Looking for more information about anonymous and delegated grading? Go to the assignment grade settings page for instructors.

Anonymous and Delegated Grading

  • Release date: April 30, 2014
  • Default state: Enabled
  • Dependencies: Blackboard Learn 9.1 April 2014 or later

Anonymous grading

When instructors create assignments, they can choose to hide student names when viewing and grading submissions. To ensure anonymity, a message is displayed to students on the Upload Assignment page asking them not to include identifying information in their assignment submissions.

For high-stake assignments where anonymous grading needs verification, consider not allowing instructors to disable Grade History.

More on setting default Grade Center history availability

Delegated grading

Instructors can also delegate grading to one or more users with grading privileges to promote reliability and remove bias. For large classes, they can divide up the grading tasks among teaching assistants and other graders. Roles with default grading privileges include instructor, teaching assistant, and grader. After all delegated graders provide grades and feedback, one or more instructors review the grading to determine a final grade or reconcile it.

Instructors can combine delegated and anonymous grading.

Delegated grading and content exchange

Delegated graders and settings are carried over to a new course when using these options:

  • Copy Course with Users (Exact Copy)
  • Copy Course Materials into a New Course and select the check box for Include Enrollments in the Copy
Without enrollments

When copying a course without enrollments into a new course, the delegated setting is brought over as enabled for all existing delegated grading assignments.

When copying or importing a course without enrollments into an existing course, the delegated setting is brought over as enabled for all existing delegated grading assignments. All current users who can reconcile are also set to grade all submissions.

Create Assignment page

The Create Assignment page has been redesigned. A new Grading section is added to logically organize the settings.

Disabling or removing the building block

Example: To allow course builders to create anonymous assignments but not change the anonymity afterward, remove the entitlement from course builders.

  • Anonymous and delegated grading can't be disabled or removed on the Building Blocks page.
  • Administrators can control access to the features on a course-role basis using entitlements and permissions.
  • On the Create/Edit Assignment pages, instructors can manually disable anonymous grading at any time by clearing the Enable Anonymous Grading check box. They can turn anonymous grading on and off until a student submits an attempt. After the first submission, they can only turn it off.
  • If anonymous and delegated options were previously enabled and are then disabled, these actions occur:
    • Any submissions that were anonymous will show student names.
    • Grading reverts to standard grading.
    • Reconciled grades remain as official grades for students.
    • Any provisional grades assigned by delegated graders are lost.

Role information

When creating an assignment, users with the appropriate privilege can select the anonymous and delegated grading settings.

Administrators

  • Editing anonymous and delegated grading, and reconciling grades are configurable. Administrators can add or remove these actions from course roles.
  • Administrators can set and lock anonymous grading behavior for assignments. The settings are exposed to the API so that, potentially, assignments uploaded through SIS can have anonymous grading turned on and locked.

Instructors

  • Instructors can choose to grade anonymously on the Create Assignment page. Student names are hidden from submissions throughout the grading process.
  • Instructors can delegate grading to other users on the Create Assignment page.
  • Instructors can be a delegated grader for courses they are enrolled in as instructors.
  • Instructors can reconcile grades assigned by multiple delegated graders.

Students

  • On the Upload Assignment page, students are informed if an assignment is set to be graded anonymously. They're reminded not to include identifying information in their submissions.
  • On the Review Submission History page or in My Grades, students see an icon identifying assignments that were graded anonymously.
  • Instructors can allow students to see feedback from more than one grader.

Teaching Assistants

  • Teaching assistants can be a delegated grader for courses they're enrolled in as teaching assistants.

Grader

  • Graders can be a delegated grader for courses they're enrolled in as graders.

More on roles and privileges