Grading tests with AI – what is allowed?

Talk to your school leadership

Data protection is usually the school's responsibility, not yours alone. Ask briefly whether your school has a policy on AI. Many ministries, districts and school boards are publishing their own guidance right now, and final exams usually come with exam regulations of their own.

Pick a tool with a contract, not a personal account

A test paper carries a name, handwriting and a performance – personal data under the GDPR. It does not belong in a personal chatbot account: there is no contract with your school, and depending on the settings, what you type may be used for training. A service that works on your behalf needs a data processing agreement (Art. 28 GDPR), says where the data is processed, and may not train on student work.

Context Grade acts as a processor for your student data: the data processing terms are part of our terms of service, and schools can have a separate agreement on request.

Cover names and set your criteria

Whatever is written on the page can reach the AI service. Where you can, have students write a number instead of their name, or cover the name before scanning. Settle your grading scale and marking criteria before you start, and give them to the AI – in the AI Batch Grader as a Grading Rubric or as your own instructions.

Upload the scans – and know where they go

In Context Grade your data is held in the European Union. To produce the grading suggestion, each page is sent to the AI provider OpenAI in the United States. The provider may not use the content for training, but under its own terms it may keep a request briefly – typically up to 30 days – for abuse monitoring. We add no name to the request. Uploaded pages are gone from our storage within 48 hours at the latest.

Check every suggestion yourself

Assessing students is part of your professional responsibility, not a tool's – in Austria, for example, the School Education Act assigns it to the teacher (§ 18 SchUG). Read each paper yourself, compare the Original text with the Corrected version, and change anything the AI misread or misjudged under Edit score. Suggestions and remarks are marked in the app as coming from the AI.

Save the grade yourself

A grade only reaches your gradebook when you click Save to Gradebook – one paper at a time. There is no automatic or bulk approval. That way a person always decides, as Art. 22 GDPR requires for decisions with significant effects, and you can explain every grade from the paper and your grading scale.

Be open about it

Tell your class – and parents where it makes sense – that an AI helps you mark and that you set every grade yourself. Some schools require this; it is good practice everywhere. One sentence at the start is enough.