Add an Assignment

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.

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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 are encouraged to upload any additional files the students might need for their assignment (e.g. an in-depth essay brief or pro-forma).

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;

• '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.

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

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.

7) Next, you must set the Submission types you will accept for the activity. 

There are three submission type files allowed:

• File submissions - If enabled, students are able to upload one or more files as their submission.

• Online text - If enabled, students are able to type rich text directly into an editor field for their submission.

• Planet eStream Submissions enabled - If enabled, students are able to submit upload video/audio files for assessment via Planet eStream.

You can set a limit for the maximum number of uploaded files allowed. If this setting is adjusted, each student will be able to upload up to this number of files for their submission.

You can also specify the accepted file types, which will prompt you to choose from a list of file extensions the type of files you wish to accept for submission. If the field is left empty, then all file types are allowed.

The word limit should only be used if online text submissions are enabled, as it specifies the maximum number of words that each student will be allowed to submit.

8) In the Feedback types category you can indicate the how you plan to return feedback to students. There are five categories:

• Feedback comments - If enabled, the marker can leave feedback comments for each submission.

• Annotate PDF - If enabled, the teacher will be able to create annotated PDF files when marking the assignments. This allows the teacher to add comments, drawing and stamps directly on top of the students work. The annotating is done in the browser and no extra software is required.

• File feedback - If enabled, the teacher will be able to upload files with feedback when marking the assignments. These files may be, but are not limited to marked up student submissions, documents with comments or spoken audio feedback.

• Offline grading worksheet - If enabled, the teacher will be able to download, fill in the marks and comments and upload a worksheet with student grades when marking the assignments.

• Assignment statistics - If enabled, the student will be shown a histogram of marks across the class, and statistics such as mean and standard deviation.

  
  
  

9) In the Submission Settings, you can specify whether you would allow students to store versions of their assignment on the MyPlace platform, requiring them to click the submit button to submit their assignment or not.

• Require students click submit button - If enabled, students will have to click a Submit button to declare their submission as final. This allows students to keep a draft version of the submission on the system. If this setting is changed from "No" to "Yes" after students have already submitted those submissions will be regarded as final. See info box below.

• Attempts reopened - can be set never,  'manual' - requiring a staff member to action or 'automatic until pass' - allowing the student to continue submitting until pass mark is achieved

• Maximum attempts - maximum attempts allowed

10) In the next section, you can adjust the Group Submission Settings. 

If enabled students will be divided into groups based on the default set of groups or a custom grouping. A group submission will be shared among group members and all members of the group will see each others changes to the submission.

11) In the Notifications section you can adjust the following settings:

• Notify graders about submissions - If enabled, graders (usually lecturers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment, early, on time and late. Message methods are configurable.

• Notify graders about late submissions - If enabled, graders (usually lecturers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment late. Message methods are configurable.

• Default setting for "Notify students" - Set the default value for the "Notify students" checkbox on the grading form. If enabled, notifications will automatically be sent to students once their work has been graded, unless this setting is unticked during grading.

12) See Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings for MyPlace specific information on Turnitin settings.

Next, you might see a section, called Electronic Management of Assessment. If you do, please disregard this section, as it will soon be removed from the assignment settings. 

13) In the Grade settings you can set:

• The Grade type - the options you are provided with are 'Point', 'Scale' or 'None'. If 'Scale' is chosen, you can then choose the scale from the drop-down menu. If using point grading, you can then enter the maximum grade available for this activity. 

• The Grading method - where you can choose to grade using simple direct grading, marking guide or rubric

• The Grade Category - this setting controls the category, in which this activity's grades are placed in the grade book. The choices that will appear in the drop-down menu are the categories present in the class' gradebook.

• The Grade to pass - which determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity, course completion, automated late submission penalties, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red; however, this coding scheme is available to view only for staff, not students.

• Anonymous marking (Student identity is hidden from marker) - which hides the identity of students from markers. Anonymous marking settings will be locked once a submission or grade has been made in relation to this assignment.

• Use marking workflow - If enabled, marks will go through a series of workflow stages before being released to students. This allows for multiple rounds of marking and allows marks to be released to all students at the same time. Please refer to the marking workflow article for more information on when and how you might want to apply a multi-stage marking process.

• Use marking allocation - If enabled together with marking workflow, markers can be allocated to particular students.

14) In the Common module settings you can set:

• Availability - namely whether to (1) 'Show on course page', which will make the activity or resource is available to students (subject to any access restrictions which may be set); (2) 'Hide from students',  which will make the activity or resource is only available to users with permission to view hidden activities (by default, users with the role of teacher or non-editing teacher); (3) 'Make available but not shown on course page', used if the course contains many activities or resources to simplify the course page. In this case, a link to the activity or resource must be provided from elsewhere, such as from a page resource. The activity would still be listed in the gradebook and other reports.

• An ID number, should you wish to include this assignment in a Gradebook calculation.  The ID number can also be set in the gradebook.
  
  
  

• Group mode to None or Visible/Separate groups. The effect of setting this to Visible/Separate groups is that on the View/Grade all submissions page the grader will see a drop down menu that will allow them to filter the page by group

• Grouping - which grouping to use for selectable groups
  
  
  

15) The Restrict access setting allows you to set conditions for accessing your assignment based on a variety of conditions of other elements in your class

16) You can also add Tags to be associated with the activity.

17) In the Competencies section, you can specify the Course competencies linked to this activity, as well as what to do upon activity completion.

18) Finally, click on Save and return to class or Save and display to finalise the assignment set-up process.