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When I graded the Paper 2 assignments for my courses, I tried a feature in TurnItIn.com’s GradeMark system. It’s a scoring matrix that helps me calculate assignment grades.

I usually have a scoring matrix in my assignments. It’s printed at the end of the assignment document, after the questions and requirements. This is an example from the IS 6100 Paper 2 assignment for the Fall 2007 term.

In previous courses, I would append a completed matrix to the graded assignment.

When I started using GradeMark last year, I just typed scores into the TurnItIn.com general comments box. There’s no way for me to append a page to an existing document in a TurnItIn.com assignment.

The matrix lets me allocate points to each row or item in my grading scheme. The columns represent a grading scale. After I type in my remarks and fill in the general comments screen, I can check the approriate cells in the matrix to calculate a grade.

I’m a visual person, and I’ve used a similar format in printed scoring tables.

I didn’t connect the vertical scale to the letter grades.

Also, the draft and peer review items are scored in those assignments, so I did not include them in the scoring matrix shown below.

This screenshot of a TurnItIn.com scoring matrix is from my instructor account, so it might be different from the student view.

This matrix is available in the printable version of the GradeMark report, and the total grade will appear in the TurnItIn.com gradebook. See my article from 5 February 2007 for more information on viewing GradeMark reports.

During the term, the point value of each assignment increases. I’ll add more rows to the scoring matrix to distribute the points in reasonable amounts.

One issue I’ve run into is the scoring matrix editor. It tends to crash for no reason. I had to close the editing window, but at least the crash didn’t take down my web browser or the operating system. It took me 3 attempts to create the matrix shown above.