Assignments

From CLEW Wiki

In this article:

• How Do I? - (section with links to various articles about the Assignments tool involving grading, viewing, downloading, uploading and checking student status).
• Create, add, edit or remove an assignment
• Considerations about the Assignments tool
• FAQ

Contents 1 Assignments Overview 2 How do I? 2.1 Create, Edit or Delete Assignments 2.1.1 Create, add, edit, or remove an assignment 2.2 Add a new assignment 2.3 Edit an assignment 2.4 Delete an assignment 2.4.1 Add an attachment to an assignment you have created 2.4.2 Duplicate an assignment 2.4.3 Link Assignment to Gradebook 2.4.4 Post an assignment previously saved as a draft 2.5 Grade, Return or Download Assignments 2.5.1 Grade assignments, return an assignment or review student status 2.5.2 Read or download individual students' assignments 2.5.3 Export grades to a spreadsheet 2.5.4 Upload or Download all assignments 2.6 View Assignments(Student Perspective) 2.6.1 See how assignment looks 3 Assignments Considerations 4 FAQ - Assignments 4.1 Respond to students wondering if assignment has been received? 4.2 Can I grade Assignments Offline? 4.3 Release grades? 5 Related Articles

Assignments Overview

The Assignments Tool allows instructors to create, distribute, collect and grade online assignments. Assignments are private and student submissions are not visible to other users of the site. The Assignments Tool allows letter grades, points, check marks, pass/fail or ungraded. Assignments can also be returned, with or without grades, for re-submission. This feature can be used to evaluate drafts of final projects or papers, or to allow students to correct and re-submit an assignment. Students can also be asked to agree to an 'honour pledge'.

How do I?

Create, Edit or Delete Assignments

Create, add, edit, or remove an assignment

Note: To complete these procedures, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and Roles.

Add a new assignment

To add a new assignment:

• In the left menu, click Assignments, and then, at the top, click Add.

• On the Add Assignments page, fill in the following information (fields marked with a red star are required):
• Title: Enter a brief title for your assignment (e.g., Essay 1 ).
• Open date: At the open date and time, the assignment is available for students to begin working on it. To send an announcement alerting students to the start date, see Add an announcement about the open date to Announcements below.
• Due date: This is the assignment's deadline. To list the due date on the site's Calendar (also called Schedule at some Sakai institutions), see Add due date to Calendar below.
• Accept until: No assignments can be submitted after this date. You can set this date and time later than the due date to continue accepting assignments (e.g., to allow for revisions) after the due date.
• Student submissions: You can choose to have students submit their assignments inline only (typed directly into a text box), as attachments only, or both. You can also allow non-electronic submissions.

• The Student Submissions dropdown box determines how students can submit their assignments.
  • Select Inline Only if you only want the students to type their assignments into a text box in Sakai.
  • Select Attachments Only if you only want your students to attach files to their assignments for you to download.
  • Select Inline and Attachments if you want your students to be able to type into a text box as well as add attachments.
  • Select non-electronic submission type if you want students to submit their assignments in class. Allowing for non-electronic submissions lets you keep track of grades for all assignments in one place, even for assignments collected in class.

• Please note that at the University of Windsor, files uploaded to CLEW cannot be larger than 50Mb. For larger files you may want to consider Zipping or compressing the file or using the WebDAV/Upload-Download Multiple files in the Drop Box tool.

• Grade scale: You can choose from five grading options:
  • Ungraded
  • Letter grade
  • Points
  • Pass/Fail
  • Checkmark
• If you choose points, enter the maximum possible points (must be a positive number or zero).
• Allow resubmission: You can choose to allow students to submit the assignment multiple times.
• In the "Assignment Instructions" box, type a description of the assignment.

Note: This step is optional, but you will receive an alert message at the top of the page when you post the assignment if you leave it blank. Click Post a second time to proceed.

• Under the text box for Assignment Instructions, you will see the following options:
  • Add due date to Calendar: To add the due date to the site's Calendar, check the box. Note: This option will not appear if the Calendar tool has not been added to the site.
  • Add an announcement about the open date to Announcements: To announce the open date automatically when you post the assignment with an announcement on your site's home page, check the box.
  • Add Honour pledge: To display the Honour pledge when students are submitting an assignment, check the box. Students must check a box agreeing to the pledge before their work can be submitted. The text of the Honour pledge is as follows:

"I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment. Yes (You must respond to submit your assignment.)"

• Under "Grading", you will see the following options:
  • Do not add assignment to Gradebook
  • Add Assignment to Gradebook
  • Associate with existing Gradebook entry

For more, see Link Assignment to Gradebook.
Note: Assignments added in the Assignments tool can only be graded, edited, or removed in the Assignments tool, even if they are added to the Gradebook or associated with a Gradebook entry.

• Under "Access", choose Display to site or Display to selected groups. If you choose the latter, you'll see the groups and sections that are available; use the checkboxes to select the group(s) and/or section(s) to which you want the assignment released.

Note: The "Access" section will only appear if groups have previously been defined for this site. See Sections or Manage Groups.

• Under "Released Grade Notification Email Options", choose one of the following options:
  • Do not send notification email to student when the grade is released
  • Send notification email to student when the grade is released
  • Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the URL for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.

• Click Preview if you wish to review your assignment before you post it. To see how it will look to students, click the black triangle next to Student View.

While previewing the assignment, you can click Save draft if you want to save your assignment before you post it. You can then go back to it and revise it before you post it; see Posting an assignment previously saved as a draft. Only instructors (or those with the proper Permissions and Roles) can view drafts. Click Post when you are ready to make the assignment accessible by students.

Edit an assignment

To revise a posted assignment before or after its open date or due date:

• In the left menu, click Assignments.
• Under the assignment you wish to modify, click Edit.
• Make your revisions in the assignment.
• After you have made your revisions, you can post or preview your assignment. If you choose to preview it, you will then have the option to post it or to save it as a draft.

Note: If the assignment is currently open to students, you will only have the options of previewing and posting the assignment. When students view the revised assignment, they will be notified that changes have been made.

Delete an assignment

To delete an assignment:

• In the left menu, click Assignments. You will see a list of assignments.
• Under "Remove?", check the box next to the assignment you want to delete.
• Click Update.
• On the confirmation screen, click Delete to permanently delete the assignment.

Add an attachment to an assignment you have created

See the Add an attachment to an assignment article to find instructions on how to add or remove an attachment to an assignment.

Duplicate an assignment

• To duplicate an assignment, click Duplicate under the assignment's title. In the assignment list, you will see the duplicate assignment labeled "Draft - assignment title - Copy", where "assignment title" is the title of the original assignment. The Status will be set to "Draft".

Note: The duplicate assignment is a draft (i.e., your site's participants can't see it). If you want site participants to see the duplicate assignment, click its title, and then click Post.

Link Assignment to Gradebook

See the Link Assignment to Gradebook article to find instructions on how to link an assignment to the Gradebook tool.

Post an assignment previously saved as a draft

See the Post an assignment previously saved as a draft article to find out how to post an assignment that was in "Draft" mode previously.

Grade, Return or Download Assignments

Grade assignments, return an assignment or review student status

See the Grade assignments article to find out details about how to grade assignments, return a graded assignment or review the status of student submissions.

Read or download individual students' assignments

See the Read or download individual students' assignments article to find out more about reading or downloading individual assignments.

Export grades to a spreadsheet

See the Export grades to a spreadsheet article to learn how to export grades in Assignments to a spreadsheet.

Upload or Download all assignments

See the Upload or Download all assignments article to find out more about this feature in Assignments which enables instructors to batch upload or download submitted assignments, and grade spreadsheet.

View Assignments(Student Perspective)

See how assignment looks

See the See how assignment looks article to learn how to view as your participants would see the Assignment.

Assignments Considerations

• Assignments added in the Assignments tool can only be graded, edited, or removed in the Assignments tool, even if they are added to the Gradebook or associated with a Gradebook entry.
• If the grades for an assignment have not been released, they will not be displayed in the Grade Report, nor will they be available to download to a spreadsheet, by using the Download Spreadsheet option on the Grade Report screen.
• The "Access" section will only appear if groups have previously been defined for this site. See Sections or Manage Groups.
• If the assignment is currently open to students, you will only have the options of previewing and posting the assignment.
• Note: You can completely delete an assignment before any students have submitted work. However, if you delete an assignment after the first submission, all students will continue to see the assignment with a notice saying "(Assignment has been deleted)", even though the assignment will not be visible in the Assignment List that you see as an instructor.
• For a less-formal option for private file sharing between instructor and students you may want to consider the Drop Box tool.
• Where applicable, deleting an assignment will delete the corresponding Gradebook entry.
• Please note that when an assignment is given an automatic item in the Gradebook that item will only be updated when grades are "released" as opposed to when they are only modified - modifications remain only in the assignment itself until they are released.
• When you import assignments and Gradebook items from another site, the items in the Gradebook that you created with the Add Assignment to Gradebook option won't appear in the Gradebook. You will have to use the Assignments tool to add them again.
• For imported assignments that you created using the Associate with existing Gradebook entry option, you will have to use the Assignments tool to re-associate them with the appropriate Gradebook items. Imported assignments will have Add Assignment to Gradebook selected by default; to associate the item with an existing Gradebook entry instead, select Associate with existing Gradebook entry and choose the desired Gradebook entry before you post the assignment.
• If you are using the Download All/Upload All feature and you have a file that contains your comments for the student, make sure you copy it into the "Feedback Attachment(s)" folder prior to zipping the folder to prepare it for uploading.
• If you are using Gradebook associated with the Assignments tool, and you do not want the grades to be released to the students yet as you are grading an Assignment, ensure you deselect the Release this item to students option in Gradebook. This is a known issue and we are working on a solution.

FAQ - Assignments

How do I . . .?

Respond to students wondering if assignment has been received?

To reduce the number of requests you might receive asking for confirmation of submissions, let your students know that when an assignment has been submitted through the Assignments tool, CLEW sends an email notification about the successful submission to the student.
If they haven’t received their confirmation and would like to check on the status of their assignment, students can always check the Assignments page to verify successful submissions.

Can I grade Assignments Offline?

When using the Assignments tool, you can grade assignment submissions on-line or download all the assignment's submissions at once and grade off-line. Once you are finished grading all the submissions off-line, you can upload all graded submissions at once. See the Assignments article for further details about how to perform this function.

Release grades?

When you create an assignment in Gradebook, and then associate it to an assignment when creating or editing the assignment, make sure there is a check mark beside "Release assignment. Make this assignment visible in the assignment list displayed to students". If you don't, your students will not be able to see the assignment at all.

If you have already created the assignment, click on the name of the assignment to open the assignment summary. Click the Edit Assignment Settings link. Click in the check box beside "Release assignment. Make this assignment ..." to place a check mark in the box. Click the Submit button. Now your students will have access to their grades.

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