nudgelearn

Docs

Re-grade a paper after changing a rubric or key

Updated 19 September 2026

Re-grading takes a paper you already have and grades it again in place, keeping its student, its assignment and its place in the gradebook, and replacing only the grade. Use it after you have edited a rubric or corrected an answer key. Three things to know before you press it, all of which the confirmation dialog states. It costs graded items, at the same rate as new work. It replaces anything you typed on the old grade, including scores you flipped and comments you rewrote. And it is a fresh run rather than a replay, so the score can come back different on work that has not changed. The previous grade is kept either way, and Restore puts it back for free.

Where it is, and what it asks

The Re-grade button is in the footer of a paper in Review. The dialog that opens says Re-grade this paper? and carries two warnings, both unconditional: that your edits will be lost, and that it uses grading credits. It deliberately does not show your remaining balance, because the question on the screen is whether to accept a cost, not to do arithmetic.

Worksheets
Re-read from the stored page images and marked against the assignment’s current answer key.
Essays, by default
Re-scored from the transcript saved with the grade. Faster, and cheaper, because no page images are sent.
Essays, with Read the pages again too
The photos are read again from scratch. Use it when the handwriting was misread rather than when the rubric changed, and note that it restores the notes pinned to the photo.

A note on pinned notes

When an essay is re-scored from its transcript, a note that was pinned to a spot on the photo is only carried over when the quote it refers to matches exactly. There is no approximate matching, deliberately: a note pinned to the wrong line is worse than no note. Re-reading the pages brings them all back.

What this will not do

There is no free retry. Every re-grade bills. Nothing in the system separates a genuine misread from a disagreement about a score, so a free path conditional on saying it was wrong would be the path everyone took. Real failures get comped by hand instead. Editing a score or a comment yourself in Review stays free and always will.

Your edits cannot be kept. The new grade is a whole grade; it does not merge with the one you corrected. If the paper only needs one mark changed, change that mark rather than re-grading.

Restore only brings back grades, not edits. Previous grades are kept when a re-grade or a restore replaces one. Ordinary edits are not versioned, so there is no history of your own corrections to roll back to.

A failed run still costs. Once the grading call has been made it is charged, even if it comes back unusable, because the call itself cost something. What does not cost anything is a re-grade refused before it starts, such as one blocked by your item limit.

Re-grading the whole assignment needs the tab open. A rubric change applied to every essay in an assignment runs them one at a time from the page, so leave it open until it finishes. Stopping is safe, and it keeps the papers that were already done.

Common questions

Does re-grading cost graded items?

Yes, at exactly the same rate as grading new work, and the confirmation dialog says so before you agree. There is no free retry, because nothing in the system can tell the difference between the grader misread this and I do not like this score, and a free-if-you-say-so path would simply always be taken. If a genuine failure cost you items, write in and we will comp them by hand.

Will I get the same score back on unchanged work?

Not necessarily. A re-grade is a fresh run rather than a replay, so a paper can come back a point different even when nothing about it changed. That is exactly why the previous grade is kept and why Restore exists. If the grade you already had was the one you wanted, do not re-grade to confirm it.

What happens to edits I made in Review?

They are replaced. Any score you flipped, any comment you rewrote and any note you typed on the old grade is gone once the new one lands, which is the first of the two warnings in the dialog. The previous grade as a whole is kept and can be restored, but there is no way to merge your edits into the new grade.

What is the Read the pages again too option?

For essays. Left off, the essay is re-scored from the transcript saved with the grade, which is faster and costs less because no page images are sent. Turn it on when the handwriting was read wrongly the first time; it also restores every note that was pinned to the photo. A typed submission always uses the transcript, because there are no pages.

Which rubric is used when I re-grade?

The most specific one available, in this order: a rubric you pick right now for this paper, a rubric previously pinned to this paper, the assignment’s current rubric, and only then the rubric the grade was originally scored against. Re-grading after editing a rubric is the main reason the feature exists, so the assignment’s current rubric beats the old snapshot.

Can I change the rubric for a whole assignment at once?

Yes. Changing the rubric on a paper filed under an assignment with more than one essay offers two scopes: this paper only, or all N essays in the assignment so the gradebook column matches. The second re-grades every one of them and charges for every one, which the dialog states in the same sentence. It runs one at a time with a Stop button, and stopping keeps the papers already done.

Does re-grading move a paper to a different student?

Never. Re-grading deliberately does not re-run name matching and does not re-file anything, because a re-grade that moved one student’s work onto another student’s row would be a much worse bug than a wrong score.

What does Restore do, and does it cost anything?

It puts the most recent previous grade back, and it is free: nothing is re-graded and no model is involved. It is also itself reversible, because the grade it replaces is kept on the way past.

Read next

Try it on work you have already graded

A free account grades 20 items. Bring your two hardest papers.

Start grading free