Blackboard Tests (Ultra): 4 Marking and moderation

Whilst many question types allow for automatic marking, essay questions (which also allow for a file-upload), do not. Equally, some questions may need alteration or moderation after submission.


  1. Navigate to the Test and click the test title to enter it.
  2. Click on Submissions to review all submissions to the submission point.
  3. Change the Student Status filter to Submitted.
    1. If there are submissions with work that requires independent marking (ie, because you have used Essay Questions), change the Marking Statuses filter to Needs Marking. With these filters applied, only those students who have submitted work that requires marking will be displayed.
    2. If you are reviewing automarked work/moderating, you can click the header of the Mark column to arrange the order of submissions by ascending/descending grade.
  4. Click on each student’s name to enter the review and marking interface for their submission.

Only the students within your marking allocation should now be visible to you. Click on a cell and select View to get to the marking screen.


If you are marking using a distributed system, follow the instructions below to locate the submissions allocated to you. Once you have located your allocated submissions, follow the marking instructions below.

  1. Navigate to the Gradebook.
  2. Go to the Marks
  3. Click on Filter.
  4. Change the Groups option to the group you have been allocated. Your administration team or the unit director will have advised you which group you need to mark.
  5. Change the Markable Items option to the Test you have been asked to mark.
  6. Click apply.

Only the students within your marking allocation should now be visible to you. Click on a cell and select View to get to the marking screen.


  1. On the right-hand side of the screen within each student’s submission, select the plus icon on the to access the Overall Feedback You can use this to add overarching feedback for the student.An image of the overall feedback screen in a Blackboard Test marking experience
    1. Use the Text styling and Text options menus to change your text to titles, headers, subheaders and general text, alter the font, the size and colour of the text, and change formatting. The interface also responds to keyboard shortcuts for changing in formatting.The text styling and text options buttons in the Blackboard tests marking interface
    2. Use the List option to add bullet-pointed or numbered lists, or add tables.An image of the list button in the Blackboard test marking interface
    3. Use the undo option to undo the last changes you made.An image of the undo button in the Blackboard tests marking interface
    4. Use the link option by highlighting text in your feedback, clicking the link icon, and adding the hyperlink to change the text to a clickable link.An image of the link icon in Blackboard Ultra's question text editor
    5. Use the add content option to upload materials and add different forms of content to your feedback. You can use the MathsType interface to add mathematical commentary, embed an image or video, or upload a video or document from your device or cloud storage.An image of the "+" button in the question text editor
    6. You can use the Audio/Video Recording option to add video or audio feedback recorded directly from within the marking interface.The recording button in the blackboard test marking interface

Once you click the option, you may need to grant permission to your camera to access your browser. Once this is done, you can click record and toggle your camera on or off from within the Recording Window.An image of the recording window in Blackboard's marking interface

Once you have finished your recording, click Save and exit to store the recording, otherwise click Delete recording to record another version.

  1. Overall marks should generate automatically based on the mark provided each question. You should not alter this mark in most instances. Instead, alter the mark for an individual question and this will update the overall mark automatically.
  2. In each question, you can enter an individual mark (if one is not entered automatically), adjust an existing mark, and add individual feedback in response to the question. To expand the feedback tools, click on the + icon in the speech bubble. To enter a mark, click on the ovoid.

Individual question feedback options are the same as those offered for overall feedback, inclusive of the option for recording video/audio feedback. You cannot enter inline feedback on an essay question.Once you have entered the feedback for a question, select Save changes at the bottom of the question’s feedback screen. This is not necessary for entering a mark.