Marking Assessments: Step-by-Step Guide

The assessment marking workflow in Nimbu is designed to give Trainers full visibility over student submissions while minimising manual effort through automatic grading of objective question types. Once a student submits an assessment, you work through any manually marked questions at the question level before reviewing the full summary and setting a final result.

What's Covered in This Article

This article provides a complete guide to marking assessments in Nimbu efficiently:

• Step-by-Step Marking Workflow: The end-to-end process from opening a submission to finalising a result.
• Auto-Marked Questions: How the system grades True/False, Multiple Choice, and Selection questions automatically.
• Manually Marked Questions: How to review and grade Short Answer and Online Submission questions.
• Adding Feedback per Question: Providing targeted written feedback at the question level.
• Setting the Assessment Final Result: How to review the summary and submit the final outcome.

Before You Begin

To mark assessments, you must be a Trainer with the Mark Students permission enabled. Assessments appear in your queue only after a student has submitted their work.

If an assessment has Trainer Activation Required enabled, you must activate the assessment for the student before they can access and submit it. See Trainer Activation for more detail.

Step-by-Step Marking Workflow

Step 1: Open the Marking Dashboard

1. From the left-hand navigation sidebar, click Marking.
2. Select the Assessments tab.
3. Locate the submission you want to mark. Submissions are listed in chronological order, most recent first. Use the search bar to filter by student name, assessment name, unit code, or class name.
4. Click the row to open the student's submission.

Step 2: Review Auto-Marked Questions

Once you open a submission, the system will have already graded all objective question types. You will see the result for each auto-marked question displayed on the question screen.

Auto-marked question types include:

• A correct response is automatically recorded as S (Satisfactory).
• An incorrect or unanswered response is automatically recorded as NS (Not Satisfactory).

No action is required from you for auto-marked questions. Their results are pre-populated in the Summary and cannot be manually overridden at the question level.

Step 3: Mark Manually Marked Questions

Manually marked questions require you to review the student's response and assign a result. These questions are displayed in the question screens for you to work through.

Manually marked question types include:

To mark a manually marked question:

1. Review the student's response carefully.
2. Select either S (Satisfactory) or NS (Not Satisfactory) as the result for that question.
3. Optionally, add written feedback directly on the question (see Adding Feedback per Question below).

4. If the question requires resubmission, tick the Student to Resubmit checkbox to flag it. This will be used when requesting a selected-questions resubmission from the Summary screen.

4. Proceed to the next question until all manually marked questions have been assessed.

Tip: You are not required to mark every question before navigating to the Summary. However, unmarked manually marked questions will be treated as incomplete, and your resubmission options from the Summary may be limited until all questions are addressed.

Step 4: Adding Feedback per Question

You can provide written feedback on any manually marked question to help the student understand their result and guide improvement.

• The feedback field is located beneath the result selection on each question screen.
• Feedback entered at the question level is visible to the student alongside their result for that specific question.
• If you later request a resubmission for that question, any existing feedback will be cleared and the student will need to resubmit fresh work. The system will display a warning before this occurs.
• Feedback added at the question level is separate from the overall assessment feedback you can provide on the Summary screen.

Step 5: Review the Summary Screen

Once you have worked through the question screens, navigate to the Summary to review the full submission before finalising.

The Summary screen displays:

• All question results: both auto-marked and manually marked — in a single view.
• Submission information: whether the assessment was manually submitted by the student or auto-submitted due to an attempt limit or due time being reached.
• Any questions you have flagged as Student to Resubmit.

Use the Summary to verify your marking is complete and accurate before proceeding to set the final result.

Step 6: Setting the Assessment Final Result

Once you are satisfied with the question-level marking, set the overall outcome for the assessment from the Summary screen.

Option A: Finalise with a Result

1. Select either Satisfactory or Not Satisfactory as the final result.
2. Optionally, add overall written feedback and attach a file for the student.
3. Click Submit to finalise.

• The assessment status updates immediately to S or NS.
• The student receives an in-app notification and email with their result and any feedback provided.

Option B: Request Resubmission

If the student's work does not meet the required standard and you want to give them another opportunity, select Request Resubmission instead of finalising.

• Resubmit New Attempt: the student must redo the entire assessment from scratch.
• Resubmit Selected Questions: the student only resubmits the questions you flagged as Student to Resubmit. Previous feedback on those questions is cleared.

When requesting a resubmission, you can configure:

• Resubmission Time Settings: make it available immediately, lock it until a specified date and time, or require manual trainer reactivation.
• Due Time (optional): set a deadline for the resubmission.
• Feedback (optional): provide comments or attach a file to guide the student's resubmission effort.

If the assessment has attempt limits enabled and the student is on their last attempt, requesting a selected-questions resubmission will grant the student one additional attempt. See Assessment Attempt Limits for more detail.

Option C: Request Revisions

If you want the student to edit and resubmit their existing work without creating a new attempt, select Request Revisions from the kebab menu (⋮) in the header.

• Select which questions to return to the student for correction.
• Optionally set a due time and add a reason for the revision.
• The assessment status changes from TBM to IP (In Progress) and the student is notified.
• No new attempt is created — the student edits and resubmits within the same submission.

Note: Request Revisions is not available when you are actively performing a Remark.

Related Articles

• Marking Dashboard
• Assessment Question Types
• Providing Feedback