For Teachers and Admins
Students can submit their Excel work and have it be manually graded, AI-graded, or a combination of both. This article explains how to configure each grading option.
Prerequisites
An existing Excel assignment in a Vocareum course. Please refer to the documentation for Creating an Excel Assignment if you need further guidance.
AI Grading
Excel assignments support AI-based grading and feedback by comparing a student’s submission against a provided solution file. After grading is complete, students receive AI feedback as comments attached directly to cells in their worksheet.
Enable Settings for AI Grading
Navigate to the Part settings of your Assignment
Enable GenAI API Key Generation
GenAI API Key Generation must already be enabled at the course level. Refer to this article about GenAI in Vocareum Notebook if you do not see the below option under part settings.
Navigate to 'Resources' and enable the 'Enable GenAI API Key Generation' option.
You may also configure: GenAI budget per student, and whether to enable the AI Assistant
If the AI Assistant is enabled, students receive a summary of AI feedback after grading. The AI Assistant is optional and not required for AI grading to function.
Each AI grading submission and AI Assistant interaction consumes budget from the student’s allocation.
Navigate to 'Grading' and enable the 'AI Grading' option
Select 'Save Part' when you are done.
Creating Rubrics
You can control which cells are graded by creating rubrics based on highlighted cells in the starter file. Only cells associated with rubrics will be given a grade.
Note: If you do not create any rubrics, the student's entire spreadsheet will get compared to the solution file. There will be no grades saved for the student submission, but AI feedback is still added to the student's worksheet.
In your starter file (the file students receive when starting the assignment), highlight the cells you want graded.
Select Configure Workspace from the assignment page to open the instructor authoring environment.
Right-click the startercode folder to upload your starter file.
Click "Create Rubrics" at the upper right corner.
You will be presented with a dialog box (shown below). Please read carefully and select the options as follows:
The following actions will be performed:
If cells with a fill color are present:
Create, update, or delete Vocareum rubrics based on the cells that have a fill color.
Select "Start" to deploy the changes. The generated rubrics will appear under "Rubrics" in the assignment’s part settings.
When students submit with AI grading enabled, grading and feedback will apply only to these cells.
To change which cells are graded, re-upload the starter file with updated highlighted cells and run "Create Rubrics" again. This will remove existing rubrics.
Uploading the Solution File
The solution file provides the correct solution used for grading. During grading, each graded cell in the student’s submission is compared to the corresponding cell in the solution file.
When working on your solution file for the Excel assignment, enter the expected formula in the cells to be graded.
Note: AI grading compares formulas, not calculated values. Ensure graded cells contain formulas rather than hard-coded results.
Select Configure Workspace from the assignment page to open the instructor authoring environment.
Right-click the /voc/solution folder to upload your solution file.
Note: The file must have the same name as the corresponding file that you uploaded in /voc/startercode.
Manual Grading
Student submissions for Excel assignments can also be manually graded.
From the part settings of your assignment, navigate to 'Rubrics' and select '+ Grading Criterion'. Add a name to your criterion and determine a Max Score. Select 'Save Part' when you are done.
When reviewing a student submission, you will see these rubric criteria. You can assign scores and leave review comments visible to the student after grading.
Submitting Assignments
When students are ready to submit their work they will need to return to Vocareum Notebook IDE and select 'Submit'.
Their notebook will then be passed through Vocareum's grading servers and graded based on your setup.
When the grading process has finished, the student's submission panel within the Vocareum Notebook IDE will be updated with their grades, showing them their score breakdown for each generated rubric.