this information in your import, then you can map it to Student ID #, if not, then you can select "Nothing (Ignore") and it will not import this data.
For "section", the corresponding item is Section. If your course has sections but you do not see the Section correspondence in the drop-down list, this is likely because the option "This course has sections" was not enabled at the beginning of the course setup. You can change this setting by going to the Course Settings on the left-hand side navigation panel and enabling "This course has sections" option.
Once the data is mapped, select Continue.

3.2. Confirm Successful Sync with Quercus

Once your sync has been successful, you will see a short list of mapped student data.

Select Show all to view the entire list of students' mapped data (optional)
Select Save once confirmed

3.3. Update Enrolments if required

Enrolments are not automatically updated in Crowdmark as students add/drop your Quercus course. Note: You are responsible for synchronizing the enrollments.

Select Sync with Quercus to update and re-sync your student enrollment in Crowdmark
Select Update students if you prefer to update the student list via a CSV file or by adding their email address (Alternative to "Sync with Quercus" option)

We recommend to synchronize enrollments between Crowdmark and Quercus course periodically (ideally, once before each assessment) to make sure the enrollments in Crowdmark are up-to-date.

4. Add your Teaching Team to Crowdmark

Select Course Team on the left-hand side navigation panel
Select Sync with Quercus to sync your Teaching Team using Quercus
Select Add by email to sync your Teaching Team by adding their U of T email addresses (alternative to Sync with Quercus option)

4.1. Add Teaching Team via Sync with Quercus

If you have chosen to Sync with Quercus in the previous step:

Select specific role for your team member (Instructor/Facilitator/Grader/Uploader)
Select Update team once all the roles have been chosen

To learn more about specific roles and what features they have access to, see What is the difference between team member roles?

4.2. Add Teaching Team members by email

If you have chosen to add your Teaching Team members by email:

Type or paste team members' email addresses in the text entry box
Select Continue once you have added all the members

4.3. Confirm Course Team enrollment

Once you have successfully added your Teaching Team members, you will see them listed with their role and their invitation status
If you would like to remove a member, select the red X under Actions

What's next?

Next step is to create an assessment.

In Crowdmark, you can choose between Administered (in-person) and Assigned (online) assessment types.

If you are not sure what assessment types you should select, see the guide: What Crowdmark Assessment type should I choose: Administered or Assigned?

For detailed steps on creating both assessment types see:

Next Article Review Crowdmark data use policy

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