Create the test. It is best to use the updated template on the Math department website as it has been designed for Crowdmark.
Decide whether you want to use auto-matching for student names. It will eliminate the need for most of the matching of the papers to students, although there will still be some. See later.
Decide whether you want to double side the Crowdmark. This is recommended as otherwise if students write on the back, it will not be found. Regardless, make sure the instructions on the test reflect where you want the students to continue their work.
Obtain a PDF file of your test.
Create a .csv (like excel, only not excel) file with the “Email Address”, “First Name”, “Last Name”, “Student Number” and while optional, it is recommended to have “Section” on it as well. The first row in the column headers, and then the information below. You can usually get this from the office assistants. They know what they are doing. If you have a high school challenge section, it should be in the file as well, but put the section as whatever school they are from.
Log-in to Crowdmark at their website. You can sign in through the school by clicking the drop down menu and then choosing “University of Manitoba” and then logging in using your UMLearn credentials.
The heading near the top of the page should read “Crowdmark (No LMS). If it says “UMLearn …” then change it using the drop down menu.
You need to create a course if this is the first assessment. Click on “Create a Course” in the top right hand corner and give a name for the course. It is best to have the name and term of the course.
Click on “Create Assessment” and give it a name. It is recommended to have the course name or number and the term.
Click on “Administered.” If you are using this for an assignment for which the student will be submitting their own, see “Crowdmark for Assignments Set-Up” file.
Upload the test. Make sure to click double sided printing if you want it to be double sided (it affect where the QR code is) and automatching if you want automatching. Check to see that the pages look good. If they do, click “Next”. If not, then click “Try Again”, fix your file and then try again.
Define the questions. You have the option to put one, none (usually for a back page) or multiple questions on each page. The tests are usually parallel marked, so for each defined question, or part of a question, you can assign them to different markers if you’d like as long as there are defined questions for each. You can also attach a maximum grade to each question /part. If you change you mind on the set-up, this can be changed at any time before the marking commences. Once complete, click on “Save and Continue”
Copy and paste just the email addresses from the .csv file you created. Click on “Enroll n students” where n is the number of email addresses. Make sure that number makes sense. While you can add students later, you can’t get more tests created and thus adding more than a couple students after the fact creates a problem.
Choose how many extra assessments you want. Crowdmark will create a test for however many email addresses you gave. For example if you have 500 students, you may want to have 510 or 520 tests printed just in case. Here is where you specify the extra 10 or 20 tests.
Click “Generate PDF”. Crowdmark at this point is creating a large PDF file with n versions of the test you uploaded with a unique QR-code on each page. It may take a while depending on the size of your course. When it is completed, it will give you an option to download, which you should.
Click on “Finish, go to Dashboard”
In the Dashboard, go to students (menu on the left) and then click on “Upload Metadata”. This is where you will upload the whole .csv file to get all of the student info other than just email address. This is also where you can add students if necessary.
Give the big PDF file to the office staff, or print it yourself. If giving it to the office staff, make sure it is clear whether you want to double side the test or not. That being done incorrectly will create a huge mess. Also tell them how many pages are for each test.
Setting up the Marking
In the dashboard under “Team”, add people’s email addresses for all the other instructors and markers. Instructors should be added as “Facilitator” and markers as “Graders”. They will get an email inviting them to grade.
After the test, you will need to slice off the staples of the tests and scan them. Room 505 contains a big slicer and two computers/scanners to do the scanning. Talk to the office staff if you would like a grad student to do this job. If a grad student is being used, add them as a “Printer/Uploader” in your team. If you are slicing yourself, talk to John first.
If uploading the scanned files yourself, scan them in piles. In Crowdmark, go to “Upload booklets” in the Dashboard. Drag the scanned PDF file in the appropriate spot and watch the magic happen.
After it is uploaded, Crowdmark will put the appropriate pages in the appropriate spot. There are two things you should look for:
Errors: If Crowdmark gives an error, then it likely is because it could not read the QR-cdoe for some reason. Click on “fix error” and you will be able to see the page. You’ll notice a long hexadecimal string beside the QR-code. Enter the code until it autofills the whole code. Click submit and you’ve fixed the error.
Incomplete booklets: This is often because there was an error that you haven’t fixed yet, or somebody has torn off the scrap paper and didn’t hand it in. (which if you QR-code the back of the page, you don’t really need scrap paper) Click on the incomplete booklet and it will tell you the paper and the page which is missing.
If something is missing which should be there, you’ll have to find it. Usually it’s because your scanned file didn’t contain all the pages of one test, and the rest is in a different pile which will be fixed when you scan the other pile.
Once this is all done, everyone is ready to mark. Note that they can start marking once any pile is uploaded, so if you don’t finish the uploading in one sitting, then people can still start marking. This is useful when tests are in the tutorials over different days.
Matching and Returning Tests
You will need to match the scanned test to each student. Even if you do the auto-matching, it still won’t always get everybody. To match, go to “match booklets” in the dashboard. Click on “Next unmatched”. It will show the front page where the student wrote their firstname/lastname/student number. Search for the student using any of these until their information shows up. Then you click enter and it will match. Do this for all the unmatched students, or all students if you did not do the automatching.
WARNING. The automatching doesn’t work well if any of the fields are left blank. This becomes problematic sometimes especially if you have any high school challengers who may not know their student number. Make sure even in that case that they write something in that field, even if it is their school name.
Once the test is completed being marked (you can actually do this before, but you don’t want to) you can return the papers to the students. Click on the “Results” tab in the left menu. It will bring you to a page with individual data for each question. On the right side it will say “Send grades to students”. This will send them an email with a link to sign in a view their marked test.
WARNING: Occasionally the email will go to their junk mail. The students should be told this ahead of time or else you will get a lot of panicked students.
You can download a .csv file with all the students grades by clicking on “Export grades as CSV”
If you have any questions, you can consult the Crowdmark help files on their website, or ask somebody who has done Crowdmark before.
