How marking works

When you mark a student in IOA Marker, you capture five things:

1. Overall mark — your holistic judgement (0–100)
2. Indicators — specific observations you record
3. Prompts asked — which questions you covered
4. Context fields — informational data about this student
5. Notes — freeform text for anything else

This page explains each one and how they fit together.

Overall mark

The overall mark is your gestalt judgement of the student’s performance — a single number from 0 to 100. This is the anchor for everything else.

Most experienced markers form this impression naturally during an assessment. IOA Marker makes it explicit: you give the overall mark first, then record the supporting detail.

Indicators

Indicators are specific things you observe during the assessment. You define them in setup; during marking, you record which ones apply and how strongly.

All indicators use a 5-point scale:

Label	Meaning
+ +	Well above expectations
+	Above expectations
○	Meets expectations
−	Below expectations
− −	Well below expectations

Indicators start blank. You set each one based on what you observed.

Indicators are independent of criteria. You can have more indicators than criteria, fewer, or the same number. The connection between them is defined separately via influences — see How scoring works.

Prompts

Prompts are the questions or tasks you plan to ask during the assessment. You define them in setup; during marking, you check them off as you go.

This serves two purposes:

1. For you — a reminder of what to cover, so you don’t forget key questions while managing the conversation
2. For the record — evidence of what was actually asked, useful for appeals or moderation

Prompts appear as a checklist on the left side of the marking screen.

Context fields

Context fields capture informational data about each student that doesn’t affect their score but helps AI draft better comments. Examples:

• Topic the student chose
• Project title
• Case study assigned

You define the fields in setup (e.g., “Topic”, “Project”). During marking, you fill in the values for each student (e.g., “Climate change”, “Water access”).

Context field values are passed to AI when generating comments, so the feedback can reference the student’s specific context.

Notes

Freeform text for anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere — a quick observation, a quote from the student, something you want to mention in feedback.

Don’t worry about grammar, formatting, or complete sentences. The point is to capture your thoughts quickly while the conversation is fresh. When you generate written comments, AI reads your rough notes and turns them into polished prose. Messy shorthand in, clean feedback out.

Marking modes

IOA Marker supports two ways to enter scores:

Indicators mode (recommended for IOAs): You record the overall mark and indicator values. The app derives per-criterion scores automatically using the influences you configured. This is how most live oral assessments work — you form a gestalt, record observations, and the app handles the arithmetic.

Criteria mode: You enter per-criterion scores directly. The app sums them for the overall mark. This is the traditional approach, better suited to marking written work where you can score each criterion separately.

You choose the mode and student view when setting up the assessment. The available combinations depend on what makes sense — for example, if students see only the overall mark, you don’t need to enter per-criterion scores directly. See What students see for details.

Marking status

Each student’s marking has a status:

Status	Meaning
Unmarked	No data entered yet
Draft ⚠	Some data entered, but marking is incomplete (e.g., missing required values)
Draft ✓	Marking complete, but feedback not yet saved
Complete	Feedback saved and ready

The status helps you track progress through a cohort.