Everything you need to run Tickmarks cases with a class, from creating the class to reading the results. Students play at their own pace in a browser. You never have to grade by hand.
Instructor accounts are set up by hand. Email admin@playtickmarks.com from your school address. You sign in with a one-time emailed link; there are no passwords.
On Your classes, give the class a name and an optional term. It gets a six-character join code.
Students enter the join code, their name and their school email on the join page, and get an emailed sign-in link. Or import a roster and skip the join step.
On the class page, use Import a roster. Upload a CSV with name and email columns (download a sample).
Open the case library from your dashboard. Every published case is there, grouped into four tiers: Beginner Intermediate Advanced Expert
A case preview shows the scheme and main technique, every record students can request and what unlocks it, the questions with their answers and hints, and the finding key. Students see none of this; their briefing never names the scheme.
The library shows a minimum (each record type requested once, 3 hours each) and a suggested budget that leaves room for pushbacks and second tries. The suggestion is filled in when you assign from a preview. On the class page the box starts at 40.
The date is optional. Work is due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on that date. Late work is never blocked. It is flagged late for you in the gradebook, the student's trail and the CSV exports.
You can assign the same case to several classes, and several cases to one class. Each assignment has its own budget and due date.
Students ask for records in plain English, check how the request was read, then send it. Records arrive as PDFs and spreadsheets they work in their own tools.
A request is pushed back when it is too broad to match a record, names someone the student hasn't found yet, or asks for an outside record (a bank, for example) before the internal records that justify it have been produced. The pushback message says what is still needed.
A request that produces records costs 3 hours. A pushed-back request, or one that produces nothing, costs 1 hour. When the budget runs out, no more requests are accepted, but students can still answer questions with the evidence they have.
Questions run in order. Each one opens when the one before it is answered correctly, and a correct answer is final.
Numeric answers accept $1,234.56, 1234.56 or (1,234.56) for a negative, within the question's tolerance. Units and symbols such as % or lb are ignored.
Each question can offer hints, revealed one at a time. The price in points is shown before the student takes one. Multiple-choice questions also cost points for each wrong try, sized so that guessing through every option earns almost nothing. A question never scores below zero.
Once every question is answered, a case that includes a finding asks the student to file one, in a single attempt. The case isn't closed until it is filed, and it can't be changed afterward. It is worth 30 points on top of the question points.
Every principal is named and no one else is accused. Points can still be lost on scheme, loss or proof.
No one is wrongly accused, but a principal was missed.
The student named someone who had nothing to do with it. The finding scores 0 of 30; the question points stand.
The class page shows each student's outcome. A student's page shows the points for each part.
Some cases come with a pool of variants: the same story and the same scheme, with different amounts and dates. When a student starts, they get the variant with the fewest students on it so far in that assignment, so neighbors are unlikely to have the same numbers. In a class larger than the pool, some students will share a variant. The case preview says when the numbers differ for each student.
The assignment's answer key has a section for each variant students are on, with that variant's answers. The student's page links straight to their own.
The student's page shows their variant, and the results and answers CSV files have a variant column.
The class page shows one row per student and one column per assigned case, with each score and a status: not started, in progress, completed, completed late or overdue. Select a score to open that student.
Open a case on the class page to see each student's status, score, hours used, requests (with a count of late ones), questions answered and correct, and finding outcome.
Every answer with hints and wrong tries, the filed finding broken down by part, and the full request trail: what was asked, how it was read, what was produced and when.
For each case, download results.csv, requests.csv and answers.csv from the class page. Weekly challenge results have their own CSV.
The answer key and teaching notes are one click from each assigned case on the class page.
Both tools are on the student's page, under Adjust.
Add 1 to 100 hours to one student's budget. Their page shows the new total and how many hours you added. It doesn't change the budget for anyone else, and you can add more later.
Deletes that student's requests, answers and finding, after you tick a confirmation. The points they earned on that attempt are removed too, including from their career rank, until they play it again. They start over on their next visit. Any extra hours you added are cleared as well; add them again if needed. If the case has more than one variant, they draw a variant they haven't had yet, where one is left, so they get a new set of numbers.
A weekly challenge is a short case, free to play, with a single finding. It runs Monday to Sunday, Eastern time, and closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Challenges are kept apart from your gradebook and never change a case grade. Students can play them whether or not you turn them on. Turning them on adds a weekly challenges section, with a class leaderboard, to your class page; it appears once a week has been scheduled.
| Upheld before the week closes | 10 |
| Clean: no wrong answers, no hints | +5 |
| Every 4th week in a row | +10 |
| Upheld later from the archive | 5 |
Each case comes with a short list of discussion questions.
The help page covers sign-in trouble, hours and pushbacks, and your data. For anything else, email admin@playtickmarks.com and a person will reply.