Assignments

From e-Learning Documentation

Revision as of 20:50, 10 November 2010

Last updated: 11-10-2010

Overview

Assignments is a useful tool for delivering, tracking and grading student submissions. Even non-electronic submissions can be tracked using the Assignments tool.

Add An Assignment

To create an Assignment:

• Click Assignments in the course toolbar
• Click Add
• Give the Assignment a Title

Availability Dates

• Choose an Open Date (date and time when Assignment becomes visible to students) from the drop-down menus.
• Choose a Due Date (date and time after which Assignment is considered "Late") from drop-down menus.
• Choose an Accept Until Date (date and time after which Assignment will no longer be accepted) from the drop-down menus.
  • It is possible to change the Accept Until Date if later you decide you want to accept a student submission.

Submission Types

• Choose the Student Submission Type from the drop-down menu.
  • "Inline and Attachments" is the default. This provides students with the ability to type directly into a Content Editor screen, and also provides the ability to add a file attachment.
  • "Inline Only" gives students the Content Editor but does not allow for adding a file attachment.
  • "Attachments Only" does not provide the Content Editor. The only choice is to attach a file.
  • "Non-Electronic" would provide students neither the Content Editor, nor the ability to attach a file. This option would be useful for an art class where the assignment is to hand in a sculpture, or any other instance when there will be no electronic submission.
• Check the box next to "Allow Resubmission" if you want students to be able to take back and resubmit their Assignment before a certain date. If you do not check this box, students must contact you to request their Assignment be returned. If you check this box, more options appear:
  • Select the number of resubmissions allowed
  • Select the date and time after which you will no longer accept resubmissions

Grading Methods

• Select your method of grading from the "Grade Scale" drop-down menu.
  • Ungraded
  • Letter Grade - you will be able to select from all letter grades with +/-. These grades will not be sent to the Gradebook and cannot be used in Grade Calculations. Students will check their grades in the Assignment tool.
  • Points - This is the only grading type that can be sent to the Gradebook and included in course grade calculations.
  • Pass/Fail - These grades will not be sent to the Gradebook and cannot be used in Grade Calculations. Students will check their grades in the Assignment tool.
  • Checkmark - These grades will not be sent to the Gradebook and cannot be used in Grade Calculations. Students will check their grades in the Assignment tool.
• If you chose "Points," enter the maximum number of points in the box underneath the Grade Scale.
• Provide instructions to students in the "Assignment Instructions."

Extras

• Check the box next to "Add due date to Schedule" and "Add an announcement about the open date to Announcements" if you are using the Calendar and Announcements tools.
• Check "Add honor pledge" if you want to require students to acknowledge the honor pledge before they are allowed to submit their Assignment. The honor pledge states, "I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment."
• Check the "Use Turnitin" if you want all student papers attached as MS Word documents to be submitted to Turnitin, an online anti-plageurism tool. You will receive a report for each submission that states what percentage of the paper is an exact match to content found on the internet, and/or to other submissions reviewed by Turnitin. You will then be able to verify whether or not the student properly cited his/her sources.
• Check "Allow students to view report" if you want them to see the results of their Turnitin report.

Gradebook Association

• Under the "Grading" heading, you may select "Add this Assignment to the Gradebook," IF you are grading using points. If you are using any other Grading method, you will get an error message when you try to post the Assignment.
  • If you have previously set up your Gradebook and you have columns there, you will see a third option, "Associate with existing Gradebook entry." If you choose this option, a drop-down menu will appear and you can choose which Gradebook item to associate with this Assignment.

It is important to note the differences in allowing the Assignments tool to add a column to the Gradebook for you, and choosing an already created Gradebook item.

If you choose "Add Assignment to Gradebook," a column is automatically created for you in the Gradebook. You must grade the Assignment in the Assignments tool. You cannot open the column in the Gradebook and enter grades there.

If you create a column in the Gradebook before you create the Assignment, and associate the Assignment with that column, you can grade in the Assignments tool, and you can open the Gradebook item and enter grades directly into the Gradebook. This is also useful if you have an Assignment that you will be giving to different groups. For example, you have an Assignment for Group 1 and an Assignment for Group 2, but you select the same Gradebook column for the grades. Using this method, you do not need to have two separate Gradebook columns for the two Assignments.

Access

• If you have created any groups in your course, or if you have multiple sections in your course, an "Access" heading will appear. You will have the option to give this Assignment to the entire class, or to give it to selected groups or sections. If you select "Display to selected groups," a screen will appear listing all sections and groups. Check the box next to the sections/groups that you want to access this Assignment.

Email Notifications

This option allows you to choose whether or not you want to receive an email notifying you when a student submits. The default is that you do not receive the email.

Additions

• You may add an attachment if needed. Click Add Attachments. A screen opens that allows you to browse your computer for the file, or to access the Resources tool. Files in your Resources tool will have a Attach a Copy link to the right of the file name
• "Model Answer" allows you to present to the students an example of the kind of submission you want them to submit.
  • Beside "Model Answer," click Add
  • Type the model answer in the box provided, or add it as an attachment by clicking Add Attachments.
  • From the "Show to students" drop-down menu, select when you want students to see this model answer.
  • Click Save
• "Private Note" is for your own notes, or to share with other instructors. You can use this option to share grading criteria, or other information.
  • Beside "Private Note," click Add
  • Type the note into the box provided
  • From the "Share" drop-down menu, select whether or not to share this note with the other instructors.
  • Click Save
• "All Purpose Item" can be used to share information with various groups, roles, and at specific date and times. One use for this item would be to share a Grading Rubric with your other instructors and/or TAs.
  • Beside "All Purpose Item," click Add
  • Give the All Purpose Item a Title
  • Type your information in the box provided, and/or add an attachment by clicking Add Attachments.
  • "Show this item" is selected by default. You may specify specific dates by checking the box beside "From" and "Until" and choosing the appropriate dates and times from the drop-down menus.
  • Choose "Hide this item" if you want to hide it for now and manually change that to "show this item" at a later time.
  • Under the heading "Show to," check the box beside the role(s) you want to see this item.
  • Click Save

Post

• Post - When you click Post, your Assignment is set to become available on the date and time you set for your Open Date.
• Preview - Allows you to see the options you have chosen for this Assignment in one screen so that you can verify that everything is set as you wanted. This is not the same as Student View. There is a Student View option on the Preview screen that will show you the Assignments as your students will see it.
• Save Draft saves the work you have done on your Assignment so far, but does not post it for students.
• Cancel closes the Assignment without saving your changes.

Student View

• Once your Assignments are posted, you can use the "Student View" link at the top of the Assignment List to view all Assignments as students. You also have the option to submit as a student.

Manage Assignment Submissions

View Turnitin Reports

If you have chosen to use the "Review Service" (Turnitin), you will receive a report for each MS Word document that your students submit. The Turnitin report highlights any parts of the paper that are exact matches to internet content or to any other paper that has been submitted to Turnitin in the past. You will be able to verify whether or not students appropriately cited their sources.

To view the Turnitin report:

• From the Assignment List, click Grade beneath the name of the Assignment. There will be a heading called "Turnitin" and by each submission there will be
  • no report - a report has not been generated. It takes 10 minutes - 2 hours (depending on the file size) after submission to get the report. Or there may not be a report because the student did not add an MS Word document as an attachment.
  • a blue, green or red Turnitin icon.
    • The blue icon means there is 0% similarity with this paper and content on the internet or other student papers.
    • The green icon means there is <50% similarity with this paper and content on the internet or other student papers.
    • The red icon means there is >50% similarity with this paper and content on the internet or other student papers.

Grade a Submission

In order to grade student submissions:

• Click on Assignments in the course toolbar
• Under the heading "In/New" you see which Assignments have submissions.
  • A number in the "In" column designates how many submissions are there
  • A number in the "New" column designates the number of submissions that you haven't opened yet
• Click Grade beneath the Assignment from which you want to view submissions. A screen opens that shows the Student names, date and time of submission (if the student has submitted), the grade (if it has been graded), and a check mark if the grade has been released to the student.
• Click Grade beneath the name of the student whose submission you want to view. A screen will open to show the student's submission.
  • If the submission was typed into the Content Editor box, you can read the submission and offer any comments to the student within the Content Editor box. If you place double curly brackets around your comments {{like this}}, your comments will appear red to the students. There is also another Content Editor for you to provide comments outside the text of the submission.
    • Enter a grade into the box labeled "Grade:"
    • Uncheck the "Allow Resubmission" box
    • Click Return Assignment to Student if you want to release the grade to the student, or click Save to save your changes but not release the grade.
  • If the submission was a file attachment, download the file and open it using the appropriate software.
  • Make any comments to the student within the document. Save a new copy of the file that contains your comments.
  • Click Add Attachments, browse your computer and add the file.
  • Enter a grade into the box labeled "Grade:"
  • Uncheck the "Allow Resubmission" box
  • Click Return Assignment to Student if you want to release the grade to the student, or click Save to save your changes but not release the grade.

Return a Submission to a Student for Editing

Perhaps you would like to give a student another chance to improve upon her submission. You can return that submission to the student with tips on what you would like for her to do, and let her resubmit the Assignment.

Follow the instructions above, but in your comments, give the student instructions for the revisions you would like to see. You might want to tell the student to include the word "revised" in the file name of the revised submission. Then, do not enter a grade, leave the "Allow Resubmission" box checked, set the number of resubmissions allowed using the drop-down menu, and set the "Accept Until" date and time using the drop-down menu. Click Return Assignment to Student.

You will retain the original submission so if the student never resubmits, you may grade the original. If the student does not change the file name of the resubmitted file, the original will be replaced with the new file. If the resubmitted file has a different name (such as adding "revised" to the file name), you will see both the original submission and the second submission.

Download Multiple Submissions for Review

You have the option to download all submissions at once for a particular Assignment. This enables you to access the files from your computer without being logged in to Sakai, or being connected to the internet. You will be able to open each student's submission, and if it is a MS Word document, you can turn on "track changes" and type your comments in the student's paper.

To download multiple submissions for review:

• From the Assignment list, click Grade beside the Assignment that you want to download. You can download all submissions, or select a specific section or group.
  • To download all, Click Download All at the upper right of the screen.
  • To download a subset of the Assignments, use the "View" drop-down menu under the title of the Assignment to select the Section or Group you want to display.
    • Click Download All at the upper right of the screen.

When you choose to download all submissions, you will get a zipped folder called "bulk_download" that contains a folder for each student, plus a .csv file containing all student IDs and a column for the grade. You need to extract the zipped folder to interact with the folders and files inside. To extract the zipped folder:

• Right-click on the zipped folder and select "Extract All"
• The Extraction Wizard will appear. Click Next
• Choose the destination for the folders and files. If you want to keep them in their original "bulk_download" folder, just click Next. Depending on how large this folder is, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to extract.
• Click Finish.

Once the extract is complete, you will see a folder with the name of your Assignment. Open that folder. Inside that folder you will find a folder for each participant, plus a .csv file for entering grades.

Inside the folder for each student you will see several folders and files. These folders and files contain all the information you will need to make comments and determine a grade for the student:

Feedback Attachments - If you want to give your student feedback by way of an attachment, you will save the file to this folder. This would be the case if you open the student's submission and use track changes to provide feedback.

Submission Attachments - this folder contains any file(s) that were attached by the student to the Assignment. If you set up your Assignment to be "inline only," this folder will not be present as there was no option for adding attachments provided to the student.

Student Name - An HTML file named with the student's name contains any text that was entered into the Content Editor in the Assignment. If no text was entered, this file will be blank. If the Assignment was set as "Attachments Only" for submission type, there will be no Student Name file as the student has no opportunity to use the Content Editor.

Comments - A text file to be used by the Instructor to enter feedback into the comments area in the Gradebook. These comments will be seen by the students when they view their grades in the Gradebook.

Feedback Text - An HTML file to be used by the Instructor to enter feedback into the feedback Content Editor within the Assignment. These comments will be seen by the students when they view their graded Assignment in the Assignment tool.

Timestamp - A text document that contains the date and time of the submission.

Use any or all of these items to make comments. Enter the grades into the .csv file. Don't change the .csv file other than inputting the grades. Once you have made your changes and saved them (keep all files in their original folders and order), zip up the main folder. Now you are ready to upload this folder back into Sakai.

From the main list of Assignments,

1. Click Grade under the Assignment to which you want to add the data.
2. Click Upload All at the upper right of the screen.
3. Click Choose File.
4. Locate the zipped file and double-click it.
5. Check the box beside "All" or pick and choose the elements you want to upload.
6. Select whether or not to release the information as soon as it is uploaded.
7. Click Upload