This guide details how to set up an Administered (paper-based) Assessment in Crowdmark. It provides the steps and resources for creating, printing, scanning, and preparing the assessments for grading. This guide is intended for FASE instructors who are administering in-person assessments and want to use the Crowdmark platform primarily for grading.
What is an administered (paper-based) assessment? Administered assessments are paper-based. They are uploaded in PDF format to Crowdmark where a QR code is added on each page. The assessments are then printed for distribution. After students complete them, they are collected, scanned, and uploaded back into Crowdmark for grading.
Have you arrange scanning for your Crowdmark paper-based Assessments?
For the Administered Assessment workflow, you organize your own scanning (which requires access to printing and scanning equipment).
- First-year FASE course instructors can request (in advance) printing support from the First Year Office and scanning support from the Registrar's Office.
- Upper year course instructors should check with their specific department for printing and scanning equipment access and/or support.
Before using Crowdmark for the first time
If you are using Crowdmark for the first time, see our guide: How do I set up Crowdmark in my course? before proceeding with this article.
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How to set up your Crowdmark Administered Assessment
An assessment template is the digital version of your questions booklet. This is what you will print and hand out to students. You will need to save your assessment template as a PDF file in order to upload it to Crowdmark and set it up for printing.
You can find example templates and formatting information on Crowdmark's support documentation: Creating an assessment template.
When creating your template, be sure to:
- leave room under each question for students to write out their answers,
- leave some space between the top of the page and the questions, the QR codes will be placed in this area,
- select a paper size that is supported by the printer you will use to print the assessments (in most cases this will be 8.5"x 11" paper)
Once you have created and saved your PDF template, you can build the assessment in Crowdmark.
- From your course page, select Create assessment
- Select New assessment from the drop-down menu
- Add assessment details, including: assessment name and student and instructional team settings
- Select Save.
- In the Type menu, select the Administered Assessment option.
- Select Next.
On the Template menu, you will be able to select options for your assessment and upload the PDF of the assessment template you created.
4.1. Select assessment options and upload your template
- Select the options to add to your assessment:
- Double-sided printing: allows for the assessment sheets to be printed double-sided. Crowdmark uses this information for the placement of QR codes in the printable file. If you leave this option unselected, QR codes will be not be printed on the back of each page. Double-sided printing is recommended to avoid students placing work on pages without QR codes.
- Enable automated matching: will add a region to the cover page of your template for students to write first name, last name and student ID number. Crowdmark will use the information on this page to automatically match the booklets to the students in your Crowdmark roster. Automated matching works best when the Student ID is numeric. See the note below for information on how to upload student number information.
- Include multiple choice: will add up to 200 multiple choice questions to the assessment, which are answered on a bubble sheet (100 questions per sheet).
- Upload your PDF template
- Select Next to preview your template.
Automated Matching considerations and recommendations:
- Crowdmark will import the UTORid as the student ID by default when student data is synced from Quercus, as shown on the Synchronize student enrollments between Quercus and Crowdmark section of our guide How do I set up Crowdmark in my course?
- For automated matching of assessment booklets, a numeric identifier for your students (i.e., student number) works best. To use student numbers to replace the UTORid, you can add this information by Updating Enrolments and selecting the CSV file upload option. You can generate a course roster that includes student numbers (as well as student emails) by using the UT Advanced Group Tool, the second option on our guide How do I get student email addresses from Quercus?
- For additional information on setting up your assessment for Automated Matching, please see the Crowdmark guide: Using automated matching
- Preview the pages in your assessment with the generated QR codes
- Select Try again to upload a different file, if you are not happy with the results.
- Select Next to continue with the template setup.
When previewing the pages in your assessment template, check that the QR codes aren't accidentally covering any of the questions.
Crowdmark will add a question label and a points label on each page of your assessment template where it identifies a question. In the Questions menu, you will be able to:
- define the location of each question on your template, and
- edit the question and points labels assigned to each question.
Crowdmark will only detect 1 question per page. If your template includes more than one question per page, you will need to manually add questions to include multiple questions on a single page.
- Edit the Question and Points labels for each question, as desired.
- If Crowdmark has missed a question, select Add question and drag the question to the desired location on the page.
- Select Save and Continue.
Ensure that the points labels for each question match the points values you have added to the questions on the assessment template itself.
- In the generate menu, select Generate PDF to create a unique booklet for every student with a QR code on each page.
When Generating PDFs, remember to add a few extra assessments (as shown in the above screenshot) - you won’t be able to generate more later.
- Select Download PDF of to save the booklets locally to your computer. (Note: you can skip this step and download the PDF booklets later from the Assessment Dashboard.)
- Select Finished! Go to Dashboard.
If you’re using bubble sheets for Multiple choice questions, you will need to select Questions on the assessment Dashboard to fill out the Multiple choice answer key that will be used for auto-grading.
For additional information on using Multiple-Choice Questions in your Administered Assessment, please see the Crowdmark guide: Using multiple choice questions in an administered assessment
Below is a list of options for printing your Crowdmark assessments. Crowdmark supports different sizes of paper for their assessment templates. The printer you use must support the size of paper you specified when you created your assessment template. Booklets should be stapled on the top left corner only.
9.1. Print yourself
You can print your Crowdmark assessment yourself using any printer available in your office or department.
When using the Print Yourself option, please adhere to the principle of secured, confidential printing. Avoid using off-campus printing facilities, unless you have total visibility of the assessment papers while they are being photocopied.
9.2. Use the BBC Duplicentre printing services on campus
For large classes, long assessments or other situations where you may not be able to use a departmental printer, consider using the on-campus services of the BBC Duplicentre, located in the basement of Sidney Smith Hall, University of Toronto (100 St. George Street, Room 516).
When sharing the PDF file of assessment booklets with the copy centre for printing, specify that each booklet be stapled on the top left corner.
9.3. Request printing support from the FASE First Year Office - 1st year FASE courses only
If you are using a Crowdmark Administered assessment in a first-year FASE course (including an Engineering Science course), you can contact the FASE First Year Office to ask about printing support.
How to prepare your assessment for grading in Crowdmark
After students have written the assessment, you will need to scan the assessment booklets for uploading to Crowdmark and grading. Below is a list of options for scanning your Crowdmark assessments. For each option,
- use the scanner settings recommended on the Crowdmark guide: Scanning Assessments.
- remove the staples from the exam booklets (i.e., using scissors or cutter to remove the top left corner of the booklets) ensuring that the QR codes are not cut off
- ensure that pages are scanned as multi-page PDF (preferred format) or JPG files.
- ensure that each file you create is under 500 MB in size.
10.1. Scan yourself
You can scan the completed booklets yourself by using a dedicated scanner or the scanning option on your office or departmental printer. If using this option, be sure to scan a few booklets at a time only and align the booklets properly to avoid paper jams.
10.2. Use the BBC Duplicentre scanning services on campus
For large classes, long assessments or other situations where you may not be able to use a departmental scanner, consider using the on-campus services of the BBC Duplicentre, located in the basement of Sidney Smith Hall, University of Toronto (100 St. George Street, Room 516). In addition to printing services, they also offer scanning services.
The approximate cost for 8.5” x 11” pages to be scanned at a minimum 200dpi, with multi-page PDF file returned is:
- Up to 1000 images - $0.12/per page
- 1000+ images - $0.08/per page
The above costs are approximate and subject to change, HST is extra. Extra charges may be incurred for additional services, including staple removal, pick up and drop off of booklets and scans, external drive or USB required, etc. Please check with the Duplicentre for the most up-to-date pricing.
10.3. Request scanning support from the FASE Registrar's Office - 1st year FASE courses only
If you are using a Crowdmark Administered assessment in a first-year FASE course (including an Engineering Science course), you can contact the FASE Registrar's Office to ask about scanning support.
- On your Assignment dashboard for your administered assessment, select Upload booklets from the right-hand sidebar, under Administration.
Each file you upload must be under 500 MB in size. It is not necessary to upload all the booklets as a single PDF file -you can upload the files in batches. If you upload a scanned booklet or page a second time, the new upload will replace the previous one.
11.1. Select your files for uploading
- Use the Drag and drop or Click here to browse button to select your files for upload. You can upload multiple files at the same time.
- Ensure that the green Complete booklets number matches the number of booklets you collected.
Any upload errors will be indicated in red. To review and fix those errors, see the instructions on the Crowdmark guide: Fixing errors in assessment upload.
11.2. Match the booklets
After you've uploaded your booklets, return to the assessment dashboard to begin matching the booklets to the students.
- Select Match booklets on the right-hand sidebar under Administration. If you enabled automated matching when you created your assessment, Crowdmark will automatically match the cover pages that have been uploaded.
11.3. Troubleshooting matching
If did not enable automated matching, or if you have some students who could not be matched automatically follow the steps below to manually match the booklets.
- Type the student’s information (name, email, or student number) into the search field. The list of students in your course (by email) will be filtered as you type.
- Once you’ve found the unmatched student, select their email address to match them. Their email will appear on the cover page (at the top left corner)
- Repeat step 2 by selecting Next Unmatched until all assessment cover pages are matched.
For additional information on fixing matching errors, please review the following Crowdmark guides:
Once all the booklets have been matched to students, you're ready to start grading.
Grading in Crowdmark
Grading may be conducted by you or by other members of your teaching team. Before you start grading, ensure you've completed Step 4: Add your Teaching Team to Crowdmark from our guide, How do I set up Crowdmark in my course?
To help you decide which roles to assign your teaching team members, please refer to the Crowdmark guide: What is the difference between team member roles?
- From the Grading panel on the assessment's Dashboard, select a question (Q1, for example) to enter the grading interface..
- Use the grading tools to assign a grade and leave feedback.
- Navigate to the next booklet or next question using navigation options.
For a full list of grading tools for different questions types, including comments, stamps, and free-form annotations, review the Crowdmark guide: Grading Tools
For complete instructions on navigating between questions and booklets, review the Crowdmark guide: Grading navigation
Once all the booklets have been graded, you are able to share the grades with your students and export the grades to Quercus.
- Open the Results item on the left-hand menu, and
- Select the student View Settings you would like to include for students to see (i.e., assessment summary message, distribution of scores graph).
Select from the following options under Grades:
- Send grades to students: will send an email to each student containing a link to their score page, which includes their submission, scores, feedback, and additional information you’ve chosen to include.
- Export grades as CSV: will generate a CSV file that can be opened as a spreadsheet and edited in a program like Excel, or imported to the Quercus gradebook using the UT OMR tool.
- Export grades to Quercus: will create a new Assignment group called Crowdmark Assessments in your Assignments page and a new assignment (with a corresponding gradebook column) with the same name as the Crowdmark assessment.
What will your students see in Crowdmark when you select the Send grades to students option? For more information about the student view of the score page, review the Crowdmark guide: What do students see?
You may want to keep printed copies of graded assessments to support exam services (i.e., to provide exam copies, and to facilitate grade re-checks or exam re-grading), especially in those cases where you are not releasing the assessments back to students (e.g., for final exams).
From the Results item on the left-hand menu,
- Select the Export graded booklets option under Grades to download a local copy of the graded booklets.
Final Exams Copies: Physical copies of final exam booklets (the physical booklets collected from students) written using Crowdmark should be returned to the Registrar's Office where they are kept for one (1) year.