Create and Score Essay Questions

As of Brillium release 2026.1.0, the Essay question type and scoring process have been enhanced to support improved manual and AI-assisted scoring workflows. These updates are designed to make essay scoring faster, more flexible, and easier to manage across multiple assessments.

What Has Changed 

Essay Questions

Essay questions now support multiple rubrics per question. 

• Each rubric has its own score assignment.
• Each rubric is assigned a percentage weight.
• The weighted percentages determine how much of the total question score each rubric contributes. 

For example, if an essay question is worth 20 points and a rubric is weighted at 50%, that rubric can award up to 10 points.

As before, Brillium recommends assigning 10 or more total points to an essay question to allow for meaningful scoring.

Essay Scoring Workflow

The essay scoring workflow has been redesigned to streamline how scorers find and grade essay responses.

• All essay questions that require scoring and that the logged-in user has access to are displayed in a single view.
• This allows scorers to move quickly between assessments and questions without repeatedly changing filters.

Working with Multiple Rubrics

When viewing an essay question:

• Clicking an existing rubric name opens it in a modal window.
• Each rubric displays its assigned score percentage. 

Adding Additional Rubrics

Additional rubrics can now be added to any essay question.

• When new rubrics are added, the original 100% weight is distributed across all rubrics.
• The distribution is fully editable. 

Example

• Rubric 1: 60%
• Rubric 2: 40% 

This allows scoring to be divided across more specific criteria, instead of relying on a single set of instructions as in previous versions.

Viewing Essay Questions That Need Scoring

The Essay screen now provides three filtered views. 

Need Review

The Need Review view shows all essay questions that require review and scoring. 

Recently Graded

The Recently Graded view shows graded essay questions.

Pending AI Grading

The Pending AI Grading view shows all essay questions that are currently awaiting or undergoing review and scoring by the AI Services.

For each essay response, the list includes: 

• Date the response was submitted
• Assessment ID
• Assessment name
• Workspace location
• Essay question ID
• Primary test-taker identifier (email address by default)
• Test-taker full name, if available
• Current grade - Unscored essay responses display a grade of 0.
• Grade source (displayed after grading)
  • Manually scored essays will display a grade source of Manual.
• Concern level for AI-scored essays, if applicable

Scoring Essay Questions (Manual Scoring)

Selecting an Essay for Scoring

To score an essay:

• Locate the essay question in the Need Review list.
• Select the Edit icon in the Actions column on the right.

The scoring screen displays more detailed information than before, including: 

• Primary test-taker identifier
• Test-taker name, if available
• Date and time the response was submitted
• Time spent responding to the question Question
• Topic name
• Question text
• The essay response 

Understanding the Score Display

At the top of the screen:

• The current score shows how many points have been applied to the response.
• A Modify button allows you to update the score. 

Below the score:

• All associated rubrics are displayed.
• Each rubric shows the percentage and score applied to it.

For existing essay questions, a single rubric is displayed with a 100% weight.

Modifying an Essay Score

 To update a score:

• Select Modify.
• Enter the percentage awarded for each rubric, up to the maximum allowed by its weight.
• Provide required feedback explaining the scoring change.
• Select Save.

The system automatically calculates the total essay score based on the rubric percentages. 

Feedback History

At the bottom of the scoring screen, the Feedback History section shows:

• All previous score changes
• Whether changes were made manually or through AI scoring or a combination of Manual + AI
• Associated feedback for each change 

Feedback is required for every score modification to ensure transparency and auditability. 

Summary

The enhanced essay scoring workflow provides: 

• Support for multiple weighted rubrics per essay question
• A unified view of all essay questions awaiting scoring
• aster navigation across assessments
• Clear tracking of scoring changes and feedback 

This workflow allows AI assisted essay scorers to work more efficiently while giving organizations greater flexibility in how essay responses are evaluated.