Add an Assignment
This article will walk you though the process of setting up an individual assignment on Myplace, explaining the purpose of each setting.
If you are planning to set up a group assignment, please group students beforehand (check out the following articles). If you are looking to use the assignment feature for activities that will be submitted or performed offline, please refer to the offline submissions article.
If you are unsure about any of the settings click on the symbol near the setting to find out more about it.
Step-by-step guide
1) First click 'Turn editing on' when you are in a class.
2) Click on 'Add an Activity or Resource' on the page and choose 'Assignment' activity from the list.
Click on any of the images below to enlarge.
3) You will be prompted to add a name in the General section, which is mandatory for each assignment activity. This section will also allow you to choose to add a description and display the description on the main page.
You may also provide activity instructions, which are displayed on the Student’s edit submission page. We do not recommend using this at the moment, as the student edit page is typically only access once the student has created their submission, which means they may not see these until very late.
This function is being reviewed by Moodle Core, and may change in the future
You are encouraged to upload any additional files the students might need for their assignment (e.g. an in-depth essay brief or pro-forma).
The red exclamation icon next to a field indicates that the field is required.
It does not indicate the value is missing.
If the value is missing or there is a problem, the field will be outlined and a message indicating the problem will be displayed
4) The next section is called Availability. Here you can set all relevant dates in relation to this activity. There are four dates you should consider:
'Allow submissions from' - where you should specify the date and time that students can submit from;
'Due date' - The deadline by which students are encouraged to submit to avoid a late submission penalty. Students will still be able to submit after this date (if the Cut-off date is not enabled) but late submissions will be marked as such;
'Cut-off date' - The date, following which submissions are no longer accepted. Students will no longer be able to submit after this date;
“Cut-off date” is disabled by default as it can impact late submission for students with extensions.
'Remind me to grade by' - The expected date that marking of the submissions should be completed by. This date is used to prioritise your own dashboard notifications.
If the 'Always Show Description' tick is disabled, the Assignment Description above will only become visible to students at the "Allow submissions from" date.
More information regarding late submissions can be found in this article.
If a Cut-off date is specified, and a student is granted an extension, they will only be able to submit up to their granted extension date.
After the granted extension date the assignment’s default cut-off date will apply.
This will prevent students making a late submission to an extension, unless an override to amend their specific cut-off date is created.
New MyPlace tools were introduced in 2019/20 academic session that support the management of late submissions and extension requests, both addressing directly Principles 3.4 and 5.5 from the policy and indirectly supporting the policy's strategic aims. You are encouraged to familiarise yourself with the full contents of the Assessment and Feedback (19-20) policy, which you can access here.
5) The next settings are for the Assessment and Feedback policy. See the additional information to the right for each setting.
Enable opt-out of University Assessment and Feedback Policy where appropriate (e.g. formative assignments)
Marks release date - to inform students when the marks will be released This information will be displayed to students on the activity information page
Assigning the feedback and assessment coordinator - the single person that is ultimately responsible for the return of marks and feedback.
Marking criteria - is the area, where you can define the marking criteria which will display to the students
If you tick the box next to the text This activity is not covered by the University Assessment and Feedback Policy, you will not be able to use the supporting MyPlace tools for Late Submissions and Extensions. This may be appropriate if you are setting up a formative assignment but it is not mandatory for formative assignments.
If the 'Opt-out' checkbox is not enabled, some other sections of these settings are mandatory for creating an assignment.
The list contains only those people who have grading or grade management capabilities on the course. If the person responsible for return of feedback and marks does not appear on the list they must be given an appropriate role in this class.
If you are using a rubric or marking guide that is visible to students you can enter a notification for students to 'see rubric' to avoid duplication.
See opposite for an example of how the previous settings may appear to students in the assignment.
6) The following section is called Extension Request Policy, where you can disable the ability of students to request Extensions online. The end-to-end process of electronic extensions management is described in this article. Checking the box beside Late Submission will disable the automated calculation of late submission penalties for students, who submit their work after the due date. You can read more about the MyPlace Late Submissions tool here.
The Grade to Pass field in the Grade section later is a mandatory field, when the Late Submissions Policy has not been disabled.