Gradescope


Gradescope is an application to help instructors efficiently assign, grade, and provide feedback to students for a variety of assignment types, including:

Gradescope is integrated with UW Canvas and is available to all UW instructors.

New UW Gradescope Users: Using Gradescope with Canvas

Instructions below were adapted from Gradescope documentation and are specific to the new LTI 1.3 integration available to UW users starting in Winter 2026.

Create a Gradescope assignment in Canvas

  1. In your Canvas course, select Assignments from the course navigation menu.
  2. From the dotted drop-down menu in the top right corner, select the Gradescope 1.3 link. The Gradescope Create Assignment workflow will open. If you don’t see this option, please contact help@uw.edu for further assistance.
  3. If this is your first time creating a Gradescope assignment for the course, you will see a prompt to "Link to Canvas Course" - this step creates a course environment in Gradescope that's associated with your Canvas course gradebook and roster. Select the option to link with A new Gradescope course to continue.  
  4. In the Gradescope “Link to Canvas Assignment” modal, choose how you want to link this Canvas assignment to Gradescope - either using A new Gradescope Assignment (more common) or An existing Gradescope Assignment. Then, select Link Assignment.
  5. On the “Create Assignment” page, select the assignment type you want to create, and select Next. Customize any other settings your assignment type requires and then select Create Assignment.
    For more detailed information on creating an assignment in Gradescope, visit the  Assignment Settings Overview.
  6. To finalize the assignment link and setup, select the assignment you just created from the Assignments list in your Canvas course to return to the Gradescope interface. You won't be able to post grades until you do this step. 
  7. The assignment release date, due date, late due date, extensions, and any section-specific settings don't sync between Canvas and Gradescope, so you will need to edit these settings in both Gradescope and Canvas. To edit the assignment settings in Canvas:
    1. Access your Assignments list from the Canvas course navigation
    2. Select the three-dot menu next to the assignment select Edit Assignment Settings.
    3. You can edit the assignment's total point value, release and due dates, and any section-specific settings.
  8. To continue creating and customizing the assignment in the Gradescope workflow, select the assignment title from the Canvas Assignments page to open Gradescope and edit the assignment there.

Publishing Gradescope assignments in Gradescope and Canvas

To make Gradescope-linked assignments visible to students in their Canvas dashboard, you will need to publish the assignment in Canvas. This allows students to use the assignment link to open Gradescope to view their assignment submission status and grades.

Once a Canvas assignment is successfully linked and published, students can select the Canvas assignment to view instructions and submit their work to Gradescope, if applicable. 

For instructor-uploaded assignments, we recommend waiting to publish a Gradescope-linked assignment in Canvas until after it's been fully graded and grades are published in Gradescope.

Posting grades in Gradescope for availability in Canvas

  1. To review and grade submissions in Gradescope, visit the Assignments page in your Canvas course and click the title of the assignment.
  2. Once the assignment launches in Gradescope, select Grade Submissions in the left sidebar of Gradescope to begin grading.
  3. When you've finished grading submissions, you will be taken to Gradescope's Grading Dashboard for the assignment. 
    1. Expand the left sidebar in Gradescope (if it isn't already) and select Review Grades.
    2. Then, on the Review Grades page, click the Post Grades to Canvas button. A dialog box will appear explaining how grades will be pushed from Gradescope to Canvas.
    3. In the dialog box, select Post Grades.
      Note: Posting Grades to Canvas only sends the raw scores for fully graded submissions to the Canvas gradebook for your course. Students will not be able to view their graded submissions, question-by-question scores, rubrics, or feedback in Gradescope until grades are published in both Gradescope and Canvas.
  4. Finally, to have students also see their graded, annotated submissions, question-by-question scores, rubrics, and feedback in Gradescope, select Publish Grades.

Legacy UW Gradescope users (before Winter 2026)

If you started using Gradescope in UW Canvas prior to Winter 2026, you likely used an earlier version of the Gradescope integration (LTI 1.0). If you plan to continue using LTI 1.0 during Winter 2026, we recommend consulting the Gradescope guide from the College of Arts and Sciences. 

The updated version of the Gradescope integration (LTI 1.3) has improved roster syncing and can be accessed directly from the Canvas assignments page. To migrate your assignments from LTI 1.0 to LTI 1.3, follow the duplication instructions from Gradescope.

We encourage instructors to migrate their assignments by Summer 2026, as Gradescope LTI 1.0 will be deprecated before Autumn 2026.

Additional Resources

If you are encountering issues with Gradescope failing to load in your Canvas interface, your browser may have cross-site tracking disabled. This setting will block other apps (like Gradescope) from loading embedded content in pages with a different domain (like UW Canvas). To allow the embedded content to load, please check your browser settings to allow third-party content to load.

To learn more about Gradescope, visit the following user guides. You can also get direct support by emailing help@gradescope.com.

Student guides

Instructor guides