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Marking.ai Help Centre

Student upload links

Instead of collecting and uploading your students’ work yourself, you can share an upload link with your class. Students click the link, attach their work, and the file lands straight in your assessment, ready to mark.

This article shows you how it works.

  1. Open the assessment you want students to upload to.
  2. Click Upload submissions (or open the Start marking window’s Submissions step).
  3. Switch the upload mode toggle to Student upload link.
  4. Click Generate link.

The Student upload link dialog appears with the generated link, a Copy button, and an expiry date.

Setting the expiry

Links expire automatically after a configurable period — by default, the value you’ve set in Settings → Customisation. Before generating, you can pick a different expiry from the Link expiry dropdown.

If you need more time after a link is already out there, open the link’s dialog again and click Extend to push the expiry further out.

Sharing with your class

Click Copy and share the link wherever your class lives — email, your LMS, a shared doc, or in person. The link is the same for every student in the class; each student lands on a personalised form that asks for their name (and email, if you choose) before uploading.

What students see

Students don’t need a Marking.ai account to use the link. They:

  1. Click the link
  2. Enter their name (so the upload lands on the right student record)
  3. Drop in their PDF or image
  4. Confirm and submit

That’s it. Their submission appears in your submissions table within seconds.

What happens on your side

As students upload, you’ll see new submissions appear in your assessment, each linked to the student name they entered. Marking starts automatically as work comes in.

If two students happen to share a name, you can link the submission to the right student record afterwards — see Linking a submission to a student.

If you need to stop accepting uploads (for example, the deadline has passed), open the link’s dialog and click Revoke. The link stops working immediately for anyone who clicks it. Submissions already uploaded stay on your assessment.

Default upload settings

You can set default behaviour (expiry, whether to collect student email) in Settings → Customisation. See Customisation: feedback structure, language, share defaults, currency.

Need help?

Click the chat icon in the app or email connect@marking.ai.

FAQs

Do my students need an account to upload?

No. The link works for any student you share it with, no sign-in required.

What stops random people from uploading?

The link itself is the security mechanism — it’s a long, unguessable URL. Don’t share it publicly, and revoke it when the deadline passes.

Can I see who’s uploaded?

Yes — each uploaded submission appears in the submissions table with the name the student entered.

Can a student upload more than once?

Yes. If they upload twice, you’ll see two submissions and can pick which one to keep. See Deleting submissions.