Assignment Activity [Faculty]

The assignment activity enables a teacher to communicate tasks, collect work, provide grades and feedback.

Description

The assignment activity enables a teacher to communicate assignment instructions, collect work, provide grades, and feedback.

This Guide Will Help You to:

• Add a new assignment activity

• Modify the edit settings

• Seek further assistance

Add a new assignment activity

1. At the top of the course page, Toggle editing on.

2. Locate the week or section in which you wish to add the new assignment

3. Select Add an activity or resource

4. Select Assignment

5. Select Add

For more information see, Adding an Activity in Moodle ISU [Faculty]

Modify the edit settings

General

This section is where you will add the assignment name and information.

1. In the Assignment name text box, enter the assignment name. (this field is required)

2. In the Description field, enter any instructions or reminders for your students.

3. If you would like this description displayed on the course page, check Display description on course page.

   1. If you do display the description on the front page, it is strongly recommended to keep the description short. 

4. In the Activity Instructions field, enter information you want students to see on the submission screen.

5. In the Additional files field, use filepicker to upload handouts, instructions, or example documents.

6. If you would like to restrict access to the uploaded files to only show on the submission screen, check Only show files during submission.

 

Availability

This section determines when students can submit.

Note: To enable any of these settings, you must first check Enable.

• Allow submissions from - prevents students from submitting until the specified time and provides no restriction after.

• Due date - allows submissions at any time before the specified date and time, but assignments may still be submitted late.

• Cut-off date - prevents any late assignments from being submitted without an extension.

• Remind Me To Grade By - Will provide a dashboard notification reminding the teacher about grading this assignment.

• Time limit - This will be displayed on the assignment description screen, and will count down on the assignment submission scree.

• If you would like to limit the visibility of the description to the time between when you allow submissions from and the cut-off date, uncheck the Always show description box.

Note: Hours are displayed on a 24-hour clock or military time.

Submission types

This section determines what type of student submissions are allowed.

Note: This section provides options to control the format of your students’ submitted content.

Choose either or both:

• Online text -  if enabled, students are able to type their submission directly into Moodle via an html text box rather than uploading a file.

  • If you select online text, you can also enable a Word limit.

• File submissions - if enabled, students are able to upload files.

  • If you select File submission you will also have the following options:

  • In Maximum number of uploaded files, indicate the max number of files.

  • In Maximum submission size, select the max file size. This defaults to the max file size of the course.

  • In accepted file types, choose a specific set of file types, or indicate one specific file type.

For more information see, Moodle.org: Submission Types

Feedback types

This section determines which feedback options are available on the grading screen. These can be changed at any time without impacting student submissions.

Choose none, one, or all:

• Feedback comments -  If enabled, the grader can leave general comments for student submission directly in Moodle ISU. These comments also show up in the student view of their grades. 

• Annotate PDF - If enabled, online text and file submissions are converted to PDF and displayed on the grading interface. The grader can annotate the student submission using sticky notes, text, stamps, and drawing to provide detailed feedback.

• Offline grading worksheet - If enabled, graders can download a grading sheet for the assignment to use outside of Moodle when marking assignments. The grade sheet can then be uploaded into Moodle.

• Feedback files - If enabled, graders can upload files with grades and other feedback in formats, such as documents, with comments or spoken audio feedback.

• Comment inline -  If Yes is selected from the drop-down menu, the online submission text will be copied into the feedback comment field and the grader can comment directly within the original text.

For more information see, Moodle.org: Feedback Types

Submission settings

This section provides additional options for student submissions..

Select Yes or No to the corresponding drop-down menus:

• Require students click submit button - Allows students to keep a draft version of the submission on Moodle until they are ready to submit their final submission. Graders can see submissions in both draft and submitted status. 

• Require that students accept the submission statement - students will be required to accept an academic honesty submission statement for all submissions to this assignment if enabled.

• Additional Attempts - determines if additional attempts are accepted and how reopened attempts are handled.  

  • Never - student submissions cannot be reopened.

  • Manually - student submissions can be reopened by a grader.

  • Automatically until pass - student submissions are automatically reopened until the student achieves the grade to pass. This is indicated in the Grade section.

• Maximum attempts - If, Manually or Automatically until pass has been selected in the Additional attempts, the maximum number of attempts can be selected.

For more information see, Moodle.org: Submission settings

Group submission settings

This section allows teachers to set up a group assignment.. 

Note: A Grouping must be set up first. For more information see, Groups and Groupings Setup [Faculty] 

Note: Group submission settings cannot be changed after a student has submitted an assignment. 

• Students submit in groups - Select Yes to designate this as a group assignment.

• Require group to make submission - Select Yes to ensure that students are in a group.

• Require all group members to submit - If set to Yes, this will require everyone in the group to click the submit button - confirming that the submission is correct.

Note: The Require students to click the submit button in the Submission settings section must be set to Yes in order to use this setting.

• Grouping for student groups - For group assignments, you will need to set up a group and a grouping. Select the grouping for this assignment.

For more information see, Moodle.org Group submission settings

Notifications

This section allows teachers to set up default notifications for this specific assignment.

Note: If Group submissions have been enabled, the teacher must be a member of the group to receive notifications.

• Notify graders about submissions - This will notify everyone with grading permission each time a student submits their assignment.

• Notify graders about late submissions - This will notify everyone with grading permission when there is a late submission.

• Default for ‘Notify student’ - Yes, is the default notification for students when a submission has been graded. This can be changed on the grading screen.

Grade

This section determines the max grade and grading methods.

• Grade - Select the grading option that matches your syllabus. You have several options:

  • None - The assignment will not have a grade.

  • Scale - This allows the use of scales (e.g., Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Outstanding) to be used.

Warning: Scales are not currently included in the final grade calculation. For questions regarding using a scale, contact ITRC.

• Point -  Allows you to select the maximum possible points for the students’ grades.

• Grading method - Select a method for grading the assignment.

  • Simple Direct Grading - Graders will enter a specific poing value, or select the scale level.

  • Grading Guide - A list of criteria can be set with a max grade for each criterion. For more information, see Assignment Activity: Using the Grading Guide Grading Method [Faculty]

  • Rubric - A grid with a specific criterion for each row and a set of levels for the columns. For more information, see Assignment Activity: Using the Rubric Grading Method [Faculty]

• Grade category - If you have set up categories in the Gradebook, you can select the category for this assignment.

  • For more information, see Moodle ISU Gradebook [Faculty]

• Grade to pass - This will set a minimum passing grade for students. This can be used in conjunction with additional attempts, and restrict access. If a minimum grade is entered, graders will see the score in either green (passing) or red (not passing) in the Grader Report. 

• Blind grading - This will hide students names so the grader can grade anonymous submissions.

  • Note: If students include their names within the submissions, the grader will be able to see their names. At the conclusion of grading, the grades will then need to be released to the gradebook.

• Hide grader identify from students - This will hide the grader identity. 

• Use grading workflow - This allows graders to release all the grades at the same time, and work with multiple graders.

  • With Grading Workflow enabled, Grading allocation can be used to assign submissions to specific graders.

  • For more information, see Assignment Activity: Grading Workflow and Allocated Grader [Faculty] 

For more information see, Moodle.org: Assignment: Grade

Common module settings

This section includes visibility and group options.

Note: For Group Submissions, use the Group Submission Settings. Using groups here would restrict access to this assignment based on group membership (e.g., Only graduate students need to complete the assignment.)

For more information see, Moodle.org: Common module settings

Restrict access

For more information see, Moodle.org: Restrict access

Activity completion

For more information see, Activity Completion Setup [Faculty]

Tags

For more information see, Moodle.org: Tags

Competencies

For more information see, Moodle.org: Competencies

Save settings

• Check the box if you would like to notify students that a change has been made.

• Save or cancel your changes.

  • Select Save and display to go to the assignment.

  • Select Save and return to course to be taken back to the course homepage.

  • Select Cancel to delete the assignment.

Note: The new activity will always appear at the bottom of the section where you added it.

Seek further assistance

For additional assistance, please contact the ITRC at (208) 282-5880 or itrc@isu.edu

For more information, please visit Moodle.org:

•  Assignment activity

•  Assignment settings

•  Assignment quick guide

This work was created by the Idaho State University Instructional Technology Resource Center and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.