Markbooks are accessed from the "Markbooks" tab. Here you will find all markbooks that have been assigned to classes you teach. If you're an administrator, you'll also see all markbooks from your school or MAT.
Here are some tips and tricks to make the most of your Smartgrade markbook:
- You can open markbooks at class or year group level. On the "My Markbooks" tab you can use the "View by" drop-down at the top of the page to opt to see markbooks in either "Class Group" or "Year Group". Year Group markbooks work in the same way as Class Group markbooks, but instead of including students for one class only, they'll include a whole year's students. Please note that you will only see students in Year Group mode that you have access to see at Class Group level. That means that school and MAT admins will see all classes in a year, but school and MAT users will only see the classes they teach in the Year Group view.
- Open the markbook by clicking on the 3 dots in the Actions column and select "Edit".
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You can navigate your way around the markbook using keyboard shortcuts. There are two options for doing so:
- Cursor keys (up/down/left/right)
- A combination of shift, tab and enter (tab for right/shift-tab for left/enter for down/shift-enter for up)
- You can use copy-paste to enter marks. We know that it can save time to be able to copy-paste marks. So we've enabled copy-paste on all our markbooks, allowing you to copy in marks from a spreadsheet, or copy-paste between cells. Just use CTRL+C (PC) / CMD + C (Mac) to copy, and CTRL+V (PC) / CMD + V (Mac) to do so.
- You can see student characteristics by using the "Characteristics" slider. At the top left of the markbook, there is a slider labelled "Characteristics". Moving this to the "on" position will show the characteristics of your students, such as their gender, pupil premium, EAL and SEN status.
- You can enter marks at question level or at whole grade level. This article explains how this feature works.
- Your markbook will autosave every few seconds. You don't ever have to worry about losing the data you've entered with Smartgrade! We auto-save your marks every few seconds, and you always know when that's happened as they go green once saved (see screenshot below).
- You can't save impossible marks. If you try to enter an impossible mark (e.g. 2 marks on a 1 mark question), the cell will "wobble", and the value will remain whatever it was before you tried to enter the impossible mark.
- You can refresh student lists from the markbook page. There is now a "REFRESH STUDENT LIST" button on the top right of marksheets. Selecting this button gives you the options to either add or remove students based on changes in your MIS since the markbook was created. NOTE: changes to student list composition cannot be undone, so you should only use this option if you are sure you want to update students lists.
- Use "N" to indicate where answers were not attempted. You can use the "N" mark to distinguish a "not answered" question from an incorrect question (which should be scored as a "0"). "N" marks still count as 0, but by using the "N" mark, you'll be able to see a difference between incorrect and unanswered questions.
- Use "0" for students working below the level of the assessment. It may be the case that you are giving an assessment to a class and you have a student who you judge to be unable to access the assessment (e.g. they have special needs and are working below the level being assessed). In such circumstances we recommend assigning the student a mark of 0. More information on this can be found in this support article.
- Make sure you complete all parts / tiers. Assessment publishers can set up markbooks to have multiple parts (e.g. if you set an assessment with a part 1 and part 2), and/or tiers (e.g. if you have a "Foundation" and a "Higher" option). If any of those options are enabled, you will see a dropdown in the top right which will allow you to switch between those options. You'll need to ensure all tiers and parts are completed to be able to submit a markbook.
- Students can have data entered for one part and be absent for other parts. Where assessments have multiple parts, the "Absent?" column becomes a dropdown, and you can enter an "absent" status for each part separately. Where a student is absent for one or more parts, all marks for that student will be excluded from standardisation and analysis. If the student later completes the part they missed, you can then unlock the assessment, deselect "absent" for that student, enter the new marks and then resubmit the markbook. Doing this will lead the student to be included in standardisation and analysis.
- Complete all marks to be able to submit a markbook. While you can save your markbook and return to it at any time during the marking process, you need to have a "full" markbook to submit it. After submitting a markbook, if you need to make changes you can do so by unlocking it from the "Actions" menu in the "My Markbooks" table (see "My Markbooks Table" screenshot below). Note: you should always remember to submit markbooks after making changes, since only submitted markbooks are used for analysis and standardisation.
- You can Unlock a markbook if you need to make edits after submitting. To do so, find the markbook in the My Markbooks table, and choose "Unlock" from the actions column (see screenshot below). You will need to resubmit after making your changes for the markbook to show in the Analysis module.
- You can UNLOCK a markbook and VIEW ANALYSIS direct from a submitted markbook. If you are viewing a submitted markbook you have two options towards the bottom. If you spot an error which you need to edit, you can now click the "UNLOCK" button towards the bottom of the screen. Once edits have been made, don't forget to click "SUBMIT" again! You can also use the "VIEW ANALYSIS" button to get directly into the Analysis module from a submitted markbook.