Assignments in Blackboard Learn

Just like other types of content, to add an assignment on the Course Content page, select the plus sign wherever you want to add an assignment. In the menu, select Create to open the Create Item panel and select Assignment. The New Assignment page opens.

You can also expand or create a folder and add an assignment.

When you create an assignment, a gradebook item is created automatically.

After you post assignment grades, students can view their scores on their grades pages or in the activity stream. They can also access an assignment, their submissions, your feedback, rubrics, and their grades from the assignment link on the Course Content page.

You can set the different assignment components to customize your assignment. Provide a descriptive title so students can easily find the assignment among your course content. On the Course Content page, the title appears as the link students select to view the materials. If you don’t add a title, “New Assignment” and the date appear in the content list. If you don’t add content, the assignment won’t appear on the Course Content page.

To then add text, files, and questions, select the plus sign to open the menu and make a selection. You can choose a question type, add a question pool, or reuse questions and content from existing assessments. You can add files and text, such as instructions for the assignment. You can also add files from cloud storage, such as OneDrive and Google Drive.

Show or hide the assignment: Students can’t see an assignment until you choose to show it. You can create all your content ahead of time and choose what you want students to see based on your schedule. You can also set availability conditions based on date, time, and performance on other items in the course gradebook. To learn more about conditional availability, visit the Conditional Availability section on our Developing Course Content page. On the Course Content page, students can see when you set the assignment to show.

Apply assignment settings: Select the Settings icon to open the panel where you provide the assignment’s details and information.

Provide a due date: Due dates appear on the calendar and in the activity stream. Late submissions appear with a Late label in the course gradebook. Encourage students to review what’s due now and what’s ahead so they can ask questions as soon as possible.

View accommodations: You can set accommodations for students and make them exempt from certain course requirements, such as assignment due dates and time limits. To select accommodations, go to the Roster and open a student’s menu. The number of accommodations you’ve made appears on the assignment page in the Assignment Settings section.

Allow class conversations: What if your students have questions about an assignment? You can allow conversations within an assignment, and anyone can contribute. As the conversation develops, it appears only with the relevant assignment.

Collect submissions offline: You may want to grade student work that doesn’t require students to upload a submission. For example, you can add grades to your gradebook for oral presentations, science fair projects, acting performances, and artwork delivered in person.

Randomize questions and answers: You can randomize questions and their answers to support practice/drilling activities and help students avoid academic dishonesty. You can use one or both settings so assignments appear differently for each student. You can only randomize answers for Matching and Multiple Choice questions. If you want to randomize answers for True/False questions, use the Multiple Choice question type with True and False answer choices. You can’t randomize questions in an assignment with text blocks or attachments.

Questions appear in order to you but are randomized for students. To prevent confusion, don’t add numbers to reference other questions within the assignment.

Change the grade category: You can change the assignment’s grade category to be part of one of the custom gradebook categories you set up in your course. You can create new categories to customize how coursework is grouped in your course. Custom categories can be useful when you set up the overall grade.

Determine the number of attempts: You can let your students submit more than one attempt at an assignment. When you allow multiple attempts, you can also choose how the final grade is calculated.

Select the grading schema: From the Grade using menu, select an existing grading schema such as Points. You can change the grading schema at any time and the change will show to students and in your gradebook.

Enable anonymous grading: When you create an assignment without questions, you can enable anonymous grading so student names are hidden while you grade. You may only add text and files to anonymously graded assignments.

Show assessment results: Select the Show correct answers check box to allow students to see the correct answers to automatically scored questions after they submit. If you don’t add questions to your assignment, select the check box for Show correct answers during creation.

Enable automated feedback: Provide feedback to students that’s released automatically based on your settings.

Add an access code: You can issue an access code to control when students submit an assignment. At this time, access codes are generated randomly by the system. You can’t customize the access codes. You can also add an access code to a group assignment.

Enable parallel grading: You can enable parallel grading and assign graders when you create an assignment. You can also enable parallel grading even after students make submissions. The system randomly assigns graders you choose so each student has two graders for the assignment. The grading workload is distributed evenly among the graders. Graders can only open the submissions for the students assigned to them. Instructors or reconcilers determine the final grades for students.

Add a time limit: A time limit can keep students on track and focused on the assignment because each person has a limited amount of time to submit. The assignment attempts are saved and submitted automatically when time is up. You can also allow students to work past the time limit. At this time, you can’t add a time limit to group assignments.

Add a grading rubric: Rubrics can help you evaluate student submissions based on key criteria that you define. You can create a new rubric or associate an existing rubric. A rubric is a scoring tool that you can use to evaluate graded work. At this time, you can only add a rubric to as assignment without questions.

Add goals and standards: You can align an assignment to one or multiple goals. You and your institution can use goals to measure student achievement across programs and curriculums. You can also align individual questions to goals.

Make a group assignment: You can create an assignment for one or more groups of students. By default, you assign a grade to each group as a whole, but you can change a group member’s individual grade.

Enable SafeAssign: You can use SafeAssign to check for potential plagiarism in student submissions. You can enable the SafeAssign Originality Report any time, even after students have started their submissions, but submissions are only checked when SafeAssign is enabled.

Add an optional description: The description appears with the assignment title on the Course Content page.

Blackboard Ultra recently added a new feature for tracking activity on particular assignments within the assignment instructor interface.

In Ultra, you can access student activity data from the Course Content page. Select an assessment’s dropdown menu and select Student Activity.

You can also access student activity data on an assessment’s page by selecting the Student Activity tab.

Student activity details aren’t available for anonymous graded assessments. When you turn off the anonymous grading option, the Student Activity Details Report for Assessments appears again.

The top of the page shows you an overview of information, including the course average submission time and time before due date.

Submission Activity

The Submission Activity section includes the number of students at specific stages in the assessment. The stages include:

• Unopened
• Opened
• Drafts started
• Submitted

Grade Distribution

The Grade Distribution line graph shows student grades.

The x axis represents grade ranges. Ranges are from the lowest to the maximum possible grade for the assessment.

The y axis is the number of students who received a specific grade.

Select any dot on the line graph to see more information about the students who received a grade in that specific range. Student grades are displayed as columns in a bar graph. Hover over the student’s column to see the student’s name, grade, and percentile.

To return to the Grade Distribution line graph, select the Back button.

With assignments, you can create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. You can create assignments in content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders.

When you create an assignment, a Grade Center column is created automatically. From the Grade Center or Needs Grading page, you can see who has submitted their work and start grading. Students access their grades from their My Grades pages or the assignment’s Review Submission History page.

You can also create a group assignment and release it to one or more groups in your course. Each group submits one collaborative assignment and all members receive the same grade. You can create a single assignment and assign it to all groups, or create several unique assignments and assign them to individual groups.

You can create assignments in content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders.

1. From the Assessments menu, select Assignment and provide the name, instructions, and the files students need. You can use the functions in the editor to format text and add files. You can also add files in the Assignment Files section.
2. Select Browse My Computer to upload a file from your computer. The file is saved in the top-level folder in your course’s file repository: Course Files or the Content Collection. You can also attach a file from the repository.-OR-Drag files from your computer to the “hot spot” in the Attach Files area. If your browser allows, you can also drag a folder of files. The files will upload individually. If the browser doesn’t allow you to submit your assignment after you upload a folder, select Do not attach in the folder’s row to remove it. You can drag the files individually and submit again.You can use the file name or provide another name for the file.
   
3. Optionally, select a Due Date. Assignments with due dates automatically show in the course calendar and in the To Do module. Submissions are accepted after this date but are marked late. If you don’t want students to access an assignment after the due date, choose the appropriate display dates.
4. In the Grading section, type the Points Possible. If you set the points possible to a non-whole number, letter grades may not be assigned correctly.
5. Optionally, add a rubric. Expand the sections to make selections such as anonymous grading, how the grade is displayed, and the number of attempts. You can allow more than one attempt on an assignment.
6. Make the assignment available when you’re ready for students to access it. Select the appropriate options for availability, tracking, and display dates. Display dates don’t affect an assignment’s availability, only when it appears.
7. Select Submit.