Teacher Documentation (K12)

Create an assignment

Provide more efficient, timely, and meaningful grading and feedback. Create and edit assignments, see submission details, view submissions, associate assignments to rubrics and competencies, and return submissions with grades and feedback. On paper and observed in person assignment formats are also available.

The Create and Edit Assignments page has a fully immersive page layout. This layout is consistent with other areas of Brightspace including Assignments, Content, and Lessons, where you can upload and create a new assignment.

Access the new Assignment page

There are several different starting points to create assignments.

To create an assignment in the Classic Content Experience

In Content, select the module where you want to create an assignment.
Click Upload/Create.
Click New Assignment.

Figure: The New Assignment option on the Upload/Create menu.

Video: Create an assignment

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To create an assignment from the New Content Experience

From your course homepage, navigate to Content.
In your desired module, click Create New.
On the What would you like to create? page, click Assignment.

Figure: The Assignment option of the What would you like to create? page.

Video: Assignments Creation Experience

To create an assignment from the Assignments tool

Navigate to Assignments.
Click New Assignment.

Fill in assignment details

When creating a new assignment, start by entering basic details such as name, grade scheme, due date, and description.

To fill in assignment details

From the New Assignment page, enter a Name for the assignment.

Figure: The New Assignment page.
For Grade Out Of, enter the number of points for the assignment.
Select whether the assignment will be in the Grade Book by clicking the drop-down menu.
- Edit or Link to Existing: Choose to either create and link to a new grade item, or link to an existing grade item.
  Note: You can also create grade items and categories from the Grades tool. Refer to Create and delete grade categories and items for more information.
- Add to Grade Book
Enter the Due Date for your assignment.

Enter a Description for your assignment.

This is the paper note and pencil icon used for notes.

Note: You can click the icons to upload any files, link to any existing activities or external weblinks, attach any files from Google Drive or OneDrive, and record and/or upload any audio or video files.

If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close.

The new assignment is created and available to students.

Set a start and end date for your assignment

You can further customize your assignment by setting availability dates.

To set a start date and end date

From the New Assignment page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion.

Figure: Expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion to view start and end dates.
Set a Start Date and an End Date.
Click the assignment availability field below the start and end date. In the dialog, choose from the following for each date:
- Visible with access restricted
- Visible with submission restricted
- Hidden
In the dialog, choose to select Add availability dates to Calendar if you want the start or end date available in your course calendar.

Figure: Select your assignment's availability and add it to your course calendar.

The new assignment is created with specified start and end dates.

Note: You can also click the link below the start and end date fields to change the default settings for availability dates. When you collapse Availability Dates & Conditions, the summary text displays the selected start and end date information. The default time for an assignment start date is set to 12:00 AM. The default end date time is set to 11:59 PM.

Create a new release condition for your assignment

You can add release conditions to your assignment. Release conditions are conditions that must be met for an assignment to be made visible to students. For example, you can set your assignment to only be available to students when they achieve a specified score on a quiz.

To create a new release condition

From the New Assignment page, under Release Conditions, click Add Release Condition and select Create New.

Figure: The Create a Release Condition page.
Under Condition Type, select the condition that must be met.
Under Assignment Submission Folder, select the assignment submission folder in which this condition must be met.
Click Create.
If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close.

A new release condition is added to your assignment.

Attach an existing release condition to your assignment

You can also attach an existing release condition to your assignment.

To attach an existing release condition

From the New Assignment page, under Release Conditions, click Add Release Condition and select Add Existing.

Figure: The Attach an Existing Condition page.
Select an existing release condition from the list and click Attach.
Note: Use the View Conditions for drop-down menu to filter the existing release conditions.
If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close.

An existing release condition is added to your assignment.

Make your assignment only available to a select group

You can Manage Special Access for your assignment. This enables you to make your assignments available only to a select group of users or to add individualized due dates for certain users.

To make your assignment available to a select group

From the New Assignment page, expand Availability Dates & Conditions and click Manage Special Access.

Figure: The Manage Special Access page.
Select one of the following options:
- Allow users with special access to submit outside the normal availability dates for this folder.
- Allow only users with special access to see this folder.
To add users, click Add Users to Special Access.
Specify the Due Date and the Availability start and end dates for selected users.
Select the check box alongside the users who you want to grant this special access to.
Click Save and then click Save and Close.
If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close.

Your assignment is configured to give special access to specific users or groups.

Customize Submission Type & Completion settings

You can also customize what type of assignment you are creating, and what file types you will accept from students submitting their assignments.

To customize submission type and completion settings

From the New Assignment page, expand Submission & Completion.

Figure: The Submission & Completion settings of a new assignment.
Customize the following options:
- For the Assignment Type, specify if this is an Individual Assignment or Group Assignment.
  Note: You must have groups set up in your course to set an assignment as a group assignment.
- From the Category drop-down menu, select an existing category to align your assignment to or click New category, enter a Name for your category, and click Create.
  Note: You can edit the name of an existing category from the Assignments page. On the Assignments page, click Edit Categories.
- Select a Submission Type:
  - For File Submissions, set the number of Files Allowed Per Submission and the Submissions rules.
  - For Text submissions, set the Submission rules.
  - For On paper submissions, set Marked as completed to one of the available options: Manually by learners, Automatically on evaluation, or Automatically on due date.
  - For Observed in person assignments, set Marked as completed to one of the available options: Manually by learners, Automatically on evaluation, or Automatically on due date.
    Note: When you collapse Submission & Completion, the summary text displays your selection.
- From the Allowable File Extensions drop-down menu, select an option to restrict file extensions on submissions for the assignment.
- To receive email notifications when an assignment is submitted, under Notification Email, enter an email address or multiple email addresses separated by a comma.
  Note: This field is only available when the assignment Submission Type is set to File submissions or Text submissions.
If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close.

The assignment type and acceptable file type for submission is set.

Customize Evaluation & Feedback settings

Add rubrics, associate learning objectives, display annotations, and use anonymous marking. You can also use Advanced Assessments described below to better manage courses with large class sizes and multiple evaluators, delegate and manage evaluator workflows, and reduce bias in marking.

To add Rubrics and associate learning objectives

From the New Assignment page, expand Evaluation & Feedback.

Figure: Click the arrow icon to expand the Evaluation & Feedback section of the New Assignment page.
Customize the following options:
- Click Add rubric and either create and attach a new rubric or add an existing one.
  Note: If you are attaching multiple rubrics, select the rubric to be used by default when scoring from the Default Scoring Rubric drop-down list.
- Associate a learning objective:
  - Click Manage Learning Objectives.
  - Click Associate Learning Objectives.
  - Select the learning objective you want to add and then click Add Selected.
- If required, associate an assessment to the learning objective:
  - On the context menu of the associated learning objective, select Add Assessment.
  - Select an existing rubric or create a new rubric.
  - Select the rubric criteria and specify if the assessment activity is required to complete the learning objective.
  - Click Save.
  - Click Close.
To make your assignment visible to students, click on the Visibility toggle.
Note: If this Visibility is not turned on when creating the assignment, the assignment is hidden from students.
Click Save and Close.

Note: Manage Learning Objectives only appears when the Competencies tool is enabled and the course is not using the Learning Outcomes tool. If your course is using learning standards (Learning Outcomes tool), and if you have aligned learning standards to assignments, you can assess submissions against standards for individual and group assignments.

To display annotations and use anonymous marking

From the New Assignment page, expand Evaluation & Feedback.
To display annotation tools in the document viewer, under Annotation Tools, select Make annotation tools available for assessment.
To enable anonymous marking, under Anonymous Marking, select Hide student names during assessment.
To make your assignment visible to students, click on the Visibility toggle.
Note: If Visibility is not turned on when creating the assignment, the assignment is hidden from students.
Click Save and Close.

To set up a delegation, co-marking, or multi-evaluator workflow and enable Turnitin

This is the bullhorn icon used for warnings.

Important: If you don't have access to the features listed below, including delegation, co-marking, the multi-evaluator workflow, and Turnitin integration, please contact your organization administrator.

When the d2l.Tools.Activities.AdvancedAssessmentsEnabled configuration variable is On, you can access Advanced Assignments features to create, edit, and evaluate assignments. The Assignments > Give Feedback permission is required to populate both the evaluator and publisher lists.

From the New Assignment page, expand the Evaluation & Feedback accordion.
In Evaluators > Select Evaluators, choose who can evaluate this assignment and click Done.

Figure: Select one or more Evaluators and click Done.
In the Publishers field, select one of the following options:
- All evaluators can publish any evaluations
- Evaluators can only publish their evaluation
- Manually select publishers > select publishers who can publish grades for the assignment and click Done.
  
  Figure: Select one or more Publishers and click Done.
  Note: Only publishers can retract evaluations already released to students.

To match evaluators to students, in Allocate Evaluators to Learners > Manage Allocations > manually pair students with evaluators or select one of the following options:

Allocate all evaluators to every learner
Randomly allocate 1 evaluator to every learner evenly
Randomly allocate 2 evaluators to every learner evenly
Randomly allocate 3 evaluators to every learner evenly

Click Apply Allocation Method > Done.

Note: By default, selected evaluators can evaluate any student.
Evaluator can also be assigned to groups and or sections using the Groups or Sections drop-down menu. Students in the group or section can be mapped to an evaluator.

When evaluators are not assigned to a student due to section restrictions or changes to enrollment, a warning message in the Manage Allocations dialog informs you that some evaluators are being removed during the unenrollment event. Once the unenrollment is complete, a warning appears in the Manage Allocations table beside the learners who should be redistributed to other evaluators.

To choose a multi-evaluator workflow, navigate to Coordinate Multiple Evaluators, select one of the following options:

One shared evaluation to allow all evaluators to work on the same evaluation together. Publishers release this evaluation to students.

This is the lightbulb icon used for tips.

Tip: When using the One shared evaluation workflow, each assigned evaluator can edit a shared evaluation. The evaluation change history is not saved and evaluators may not notice changes made by other assigned evaluators. Therefore, D2L recommends that you use this option for real-time, collaborative evaluation between multiple people (for instance, when an instructor and a teaching assistant are evaluating an assignment together and discussing the evaluation as they are doing it). Select Multiple individual evaluations if you need independent evaluations.

Multiple individual evaluations to allow evaluators to work on their own evaluations separately. Publishers aggregate results into one final evaluation and release it to students.

Note: When enrollment changes are made for evaluators in a course, it may take longer than expected (more than two minutes) for these changes to be processed and reflected in the Edit Evaluators list and the Evaluators section. This is based on the number of users in the course and the number of Advanced Assessment activities.

If Turnitin is enabled for your role in the course, you can use the Similarity Report options while the Online Grading tools are disabled by doing the following:
1. Under Turnitin Integration, click Manage Turnitin.
2. Enable the Turnitin integration and click Save.
To make your assignment visible to students, click the Visibility toggle.
Note: If Visibility is not turned on when creating the assignment, the assignment is hidden from students.
Click Save and Close.

Warning: You can still access the Online Grading option called Feedback studio in Turnitin when you access the tool on Turnitin's page. However, any inputs in the tool are not restricted by the evaluators defined in Advanced Assessment. Additionally, any grades or feedback are not auto-synchronized with the Consistent Evaluation Experience or Grade Book.

Refer to Advanced Assessment for Assignments in test, development, and staging environments of Brightspace for more information.

Add a rubric to an assignment

On the Assignments page, click the Actions drop-down menu for the assignment where you want to add a rubric. Click Edit Assignment.

Figure: The Edit Assignment option in the Actions drop-down menu for an assignment.

In the Evaluation & Feedback menu, Click Add Rubric > Add Existing.

Figure: The Evaluation & Feedback menu with the Add Rubric drop-down option showing the Add Existing option.

In the Add Existing Rubric dialog, click the checkbox for the rubric you want to add.
Note: You can add more than one rubric to an assignment.

Click Add Selected.

Figure: The Add Existing Rubric dialog.

Preview an assignment submission

There are often situations where you would like to see the end-to-end flow of submitting an assignment you created. This can easily be accomplished by leveraging the Preview function within the Assignments tool. You can go through the process of viewing and submitting an assignment and have your preview submission available in the evaluation workflow.

Note: Your preview submissions will not impact the statistics for your course.

To preview an assignment submission

Navigate to Assignments.
Click More Actions > Preview.

Figure: Click the More Actions menu and click Preview.

Select the assignment you want to preview.
Select Allow this preview submission to be available in the folder.
Click Add a File to submit a test assignment.
Click Submit.

Figure: Add an assignment submission and select Allow this preview submission to be available in the folder.

On the Review Assignment Submission page, click Exit Preview.
If you want to view the evaluation workflow for your assignment submission, click on the assignment where you just made the submission.
Click Show Search Options.
In the Users tab in the Submissions section, select Users with preview submissions.

Figure: Select the Users with preview submissions option from the drop-down list.

Click Apply and find your assignment submission.

You now have access to the to the evaluation screen for your assignment submission.