Icon representing a Jupyter Notebook and pen, symbolizing grading or working with Jupyter Notebook assignments.

May 7, 2025

How to auto-grade Jupyter Notebooks

In 30 seconds...

Simplifying Jupyter Notebook grading can transform your teaching and your students' learning experience. Discover how a new integration makes auto-grading effortless, freeing you to focus on what matters most.

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What is a Jupyter Notebook?

A Jupyter Notebook is an interactive web-based environment where you can combine live code (like Python), equations, visualizations, and narrative text. They're incredibly popular for teaching and doing data analysis, scientific computing, and programming because they allow you to see the results of your code immediately, mixed with explanations.

Why They Matter

While Jupyter Notebooks are powerful, getting started can be tricky for students, especially those new to coding or without a computer science background. They often face the hurdle of setting up their own complex coding environments before they can even start writing code or understanding how to use Jupyter Notebooks effectively.

Mastering coding requires practice and timely feedback. Students need frequent, small feedback loops to understand where they are making mistakes and to build confidence. This rapid feedback is crucial for maintaining momentum and preventing students from getting stuck for extended periods, which can be demotivating. The traditional methods of grading Jupyter Notebook assignments often make it difficult for professors to provide this kind of rapid, targeted feedback at scale. While some tools exist, such as NBGrader, they can be cumbersome for institutions to set up and apply broadly when dealing with numerous Jupyter Notebook submissions.

Your Guide to Auto-Grading Jupyter Notebooks

To provide a better way of auto-grading Jupyter Notebooks and address these challenges, we've integrated them directly into the CodeGrade AutoTest system. This section will walk you through how to auto-grade Jupyter Notebook assignments using CodeGrade, offering a refreshing and practical solution for professors looking to streamline their workflow.

With the new "Jupyter Notebook" block in CodeGrade, you can easily upload a template notebook file. Students can then work directly within the online CodeGrade IDE, running their Jupyter Notebooks in a controlled environment. This eliminates the need for complex local setups, making it easier for students to get started.

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Adding Auto-Grade Tests with Ease

One of the key benefits for professors, especially those less familiar with intricate technical configurations, is the simplified process of adding testing code to cells in these notebooks. You have the flexibility to place testing code precisely where you need it:

At the end of the notebook, allowing for testing at the conclusion of the assignment.
At the start of the notebook, useful for installation steps or providing students with hidden starter code.
After a specific cell – this is often the most common placement for adding auto-grading to individual code blocks within the notebook.
Before a specific cell, to give students starter code or set up the environment for that specific task.

Next, you simply select which cell you want to add your auto-grading to.

Automated Feedback for Students

Finally, you write any assertions to grade the cell's content automatically. For example, you can easily set up an assertion to check if the first 10 rows of a dataset are correctly displayed by the student's code in a specific cell.

After students hand in their work or run the tests in the editor (streamlining how to submit Jupyter Notebook assignment steps), they'll be able to see the feedback that you provide to them automatically. This rapid, automated feedback is crucial for helping students learn and progress effectively, providing those necessary small feedback loops that build understanding and confidence.

Real-World Impact: Beyond the Gradebook

So, what does this mean in the bigger picture?

For coding professors, it's about reclaiming your time. Imagine less time wrestling with manual grading or debugging finicky scripts, and more time engaging with your students on complex concepts or exciting new projects. This streamlined process effectively offers 'shortcuts' to previously complex tasks like environment setup and grading.

For our colleagues teaching business who want to integrate essential data analysis or coding skills, this integration removes a major technical hurdle. It makes incorporating these valuable skills into your curriculum far more approachable, empowering your students with practical abilities without requiring you to become a Python expert overnight.

Ultimately, by making auto-grading Jupyter Notebooks straightforward and scalable, CodeGrade isn't just improving efficiency; it's fundamentally enhancing the learning experience. It allows educators to focus on teaching and students to get the timely feedback they need to succeed with this powerful tool, making the process of how to use Jupyter Notebooks for assignments much smoother for everyone.

To learn more about this integration, book a call with us today!