Gradescope (as on-campus written exams)

Setting up Gradescope for on-campus written exams

This guide and checklist are for academic staff who have nominated with the Exams Office to have an on-campus written exam – where a handwritten response is an assessment requirement. If a handwritten response isn’t mandatory for your course, consider the option of using an on-campus digital exam.

In this exam, the students sit the exam in an invigilated exam location. Their handwritten responses are collected, scanned and by default, uploaded to Gradescope in the corresponding LMS subject for marking. Subject Coordinators will be notified when scanned exams are ready to view and they can commence marking in Gradescope.

Important: Academics have flexibility to choose if all or part of the exam will be scanned. Additionally, scanning and SASS post-processing and preparation for marking may be opted out of by nomination when selecting the on-campus written exam option in the Exam Portal.

Checklist

Subject Coordinator or delegate steps:

Checklist

Teaching and Learning Innovation will be creating the linked Gradescope assignment after the exam. There is no need to create the Gradescope assignment that will be linked to this LMS assignment.

If you have any questions with this guide, please contact Exams Support.

Automation if you used the Exams Portal

If you supplied the details of your exam to the Exams Office for an on-campus written exam, an Assignment Group called Semester 2 exams, 2026 with 0% weighting will be created in your subject, and an assignment will be created and allocated to this group

ACTION – Please update the Assignment Group Weighting to reflect the correct weighting for the final assessment

See exam key dates for more information on this.

The exam timetable will be created to minimise clashes for students and to balance, where possible, the assessment load for all students across the examination period.

Submitting the PDF of your exam for on-campus written exams

Scanning on-campus paper-based exams is only available for centrally scheduled exams. This option must be requested through the Exam Portal. Please ensure that your faculty have allocated budget for this before requesting for your exam to be scanned, or discuss how to move your examination to digital delivery with SASS Exam Support.

Subject coordinators are required to submit a PDF version of their exam by the due date. The campus written exam paper submission portal is a secure site where all Subject Coordinators, or their nominated exam paper authors, can securely upload draft exams.

Please refer to exam paper recommendations for guidance on creating optimal PDF version of your exam for the best marking experience in Gradescope.

All exams that require post-exam scanning must meet the submission deadline. This ensures that their papers are templated correctly, facilitating timely printing and automated scanning/submission to Gradescope

Once paper based exams are submitted, a central exam cover sheet will be generated. Control/tracking codes will be added to each page to support post-exam scanning and quality control checks. Exam proofs and cover sheet details will be shared back to faculties via the LMS exam submission portal.

Paper based exams will be labelled with a unique number for each paper and page. Doculink (the University of Melbourne's secure exams printing partner) will handle the printing and scanning of all exam papers.

After the exam, the papers are scanned by the printer. Teaching and Learning Innovation will upload them to Gradescope, enabling staff to start marking. Subject coordinators will notified by email when the scanned papers are available to be marked in the LMS.

For more details on the exam scanning process, refer to the exam scanning guide.

The Exams Office is responsible for coordinating alternative exam arrangements (AEA’s).

Marking using Gradescope

Once subject coordinators have been notified that the scanned papers are available to be marked, you can access the student submissions in Gradescope via the LMS.

You can find general guidance on marking with Gradescope in the following guide:

For specific guidance on marking scanned multiple choice questions (MCQs) with Gradescope, consult the following guide:

Staff resources

For guides on creating LMS Assignments with Gradescope.

This guide was last updated 18 Jul 2025.

Submit an LMS support request for further assistance or to report any errors or omissions in this guide.