Assignments

Benefits of the assignment function include:

• cutting down on the paper trial between students and the School
• allowing students to submit work without having to come to campus (as long as they have access to a  networked computer students can submit their work from anywhere in the world)
• allow staff to return marks and/or work electronically

Creating an Assignment in Blackboard

1. Go into the control panel of any course
2. Select the content area where you'd like the assignment to appear. Perhaps you'd like your assignment to appear in the Assignment area, for instance.
3. To the right of the screen you should see a drop down menu that has Assignment already pre-selected (see the screen shot above). Simply click on the GO button next to this menu.

4. You now need to set the assignment up: you need to give it a name, the total amount of marks possible, and some instructions (if applicable). You can also add an attachment if you have other information (such as assignment criteria) that you'd like your students to be able to access as part of the assignment. You can also set the time period when the assignment will be open to students for submission of their work.

5. Click Submit and that's it - the assignment has been created.

Accessing Submitted Work

1. Any work that a student submits through an assignment is accessed by the instructor through the course Gradebook. This is found in the control panel under the assessment section.

2. The gradebook lists all the assignments and tests created for that course. All the students enrolled in the course are listed along the left hand side. When the student submits any work for an assignment, an exclamation mark ! appears alongside their name under the relevant assignment in the gradebook. Simply click on this exclamation mark to view the submitted work.

3. After clicking on the exclamation mark you should come through to a screen as indicated in the screenshot below. Here you will see the student's name and the time of submission. The grade has yet to be filled in because you haven't yet marked it! To view the submitted work simply click on the View button on the far right hand side of the screen.

4. After clicking the View button, you come through to a page with four sections. Section 1 is called Assignment Information (screenshot below) and simply repeats the information the instructor has already given for the assignment. However, this section also allows the instructor to clear any work submitted by a student from the gradebook. This might be necessary because once a student has submitted a piece of work to an assignment they cannot resubmit. Thus if a student complains that they need to resubmit a piece of work, the instructor will need to clear their first attempt from the gradebook using the Clear Attempt button in this section.

5. The second section of this page is called Student's Work (see screenshot below). Here the instructor can read any comments made by the student about their submitted work; the instructor can also access the submitted work by clicking on the name of the file. The file will open in a separate window. If the instructor needs to annotate the work, they will need to first save the submitted work to their own computer. The instructor can then save their annotations and comments to this local version which can then be reloaded into Blackboard and sent back to the student (see next paragraph for details on how to do this).

6. The third section of this page is called Feedback to Student (see screenshot below). It is here a mark for the submitted mark is recorded in the gradebook; that comments about the work can be sent back to the student; and that any attachments, such as the annotated script, can be returned to the student.

Note: The grade and comments will immediately become visible to students through the View Grades function. If you do not want to release the mark or comments to students immediately (perhaps double marking needs to take place) then you will need to modify the settings for the assignment.

To modify these settings simply go to the gradebook and select the Manage Items option (second option from the left of the screen - see above screenshot). Click the modify button by the side of assignment. Under section two of the following page, click No alongside Make item visible to students. When you wish to release the marks to your students, repeat this process and select Yes.

7. The final section of this page is called Instructor Notes (see screenshot below). Here the instructor can make notes about the submitted work that only other instructors enrolled in the course can access. This might be useful in a suspected case of plagiarism, where a record needs to be logged concerning issues and concerns.

8. Click submit.


Need Further Assistance?
If you can't find the information you require please contact the MBU Center for Distance Learning at 314-744-5349 or distancelearning@mobap.edu.