Introduction to TAO Grader
TAO GRADER is a manual scoring environment integrated with the TAO product suite. It enables teachers and other subject experts to manually score the tests that have been set up on the TAO platform, instead of TAO generating scores automatically, thus making it possible to score open-ended questions.
TAO Grader provides an efficient environment in which to manage databases of scorers (typically teachers), assign them to score the tests (or parts of tests) delivered in TAO which require manual scoring, and monitor their progress.
TAO Grader is tailored for large-scale assessment programs, and is easy to use. It is is fully integrated in the TAO platform. It can be run on either a Desktop computer or on a tablet, and is a multilingual platform: at the moment it is implemented in two languages (English and Lithuanian), but it can be extended easily to other languages. Its web-based user interface is extremely accessible as it complies with WCAG accessibility standards and can be used with a screen-reader.
When you log in to TAO Grader, the menu icon offers you three options: Scoring Projects, Deliveries, and Users, as in the image below.
Scoring Projects provide a framework within which test items in TAO deliveries which need manual scoring can be inserted into a workflow. They need to be set up.
Deliveries in TAO Grader are TAO “deliveries”: the system automatically receives all test deliveries published in TAO. They are listed here.
Users are enrolled on scoring projects to carry out the scoring tasks associated with it. They need to be uploaded.
The Scoring Project Manager is the person who is responsible for both setting up and managing the Scoring Projects, as well as uploading and assigning the Users who undertake the scoring tasks (Scorers and Reviewers) on the scoring projects. The Scoring Project Manager is already configured for you in your TAO Grader instance.
The next chapter in this section (Linking TAO to TAO Grader) gives a brief look at how the communication between the TAO product suite and TAO Grader works. The sub-section Setting up TAO Grader shows how to configure the manual scoring platform, including importing scorers and setting up scoring projects. In the final sub-section (How to score an item in TAO Grader), you can see how the manual scoring process is carried out.