CoGrader

CoGrader is an AI essay grading tool for U.S. teachers and schools, positioned as an "AI teaching assistant." Its core goal is to provide students with timely, specific, and personalized writing feedback without increasing teachers' workload, while reducing teachers' grading time by about 80%.

Purpose CoGrader is mainly used to grade written assignments, including argumentative essays, document-based questions (DBQ), scientific claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) responses, constructed responses, and short-answer questions. Teachers can set their own rubrics for each assignment, and the AI completes the first round of grading and feedback; after teacher review and confirmation, it is then sent to students.

Main capabilities

• Rubric-based grading: Supports using teachers' own rubrics, and also provides more than 500 rubrics aligned with state standards, including Common Core, Texas TEKS, Florida B.E.S.T., California Smarter Balanced, Texas STAAR, New York Regents, AP/IB, and more.
• Criterion-by-criterion feedback: Provides a score and feedback for each rubric criterion, and explains the rationale for the score.
• Grammar and integrity checks: Can flag plagiarism and AI-generated text (AI detection is available in the School/District subscription).
• Handwritten assignment support: Can recognize handwritten content, organize pages by student, and grade according to the rubric. Supports taking photos with a phone, scanning with a copier, or importing photos from an LMS.
• Class trend analysis: View class score distribution by rubric criterion, identify weak learning points, and assist with instructional adjustments.
• Multilingual assessment: Can assess assignments in any language; the platform interface is in English.

How to use

1. Import assignments: Supports one-click import from Google Classroom; LMSs such as Canvas and Schoology can pull submissions; you can also directly upload PDFs, DOCX files, photos, or paste text.
2. Choose a rubric: Use a preset state-standard rubric, or upload your own rubric.
3. Get an initial assessment: AI generates draft scores and feedback for each student, linked to each rubric criterion.
4. Review and adjust: Teachers can edit any score or comment, and after confirmation, send it back to the LMS with one click.
5. View class reports: View score trends by rubric criterion and identify common issues.

Use cases

• State exam preparation: Use state assessment rubrics to align practice.
• Shorten the feedback cycle: Reduce feedback time from weeks to 1-2 days.
• Differentiated learning: Customize feedback for different student needs.
• Grading fairness: Objective grading based on rubrics reduces human bias.
• Instructional planning: Identify learning gaps through data insights.

Limitations and notes

• Teachers always retain the final grading decision; all scores and comments are shown to students only after teacher review.
• AI detection cannot guarantee 100% accuracy and is only used to flag possible academic integrity issues.
• Grading suggestions are relatively reliable, but are designed to assist rather than replace teacher judgment.
• The free Starter plan is free forever and includes 150 student submissions per month, a rubric builder, FERPA compliance, help center access, and 90 days of advanced features; paid plans unlock more submissions, integrations, and class analytics.
• Data privacy: Complies with regulations such as FERPA, COPPA, SOPIPA, and Ed Law 2D, and holds SOC 2 Type 1 certification; only de-identified student assignments and rubrics are shared with AI, and AI models do not use student data for training.
• Integrations: Google Classroom is available to all users; full Canvas and Schoology integrations are available for school/district accounts. Other LMSs support file import/export.
• Research background: Development was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) (R305J250071); in a June 2026 validation study, CoGrader's STAAR grading was within 1 point of official TEA raters in 98.5% of cases.