Cadmus Group Assessments: Quick Start Guide for Teachers

Cadmus Group Assessments supports the full lifecycle of collaborative student projects — from group formation and project management through to marking, peer evaluation, and feedback release.

Step 1: Create Your Assessment

Create a Cadmus link in your LMS, launch Cadmus, then configure your requirements and settings: components, weightage, word limits, marking, referencing, and generative AI usage. You can also enable optional features here — Group Charter, Sentiment Check, Individual Submission and Peer/Self Evaluation.

Step 2: Add Instructions & Rubrics

Add writing instructions for the group and individual reports. Attach a rubric by creating one from scratch, reusing a past rubric, or building one using weighted percentages, actual points, or absolute points. Rubrics can be set up for the group report, individual report, and peer evaluation separately.

Step 3: Form Groups

Divide students into groups using one of four methods:

• Random — divide equally into a specified number of groups
• Manual — assign specific students to each group yourself
• Self-enrolment — students join groups before a set deadline; unassigned students are randomly placed after it passes
• Import — upload groups via a .csv or .zip file

Once groups are formed, you can monitor them, rename groups, reassign students, and handle group change requests from the Group Formation panel under the Instructions tab. Markers can also be assigned directly to groups to allocate submissions for grading.

Step 4: Set Up Optional Features

Group Charter — if enabled, add a charter overview, timeline and milestones, and collaborative instruction sections (read-only or text input). The charter helps students align on goals, responsibilities, and ways of working at the start of the project.

Sentiment Check — set a survey frequency (in days) so students periodically rate group dynamics on a red/amber/green scale and provide optional written comments. Responses appear in the Progress tab and help you identify groups that may need early support.

Individual Submission — add the instructions any individual components of the assessment. You can add a rubric by creating a new rubric in Cadmus, attaching a pre-existing rubric or attaching additional resources.

Peer & Self Evaluation — add instructions and a rubric so students can assess themselves and their teammates individually and anonymously after submission.

Step 5: Set Due Dates & Release

Add due dates for draft and final submissions of group work, individual work, the group charter, peer evaluation, and feedback. When ready, click Release Instructions in the Instructions tab to share everything with students.

Step 6: Monitor Progress

Use the Progress tab to track group and individual work status, peer evaluation completion, sentiment check responses, and students at risk. The Insights tab provides deeper visibility through task summaries, sentiment matrices, comment engagement, score difference charts (peer vs. self, group vs. individual), and activity reports showing word count and paste ratios.

Step 7: Mark Submissions

Navigate to the Marking tab to grade group and individual work. Use the rubric panel to apply ratings or enter custom marks, and add annotated feedback comments linked to specific rubric criteria. Switch between the Group Work, Individual Work, Peer Evaluation, and Analytics tabs within the marking panel. 

Step 8: Moderate & Release Feedback

Once marking is complete, go to the Moderation tab to review class performance, adjust grades if needed, and set up any late or custom penalties. When ready, use Release Feedback to publish grades and comments — either to everyone at once or selectively by group or individual, with scheduling options. Control what students can see: full feedback, answers and comments only, or marks only.