ProfDesk's flagship grading surface: annotate scanned PDFs and score against a rubric, page by page, student by student.
Click the ZenGrader tile on a course dashboard, or open an assessment or one of its questions / sub-parts from Manage Assessments. ZenGrader loads the current student's submission (or the on-paper scan matched to them) as a PDF you can zoom, scroll, and mark up.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mark / Scroll toggle | Switches between scrolling the booklet normally and tapping to place marks on it, useful on touchscreens so a scroll gesture doesn't accidentally drop a mark. |
| Zoom − / Fit / Zoom + | Zoom out, fit the page to the viewer width, or zoom in for detail work. |
| Tick | Drops a green checkmark at the tapped spot, the classic "correct" mark. |
| Cross | Drops a red X, the classic "incorrect" mark. |
| Text | Drops a text note in the middle of the page you're looking at, ready to type: the first key replaces the "+0" placeholder. The note grows as you type and moves to the next line when it reaches the right edge of the page. Drag a side handle to make it narrower or wider, or a corner to make the writing larger or smaller. Notes already on a paper keep the size and line breaks they were saved with. |
| Highlight | Drag across text to highlight it in yellow. On a typed paper the highlight follows the words from where you start to where you let go, across lines, and a tap highlights one word. On a scanned page it covers the area you drag, and a sideways swipe makes a band one line tall. Tap the Highlight button again to exit. Students see highlights on their paper and in the downloaded PDF. |
| Score | Drops a score circle that shows the current running total and places it on the page, handy for "10/12" style margin scores. |
| Pen | Freehand drawing: circle a mistake, draw an arrow, sketch a correction. Tap the Pen button again to exit pen mode. |
| Delete | Removes the currently selected annotation. |
| Eraser | Tap any mark to delete it directly, without selecting first; tap the Eraser button again to exit. |
| Reset Question | Clears every mark for this question on this student and resets it to ungraded. Other questions on the same booklet are untouched. |
| Save | Persists all annotations and the current score to the database. |
| Download PDF | Produces a flattened PDF of the booklet with every annotation baked in, ready to hand back or archive. |
Annotation colors are configurable per course in Course Settings › General › Annotation Colors, the first color is used automatically for AI-generated marks, the second for anything you mark yourself, so you can tell at a glance what the AI proposed.
Use the prev/next chevrons to step through your roster one at a time, or open the student dropdown to jump straight to a specific name/roll number. ZenGrader keeps you on the same question as you move between students, which is exactly the workflow for grading "Question 3 for everyone" in one pass.
Both the single-submission and bulk AI graders have a STRICTNESS control (Lenient → Moderate → Strict) that tunes how generously the AI awards partial credit against the rubric before you review its proposal. It's remembered per course/question in your browser so you don't have to reset it every time. See AI Grading for the full picture.
The Grades Hidden button toggles whether this assessment's scores are visible to students yet. Grades stay hidden by default so you can finish grading the whole class before anyone sees a score, flip it once you're ready to publish. Your written feedback is released with the scores.
If a student handed in a paper copy, emailed you a file, or otherwise can't upload it themselves, use Submit on Behalf to upload the file directly into their submission slot as the instructor, and it then appears in ZenGrader exactly like a self-uploaded submission.
The right-hand panel shows the rubric attached to the current question (see Rubrics). Each criterion lists its point levels as clickable chips, click the level that matches the student's work and the panel updates the Total Rubric Score automatically. This total becomes the question's grade when you save.
Feedback for the student sits under the score, with or without a rubric. It holds your comments on this student's work for the question or sub-part on screen. While it's closed you see a one-line preview; click the row to open it and write.
Students see your feedback only when you release grades, next to the score it belongs to: under the result on their assessment card, headed Feedback from your instructor, and in the panel beside their graded paper. Until then it's visible only to you and any co-instructor on the course.
When you grade a submission with AI, its draft lands in the same box, saved with the AI's score and tagged Drafted by AI. Read it and change anything you like: your edits save on their own and the tag disappears. Notes the AI writes for you, such as a warning that it couldn't place annotations or had no question paper to work from, appear above the box and are never shown to students. Grading the same submission with AI again replaces the feedback along with the score. See AI Grading.
