Scoring criteria and settings in a Handwritten Assignment – Turnitin Guides

In this guide:

Scoring criteria
Using the scoring settings
Submission or group adjustments

Scoring criteria

Grading with scoring criteria

When grading each question, you can make a list of scoring criteria as you are grading. Scoring items allow you to grade quickly and consistently, applying the same set of feedback to every submission. You can apply one or multiple scoring criteria when grading. For each question, you can create a new set of scoring criteria.

Each question has two scoring criteria by default: Correct and Incorrect.

Formatting scoring criteria

You can use LaTeX to add math symbols in scoring items, comments, text annotations, answer group names, and regrade requests. For more information, see our Writing formulas and equations with LaTeX when grading Handwritten Assignments guidance and the full list of functions, visit KaTeX’s documentation.

Creating and applying scoring criteria

On the grading page, there are some auto-populated scoring criteria to help you get started. You can edit or delete this scoring criteria as needed as well as create as many new ones as you desire.

To start grading the question, select Add Scoring Criteria. A scoring item will be listed and numbered sequentially as it appears in the grading list.
Enter the Points and a Description.

At least one scoring criteria must be applied for the question to be considered graded. You can select and apply as many scoring criteria as you’d like for each submission as long as the score remains within the scoring bounds (less than or equal to the total points) or the scoring bounds are removed.

To reorder a scoring criteria, drag and drop the item to a new location.
To apply a scoring criteria to a submission, select the checkbox at the top left of the tile.
Alternatively, to make an edit to the score you can use the Point Adjustment field in the side panel. If you are grading answer groups, this will be an answer group specific adjustment. If you are grading individually, this will be an individual submission adjustment.
To edit the points or description of a single scoring criteria, you can make the desired changes.

Editing the points of a scoring criteria will automatically update all previously graded submissions where this score has been applied. If you want to make an edit to just one student’s submission and not affect any other graded submissions, we recommend using the applicable option in step 5.

To move to the next submission for the same question, select Next Ungraded.

Moving to the next ungraded submission avoids more than one staff member grading the same submission at the same time. If another staff member is currently grading a submission, you will see a grading in progress alert and the submission will be temporarily locked until they finish reviewing or grading it.

To move to the next submission, whether graded or ungraded, select Next.
To go back to the previous submission, whether graded or ungraded, select Previous.

Creating and applying a scoring group

Scoring Groups allow for your grading criteria to be organized and structured in a variety of ways. You can batch similar scoring criteria together, provide more qualitative feedback on a sliding scale, easily grade multipart questions at once, and better communicate how points are awarded or taken off by providing more specific scoring criteria.

To create a scoring group, select Add Scoring Group.
Once created, you can give a description for the group and create sub-items.
To add a sub scoring criteria to a scoring group, select Add item to group to group.

Here is an example of grading a question with a scoring group (with a positive scoring method):

Question: What is the integral of x?
Answer: ½ x2 + C
Scoring Group Points: 3
Scoring Group Description: The answer has included all necessary parts of the equation and is correct. You can use this group option to apply the full 3 points.
Scoring Item A - Description: The coefficient is missing. Points: 1.5
Scoring Item B - Description: The constant is missing. Points: 1
Scoring Item C - Description: Both the constant and the coefficient are missing. Points: 1

If you are using a negative scoring method, the group would have negative point values instead of positive values for the scoring items in this example.

You can drag existing scoring items in and out of a scoring group.
You can expand or collapse the scoring group by selecting the arrow in the top-left corner.

Using the scoring settings

With the Scoring Settings area, you can set defaults for the scoring method and scoring bounds you want to use for grading each question.

Positive Scoring (the default scoring method) means that scoring criteria defaults to adding points, starting from 0 for that question.
- For example, for a question that is worth 3 points the scoring criteria would look like the following:
  - Correct - add 3 points. Final score: 3/3
  - Partially correct - add 1.5 points. Final score 1.5/3
  - Incorrect - keep the student’s score at 0 and no need to apply points. Final score 0/3
Negative Scoring means that the scoring criteria defaults to subtracting points from the total points available for that question.
- For example, for a question is worth 3 points the scoring criteria would look like the following:
  - Correct - keep the student’s score at 3 points and no need to apply points. Final score 3/3
  - Partially correct - subtract 1.5 points from the total score. Final score 1.5/3
  - Incorrect - subtract 3 points from the total score. Final score 0/3

You can apply negative values by changing the sign before the point value to a minus sign (-).

Scoring bounds

Ceiling - imposes a ceiling or maximum point amount to prevent scores greater than 100%.
Floor - imposes a floor or minimum point amount to prevent scores less than 0%.

These are both enabled by default so that you don’t apply points or a total score that is out of bounds, but you can disable them for extra credit questions, late penalties, or other situations where you don’t want the default behavior.

Changing the scoring settings

In the grading side panel, select Scoring Settings. The Scoring Settings modal will open. In the modal, you can change:
1. Total Score - set the total points possible for this question.
2. Scoring Method - positive or negative.
  1. Positive scoring - add points starting from zero.
  2. Negative scoring - subtract points from the total points.
3. Scoring Bounds - Ceiling or Floor
  1. Ceiling - set a ceiling or maximum point amount to prevent scores greater than 100%.
  2. Floor - set a floor or minimum point amount to prevent scores less than 0%.

By default, the Ceiling and Floor scoring bounds are both enabled. You can change this setting anytime in Scoring Settings.

Submission or group adjustments

Submission-specific adjustments

While you’re grading a question with an Individual grading method or ungrouped answers, you can use a Submission Specific Adjustment to change the score on one student’s answer.

Any newly applied points will be added or subtracted to the student’s original score for the question, and can’t exceed the scoring bounds, or they won’t be applied. If the points would cause the total score to go outside the allowed scoring bounds, you can edit the ceiling or floor scoring bounds setting anytime in the Scoring Settings.

We recommend adding or subtracting points for a student’s answer via a submission specific adjustment instead of editing an existing scoring criteria because doing the latter will retroactively modify the score on every submission where the scoring criteria was previously applied.

Group-specific adjustments

While you’re a question with answer groups, you can use a Group Specific Adjustment to add or subtract points to the total score of one answer group and not have it affect every other answer group in the question. This is useful to apply things like bonus points or extra credit to a specific group. When you make a group adjustment change, it applies to every submission in the answer group.

Any newly applied points will be applied to the total score and can’t exceed the scoring bounds, or they won’t be applied. If they do, you can edit the ceiling or floor scoring bounds anytime in the Scoring Settings.

We recommend adding or subtracting points from an answer group via a group adjustment instead of editing an existing scoring criteria because doing the latter will retroactively modify the score wherever the scoring criteria was previously applied.