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Grade Orbit
Changelog

What's New

New updates and improvements to GradeOrbit.

1.21.0

Word Count Rules

You can now set an expected word count for each assessment and define exactly what happens when a student doesn’t meet it — whether that’s a mark deduction, a zero, or just a flag. The AI marking agent applies your rule automatically.

Improvements

  • Set an expected word count on any assessment — choose from common values (100 to 2,000 words) or enter a custom target.
  • Add a word count rule that tells the AI what to do when a student falls short — e.g. “Deduct 5 marks from the total”, “Mark as 0”, or “Flag but continue marking normally”.
  • Available in both the new assessment wizard (Step 3 — Topic & Rules) and the assessment config page.
1.20.0

Next Steps for AI Detection

After running AI detection, you can now get a set of personalised next steps to help you dig deeper — specific questions to ask the student, areas of their work to focus on, and practical investigation techniques. It’s on by default and costs one extra credit per student.

Improvements

  • A new Next Steps section appears below your detection results, with 3–5 tailored suggestions based on the AI’s findings.
  • Toggle Next Steps on or off in the detection settings before you run — your preference is remembered for next time.
  • Next Steps cost +1 credit per student and are billed as part of the same detection run.
  • If Next Steps can’t be generated (e.g. not enough credits), the detection result is still returned and any extra credit is automatically refunded.
1.19.0

Give Your Students Names

You can now replace “Student 1”, “Student 2” etc. with your own labels — a name, a class reference, or anything else that helps you keep track. Names stay in your browser and are never seen by the AI.

Improvements

  • Click any student label during marking or AI detection to rename it — a small edit field appears in place.
  • Press Enter or click away to save; press Escape to cancel.
  • Clear the name and save to reset back to “Student 1”, “Student 2” etc.
  • Names never leave your browser — they are display-only and the AI never sees them.
1.18.0

Whole-Class AI Detection

You can now run AI detection on an entire class in one go. Upload work for as many students as you need, redact personal details, and get a result for every student — all from a single workflow.

Multi-student detection

  • Upload work for multiple students at once — add as many students as you need and check them all in a single run.
  • The same Upload → Redact → Detect flow you already know from marking, so there's nothing new to learn.
  • All results run at the same time — no waiting for one student to finish before the next starts.
  • Each result is shown in a sidebar — click any student to jump straight to their result, score, and signal breakdown.
  • Status indicators show at a glance which students are pending, in progress, complete, or errored.
  • On mobile, the sidebar becomes a horizontal tab strip at the top of the screen so you can still navigate between students easily.
1.17.0

Smarter Marking & a Better Teaching Assistant

GradeOrbit can now break down grades by individual question — so when a mark scheme has sub-questions like Q1(a), Q1(b), Q1(c), you'll see a mark for each one, not just a single total. The Teaching Assistant has also been significantly improved: it now has full access to your mark scheme when you ask it questions, so it can give specific, accurate answers instead of general ones.

Sub-question Grade Breakdown

  • Individual question marks are now shown — if your mark scheme awards marks per sub-question (e.g. Q1a, Q1b), GradeOrbit will now mark and display each one separately.
  • Top-level question totals expand into an accordion when you click them — tap a question to see how each sub-part was marked, then tap again to collapse it.
  • Mini progress bars give a quick visual indicator of how the student performed on each sub-question relative to its maximum mark.
  • The overall total is still shown clearly — sub-question detail is there when you need it, tucked away when you don't.
  • PDF exports are not affected — reports continue to show clean top-level question totals as before.

Teaching Assistant Improvements

  • The Teaching Assistant now has access to your full mark scheme when answering questions — previously it only knew about the grade and feedback, not what the mark scheme actually said.
  • Ask questions like “why did the student lose marks on question 3?” or “what does the mark scheme say about AO2?” and get a specific, grounded answer.
  • If you uploaded a reference text (e.g. a source text or model answer), the Teaching Assistant can now refer to that too.
  • Responses are longer when you need detail — if you ask about a specific mark or breakdown, the assistant will give you a full explanation rather than a short summary.
1.16.0

Refreshed App Layout

The main navigation and overall app layout have been redesigned to give you more space for your work and make it easier to find what you need.

Improvements

  • What's New is now pinned to the sidebar — so you can always see the latest updates without hunting through menus.
  • The sidebar now surfaces quick stats at a glance, so you can see your activity without leaving the page.
  • Overall layout improvements for a cleaner, more focused marking experience.
1.15.1

Better DOCX Handling

Processing word documents in marking criteria is now better, with more intelligent splitting of pages and better handling of tables.

Improvements

  • Document pages now break between paragraphs — no more text sliced mid-line.
  • The redaction view fits tightly to each page instead of adding empty space above and below.
  • Tables are now better formatted and easier to read.
  • Better handling of complex layouts and formatting.
1.15.0

Teaching Assistant

You can now ask questions about any piece of feedback, suggested improvement, or grade directly from the marking screen. The Teaching Assistant has full context about the student's result and can hold a back-and-forth conversation to help you understand the marking decisions.

Improvements

  • New Teaching Assistant — click Ask on any feedback item, improvement card, or grade to open a chat with full context already loaded.
  • Ask follow-up questions in the same conversation — the assistant remembers what you've discussed within the session.
  • Costs 1 credit per message, refunded automatically if the AI doesn't respond.
  • Each student gets a fresh session — switching students resets the conversation.
1.14.0

Smarter Grade Format Detection

If GradeOrbit doesn't quite get the grade format right from your marking scheme, you can now guide it. Tell it what it missed and re-run the detection in seconds — no need to start over.

Improvements

  • New “Not what you expected?” option on the grade format step — add a short note describing what the AI missed and re-run detection instantly
  • Works for any marking scheme, including unusual formats like topic-based grades or percentage thresholds
  • Your hint is saved alongside the marking criteria so you can see it if you come back to edit
  • If detection fails entirely, the hint box now appears automatically so you can correct it straight away
1.13.0

School & Trust Accounts

Schools and trusts can now submit an enquiry to bring GradeOrbit to their whole department. Find out what's required, what's included, and get in touch — all from the new Schools & Trusts page.

Improvements

  • New Schools & Trusts page explaining the Data Processing Agreement required for school-level data processing — in plain English.
  • Submit an enquiry form with your school details and credit requirements. A confirmation email is sent automatically.
  • Signing up as a school unlocks student progress analytics and shared marking criteria across your department.
  • New banner on the signup page directing schools to the dedicated enquiry flow.
1.12.0

Global Marking Rules

Set your marking philosophy once and apply it everywhere. Global marking rules let you define preferences like tone, language, and feedback style that apply to all your marking sessions automatically.

Improvements

  • New "Marking Rules" tab in Account Settings — write freeform instructions that apply to every marking session
  • Assessment-specific notes always take priority over global rules when both are set
1.11.0

Marking Criteria Wizard

Uploading a marking scheme is now a guided 4-step journey: name your criteria, upload the document, review the transcription, preview the grade format, and confirm before saving.

Improvements

  • New 4-step wizard for uploading marking criteria — replaces the previous modal.
  • Grade format is now detected at upload time and stored, making subsequent marking faster.
  • New edit page for existing criteria with full transcription editor and grade format detection.
  • Existing marking criteria can now have their grade format detected via the edit page.
1.10.0

Functional Skills Group

Functional Skills is now a qualification group alongside KS3, GCSE, and A-Level. Teachers marking Functional Skills work can select it when setting up an assessment and when organising marking criteria.

Improvements

  • Added Functional Skills as a qualification group in the marking criteria library.
  • Added Functional Skills as a qualification level option when setting up an assessment.
1.9.0

Upload Documents Beyond 10 Pages

You can now upload marking criteria and reference texts with more than 10 pages — up to 50 pages per document. Every page is transcribed, stored, and available to browse when you re-open the editor.

Improvements

  • Up to 50 pages per document — upload a full A-Level mark scheme, lengthy specification extract, or multi-section reference text in one go.
  • Every page transcribed — the AI reads all pages, not just the first. No content is silently dropped.
  • All pages stored — re-open any criteria or reference text to see the original document exactly as uploaded, with full page-by-page navigation.
  • Side-by-side editing — browse each page of the original document alongside the transcription to spot and fix any OCR errors.
  • Backwards compatible — existing single-page uploads continue to work exactly as before.
1.8.0

Subject-Specific AI Marking

GradeOrbit now tailors AI feedback to your subject. Instead of generic English-focused marking, the AI adapts its expertise to match your teaching subject — whether that's History, Science, Maths, or any other discipline.

Improvements

  • Subject is now required during signup — new users must enter their teaching subject before creating an account.
  • Existing users will be prompted to set their subject on next login via a one-time modal.
  • AI marking feedback is now tailored to your specific subject area — the AI identifies as an expert in your subject, not just English.
  • All prompts use subject-aware expertise for more accurate, relevant grading across every discipline.
1.7.0

Marking Criteria & Reference Text Library

The Marking Criteria page has been completely redesigned. You can now upload multiple marking schemes per qualification level, manage them in a sortable table, and choose which criteria to use for each assessment. Reference texts have also been upgraded with the same table and modal pattern, letting you manage multiple reference texts per assessment.

Improvements

  • New table view with filtering by qualification level and sortable columns.
  • Multiple criteria per group — no more one-per-level limit.
  • New upload and edit modal for managing criteria with transcription preview.
  • Criteria selector in assessment setup — choose which marking scheme to use when multiple exist.
  • Simplified workflow — removed the approval step for a faster experience.
  • Reference text management — upload and manage multiple reference texts per assessment with the same table and modal experience.
  • Edit with image preview — view the original uploaded image alongside the transcription when editing reference texts.
  • Combined reference context — all reference texts for an assessment are automatically combined and passed to the AI during marking.
1.6.0

PDF Export

You can now export a PDF report for each student directly from the marking review screen. Choose between a Full Report with annotated work pages and detailed feedback, or a 2-Page Summaryfor a quick overview — both ready to print and share with students or parents.

Improvements

  • New Export PDF dropdown on the marking review screen with two report modes.
  • Full Report — a multi-page PDF with a cover page, grade, summary, annotated student work with colour-coded feedback overlays, detailed strengths and areas to improve, and an action plan with suggested improvements.
  • 2-Page Summary — a compact overview with grade, summary, and feedback highlights on page one, plus a dedicated action plan on page two.
  • Both modes support letter grades, single marks, and multi-component mark breakdowns (e.g. AO5 + AO6).
  • Generated entirely in your browser — no student data is uploaded or stored.
1.5.0

AI Detection

GradeOrbit can now check whether student work was likely written by AI. Paste in text, upload an image of student work, or upload a document — and get an instant likelihood score with detailed reasoning and detected signals.

Improvements

  • New AI Detection tool — analyse student work for AI-generated content with a 0–100% likelihood score, confidence label, and a breakdown of detected linguistic signals.
  • Supports three input modes: pasted text, image upload, and document upload.
  • Choose between Faster (1 credit) and Smarter (3 credits) models — your preference is saved automatically.
  • Accessible from the navigation menu under AI Detection. Results are advisory and intended as supporting evidence alongside your own professional judgement.
1.4.0

Email Preferences

You can now control which emails you receive from GradeOrbit directly from your Account Settings page. A new Email preferences section lets you opt out of product updates and news at any time — no need to dig through your inbox for an unsubscribe link.

Improvements

  • New Email preferences section on the Account Settings page with a toggle to opt in or out of product updates and news.
  • Your preference is saved instantly and reflected the next time you visit the page.
  • New accounts are automatically added to the mailing list when you confirm your email, so you never miss an important update.
1.3.0

Improved Credit History

Your credit activity on the Account page is now grouped by action — so instead of seeing lots of individual entries, you'll see one clear line per marking session, purchase, or bonus. Tap any entry to see the full breakdown of what happened behind the scenes.

Improvements

  • Credit activity is now grouped into transactions — one entry per marking session, purchase, or welcome bonus.
  • Each transaction shows the net credit change at a glance, so you can quickly see what each action cost.
  • Expand any transaction to see the detailed breakdown — including individual operations, refunds, and model fallbacks.
  • Older activity from before this update is still visible, clearly marked as historical records.
1.2.0

Suggested Improvements

GradeOrbit can now generate tailored improvement suggestions for each student's work as part of the marking process. When enabled, the AI provides 3–5 specific, actionable next steps alongside the usual grade and feedback — helping you give students clear guidance on how to improve.

Improvements

  • New Extras section on the assessment setup page with a Suggested Improvements toggle (enabled by default for new assessments).
  • AI generates 3–5 actionable improvement suggestions for each student's work during marking.
  • When marking criteria with grade bands are available, suggestions focus on what the student needs to do to reach the next grade band.
  • View suggestions in a new Improvements tab alongside existing feedback on the review step.
  • Costs 1 additional credit per student when enabled.
1.1.0

PDF Uploads

We've expanded our supported file types to make submitting student work even easier. You can now upload PDF files directly for marking, alongside the existing support for image formats.

Improvements

  • Added support for uploading PDF files.
  • Updated UI helper text to reflect the broader range of supported formats.