Assigning Submissions to Graders

Student submissions need to be assigned to all of the graders that are assigned to the course. Submissions need to be assigned randomly to each grader, and each grader needs to have their appropriate load managed. Typically 1 TA unit = 30 submissions to grade. ISA's usually take the leftover submissions and divide it amongst themselves. There are two ways to distribute submissions, which will be described below.

markerallocation.py

Please see markerallocation.py for details on how to set up and use the file. This should be the method that you use for every single assignment.

For some reason there are two versions of the markerallocation.py file in the course account. There should be a version inside of markus/bin, and another version in markus/a##, where a## is the assignment you're working with. Apparently there are issues with the version inside of markus/bin (though I've never experienced issues with it), so you should use the version that's located in each assignment folder in the markus directory for the submission distribution.

Warning: The version located in each assignment folder will assign student submissions, regardless if all submissions have been accounted for. This means if there are 1600 student submissions that needed to be graded, but you only accounted for 900 of them when you created the graders file, then 700 submissions will be left accounted for, and the markerallocation.py file will not complain/care.

To avoid this, use the markerallocation.py file in markus/bin to double check that you have all submissions accounted for. This version will give you proper feedback if you have not accounted for all submissions yet. Once you have made sure that all submissions have been accounted for, you can use the markerallocation.py version located in each assignment folder to do the final submission distribution.

Using MarkUs (UI)

Student submissions can be assigned on Markus when you navigate to the Assignments tab in MarkUs, click on the assignment you want to grade, and click on the graders tab. You should see something like this:

You can assign student submissions randomly to each grader by clicking on the checkbox in the top left corner in the graders window (the left table) to select all graders. Then click on the checkbox in the top left corner in the graders window (the right table) to select all students. You can then click on the dice to randomly assign all of the graders to the student submissions.

The issue with this method is that you cannot control how many submissions each grader has. There will be some TA's that have 2 TA units that will need double the amount of submissions as other TA's.

If you want to assign a specific grader to a specific student, you can click on the checkbox next to the grader you'd like to select in the left window. Then click on the checkbox next to the student you'd like to select in the right window. Then click on the green + arrow that's pointing to the right. This will assign the selected grader to the selected student. You can select multiple graders to mark a student, or multiple students for a grader to mark.

If you want to remove a grader from a student, select the grader in the right window, next to the student that you'd like to remove the grader from. Then press the red - arrow that's pointing to the left. This will remove the selected grader from the student.

This is obviously very cumbersome and can waste a lot of time if you use this method to assign all graders to all students. Only use this method if you have to assign specific graders to specific students, or if you have to remove graders from students.

Collect Assignments and Run Marking Meeting

Send out emails to TAs to remind them to get familiar with the assignment and ready for the meeting. Keep a record of each TA�s attendance and a brief comment on the quality of their work for TA evaluation at the end of the term.

Bring copies of the assignment and marking scheme to the meeting. Encourage the TAs to ask questions during the meeting, ask for their opinion on certain problems. Correct any views that are inconsistent with the CS 135 curriculum. It is also a good idea to have one or two assignments already marked to use as an example of different issues that may come up.