Your first marking run

A marking run is one pile of completed papers, marked against one test. This is the loop you’ll repeat every time: scan, upload, match, review, commit.

1. Scan the papers

Put the completed class set through a scanner or copier and scan to PDF. A whole class set in a single PDF is fine.

What makes the difference:

• Scan the full page, not a cropped or trimmed version.
• Keep pages straight in the feeder.
• Aim for sharp and legible. If you can read it comfortably on screen, so can AutoMark.
• Keep each student’s pages together, and don’t mix in pages from another test.

2. Start a run and add the papers

On the Marking page, choose Mark a class set, pick the test you printed, and start. Then drop the scans in — you can add several images or PDFs at once.

If one PDF holds several students’ papers stacked together, tick the option that says so before you upload. AutoMark then splits the file into one paper per student using the names on the pages. Without that tick it treats the file as a single paper.

When everything’s in, choose Run marking.

The first time you upload student work you’ll be asked to confirm you’re authorised to — see Create your account for what that means.

Pages are estimated and checked against your remaining credits before anything is read, so a run either starts or tells you it can’t. You won’t be stopped halfway through a class set.

Marking then runs in the background. Papers appear as they finish; you can leave the page and come back.

Scanning from the staffroom copier

You can also email scans straight in. Settings gives your account its own scan address — forward the copier’s email there and it turns up in Marking waiting for you to choose its test. Nothing is read until you do.

3. Match each paper to a student

AutoMark reads the name off each paper and matches it against your roster. Confident matches are filled in for you; everything else is handed over rather than guessed at. Each paper shows how it was matched — automatically, from a suggestion, or not yet at all.

• Check the list. Any paper can be changed: pick the right student from the dropdown.
• Suggestions can be accepted in bulk once you’ve eyeballed them.
• A student missing from the roster? Add them from the same dropdown without leaving the run.

You can’t move on until every paper has a student, which is the point. While the run is open, every match stays changeable — this is the step that protects the thing that matters most, a mark landing on the wrong student’s record.

4. Review what’s flagged

Every answer AutoMark reads is checked back against the handwriting on the scan. That check passes or it doesn’t: verification is pass or fail, not a dial, and nothing is guessed.

• Answers that pass are marked automatically against your key.
• Anything that doesn’t is flagged for you to check.

A flagged item is shown with the cropped piece of the real scan beside what AutoMark read and the mark it would award. Your job is a glance and a decision:

• Confirm (C) — the reading is right, take the mark.
• Override (O) — it isn’t; set the mark yourself.
• Also correct (A) — the student’s answer is a fair one your key didn’t list. It’s added to the key and everyone in the run is re-marked against it.
• Press E to enlarge the scan, and ↑/↓ to move between items.

When a run comes back clean there’s nothing to do: you’ll see All marked — nothing to check. If a run comes back with almost everything flagged, the scan is usually the culprit — see Troubleshooting.

5. Record the marks

Commit results is what writes marks to your students’ records. It stays locked until every paper has finished and every flagged answer is resolved.

Committing isn’t one click, deliberately. You get a digest first — Record these results? — listing each student and what’s about to be written, with anything unusual (a failed paper, a zero) called out. Read it, then confirm.

Until you do, nothing has been recorded: a run in progress is a draft, and every mark in it is yours to change. That’s not a technicality — it’s the reason marks out of AutoMark are teacher-confirmed rather than solely automated.

6. After the run

Committed results show up on each student’s record, and on the run itself you can see how the class went question by question — which is usually the more useful half of marking. Both a student’s record and the run can be exported to CSV for your gradebook.

Spotted something wrong later? Individual marks can still be corrected, and a paper that turns out to belong to another student can be reassigned. Both are recorded as your change rather than a silent edit, so the record shows what happened.

What to do differently next time

After one run you’ll have a feel for two things: which answers your key should have accepted, and whether your scan was good enough. They’re the two biggest levers on how much lands in your review queue next time.