Gradescope is an online assessment platform that can be used to administer exams students take on bubble sheets in the classroom. With the retirement of Scantron at BC (December, 2025), some faculty have turned to Gradescope as an alternative. It can be accessed through Canvas, with the option to integrate into Assignments and share scores with the Gradebook.
The Center for Digital Innovation in Learning provides documentation for getting started with Gradescope, setting up exams and grading them. Here is an outline of the process to follow, with links to that documentation:
- Activate Gradescope in the left menu of your Canvas site, if it isn’t there already. The last steps of this process are to create and link your course.
- Click the roster link, then click the button to Sync BC Canvas roster. (If the roster link is not visible, click the menu icon in the upper left corner and select Roster from the menu.)
- Create an assignment that uses Gradescope as an external tool.
- Print out the blank bubble sheets to distribute in class along with the exam. See the information below, to share with students in advance (the points on adding their information to the bubble sheet might be added to the instructions or projected on the screen as they’re getting started with the exam).
- After students have taken the exam, bring the bubble sheets to a printer/scanner with a feeder and save them to PDF (ask a department admin if you’re not sure which scanner to use). Depending on what is optimal for the scanner, large batches can be broken into smaller ones.
- Upload the PDFs and walk through the steps for auto-grading, including the option to review individual scans, and options for making each student’s scan available to them in the Assignment and making scores appear in the Gradebook.
Information to share with students
Like any other scanned exam, Gradescope works best with answers bubbled in clearly with dark ink. Use a #2 pencil and have a good eraser to make sure any changes are clean.
When putting in your information at the top of your bubble sheet:
- Enter your name as it appears in the BC portal and Canvas (if you go by a nickname, you can put it in parentheses after the official name). Print rather than writing in cursive.
- For ID, enter the BC username you use to login to the portal and Canvas (not your Eagle ID).
- If your instructor has different versions of the exam, make sure you enter the letter for yours in the space provided.
- What you see after your exam has been graded will depend on your instructor, possibly including the total score and scan of your bubble sheet.