Setting up a marking project from scratch

A marking project is the container that turns a completed sitting into work for markers. This walkthrough takes you from a finished sitting through to markers logging in and starting their first response.

Before you start

You'll need:

• A sitting that has closed and whose responses have been finalised.
• The rubric or rubrics you'll be marking against, already published in Author.
• A list of marker accounts (or the ability to invite new ones via People).

Use the project template

If you've run a similar marking project before, duplicate its settings rather than configuring from scratch. Mark → Projects → New from template lets you re-use validation thresholds, marker allocation rules, and adjudication settings.

Step 1. Create the project

1. From the main menu, select Mark → Projects.
2. Click New project.
3. Give the project a clear, scoped name — for example, Year 7 Numeracy 2026 — extended response.
4. Select the source sitting from the dropdown.
5. Choose which items in that sitting belong in this project. You can split a sitting into multiple projects (e.g. one per item type, or one per rubric).
6. Click Create.

The project starts in Setup state — markers cannot see it yet.

Step 2. Attach rubrics

Each item in the project needs a rubric attached. If the items were authored with a default rubric, that rubric is pre-selected.

1. In the project's Items tab, click the rubric column for any item that is missing one.
2. Choose a rubric from the published rubric list.
3. Confirm the scoring scale matches what you expect — analytic rubrics with multiple criteria will expose each criterion separately to markers.

Step 3. Allocate markers

Mark supports three allocation models:

• Open pool. Any marker assigned to the project picks the next available response. Fast, low-overhead — good for high-volume, low-stakes marking.
• Quota. Each marker is assigned a target number of responses. Lets you balance workload across markers of different experience.
• Stratified. Responses are distributed to match each marker's profile (e.g. junior markers see only Tier 1 items). More setup, but better for mixed-skill marker pools.

To allocate:

1. Open the Markers tab.
2. Click Add markers and select from the list of available users with the Marker role.
3. Choose an allocation model.
4. (Optional) Set per-marker quotas if you chose Quota or Stratified.

Step 4. Configure quality controls

Validation and double-marking are configured per project. See Marking quality controls for the full reference. The minimum recommended setup is:

• Validation rate: 10% — one in every ten responses each marker sees is a pre-marked validation response with a known score.
• Double-marking: enabled for items above 4 marks — high-stakes items get marked twice and adjudicated where the marks differ.

Step 5. Open the project

When everything is configured:

1. Return to the project's Overview tab.
2. Click Open for marking.

The project moves from Setup to Active, and allocated markers see it in their queue the next time they sign in.

Once a project is active

You can still add markers and adjust quotas while a project is active, but you cannot change rubrics or remove items. If you need to make structural changes, close the project, fix the issue, and re-open.

Closing a project

When all responses are marked and any adjudications resolved:

1. Open the project's Overview tab.
2. Click Close project.

Closed projects are read-only and their data is available for reporting.