Understanding confidence indicators
Marking.ai doesn’t claim to be right 100% of the time. To help you focus your review, it surfaces a confidence indicator on every marked submission — a quick visual cue for how sure it is about the marking it’s done.
This article explains what the indicators mean.
Where you’ll see confidence
The overall confidence indicator appears in the right rail of the Mark details workspace. Some views also show it next to questions or submissions in the submissions table.
The three levels
High confidence (green)
Marking.ai is confident in the marks for this submission. The answers were clear, the marking guide gave clean criteria to score against, and nothing looked ambiguous.
You can usually spot-check these submissions rather than reviewing them line by line.
Review suggested (amber)
Marking.ai got through the marking, but something about the submission wasn’t fully clear — the handwriting might be tricky, the answer might be unusual, or the marking guide might be open to interpretation in places.
Worth a careful pass, especially on the questions with most marks.
Needs review (red)
Marking.ai has lower confidence in this submission. The marks are still there, but you should review every question before sharing the results with your student.
Common reasons: very unusual answers, illegible handwriting, ambiguous mark-scheme guidance, or images that didn’t extract cleanly.
How to use the indicator
Use confidence to prioritise your review time:
- Skim High confidence submissions, looking for obvious errors
- Spend more time on Review suggested submissions
- Read every word on Needs review submissions
It’s a guide, not a guarantee. The final judgement is always yours.
What if confidence is low across the board?
If a lot of submissions come back as Needs review, the most common causes are:
- The marking guide is too thin — see Adding a marking guide
- The paper or submissions scanned poorly — see My submission processing failed — what now?
- The assessment has a lot of open-ended or creative questions, which are harder to mark mechanically
In each case, tightening the inputs usually lifts confidence on the next round.
Need help?
Click the chat icon in the app or email connect@marking.ai.
FAQs
Can I sort by confidence?
Not directly today. You can filter the submissions table by status — the lowest-confidence ones often correspond to questions Marking.ai flagged, which are highlighted on the Questions tab. See The assessment detail tabs.
Does confidence affect the mark?
No. Confidence is a separate signal — the mark is the mark. Confidence just tells you how sure Marking.ai is that the mark is right.
Can I trust High confidence marks without reviewing?
You can trust them a lot more than Needs review marks. But Marking.ai isn’t infallible, so a quick skim is still good practice.