Creating an Assignment

Relevant to: faculty and staff

This article contains information considered accurate at the time of publishing. Technology updates, changes in University security practices, policies and procedures may effect the information in this article - updates to articles are scheduled on a periodic basis and will address any required changes.

Introduction

Assignments help students better understand the course subject while allowing the instructor to guide their learning. This article will help you add an assignment, set the assignment settings to coincide with the course schedule, set submission settings, and more.

Create an Assignment in the Assignment Tool

  1. Select the Course Menu link in the navbar. From the drop-down menu that appears, select Assignments​​​​​​.
  2. Select the New Assignment button and the new assignment page will open. It is in two columns, with the basic fields for the assignment on the left, and more detailed settings on the right.
  3. In the Name field, enter the title of the assignment.
  4. In the Grade Out Of field, enter the number of points the assignment is worth.
  5. When you enter the points, a new field will appear just to the right of the Grade Out Of field. Click the drop-down menu labeled In Grade Book to choose from the following options:
    • In Grade Book: to add it to your grade book
    • Edit or Link to Existing: to link to something already in your grade book
    • Not in Grade Book: this assignment will not be calculated in the grade book.
    • Reset Ungraded: unlink the assignment from the grade book.
  6. In the Due Date field, select the due date.
  7. In the Instructions field, enter the instructions for the assignment.
  8. By default, the assignment is set to always be available to students; to be completed individually by submission with an unlimited number of files of any type. All submissions will be kept and annotation tools are available for assessment.
    • If the default settings are acceptable, click the Visibility toggle (look for the icon of an eye) next to the Save and Close, Save, and Cancel buttons.
    • To change the default settings, follow the instructions in the Detailed Assignment Settings section below.
  9. Select Save and Close.
  10. Proceed to the Add an Assignment to a Content Page section to learn how to link the newly created assignment to the desired content page.

Add an Assignment to a Content Page

When an assignment is created in the Assignment tool (see the above Create an Assignment in the Assignment Tool section), the best practice is to provide students with a link to the assignment within the desired content page.

  1. Select Course Menu, then select Content. When the content page loads, select the desired module or week the assignment should be linked in from the left-hand navigation menu.
  2. Select the Existing Activities button. From the drop-down menu that opens, select Assignments.
  3. In the Add Activity window, a list of assignments will appear. Select the desired assignment and the page will reload and the assignment will appear at the bottom of the content page.

Detailed Assignment Settings

The detailed assignment settings are in the right column of the page and are grouped into three sections:

  1. Availability Dates and Conditions
  2. Submission and Completion
  3. Evaluation and Feedback

Availability Dates and Conditions

In this section, you can:

  1. Set start and end dates for when the assignment is available to students
  2. Set release conditions, such as the completion of a prior assignment
  3. Grant special access, such as only a select group of users, or individualized due dates for certain users, such as an accommodation for a student with special needs.

Submission and Completion

In this section, you can:

  1. Change the assignment type to a group assignment
    • Note: This setting cannot be changed after students have submitted work to this assignment.
  2. Choose a category for the assignment
  3. Choose the submission type:
    • File submission
    • Text submission
    • On paper submission
    • Observed in person
  4. Change the files allowed per submission to one file
  5. Choose the allowable file extensions
  6. Choose whether:
    • All submissions are kept
    • Only one submission allowed
    • Only the most recent submission is kept
  7. Enter an email to receive notifications when an assignment is submitted

Evaluation and Feedback

In this section, you can:

  1. Add a rubric
  2. Associate the assignment with learning objectives
  3. Choose whether annotation tools should be available for assessment
  4. Choose whether to hide student names during assessment
  5. Enable TurnItIn using the Manage TurnItIn link
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