Use the Assignments tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees!
The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. You can use the Assignments tool to create and edit assignments, see users’ submission times, view submissions on the Evaluate Submission page, associate assignments to rubrics, and return submissions to learners with their grades and your feedback.
For assignments that included file submissions, you can download the submissions to your computer for review offline.
This blog post answers frequently asked questions about creating an assignment using the Assignments tool.
When you create an Assignment with the new Assignment Creation Experience, the default when you enter points in the “Grade Out Of” field is that the “In Grade Book” option will be automatically selected.
The “In Grade Book” option will automatically create a grade item (column) in the Grade Book. The grade item is created with the same name as the Assignment.

If you setup your Grade Book before creating the Assignment and you already have a grade item (column) for the Assignment in your Grade Book, you would associate the Assignment to the grade item by using the "Edit or Link to Existing" option and then navigate to the grade item in your Grade Book that you want to associate the Assignment with.


If you DO NOT want the system to create a column for the Assignment in your Grade Book, then you should select the "Not in Grade Book" option.

The drop-down menu also allows you to reset the Assignment to ungraded, if necessary.
NOTE: Even though the new Assignment Creation Experience can automatically create a grade item (column) in your Grade Book, we still suggest you setup your Grade Book first and when you create your Assignments then choose the option to “Edit or Link to Existing” grade item in your Grade Book and navigate to the grade item that you want to associate the Assignment with.
Choosing to automatically create grade items in your Grade Book may present a problem when viewing your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab. If you find the extra wide column headings that are created because of a long assignment name to be problematic, then you can edit the grade items and enter a shorter name for them. You can edit the grade items one at a time or edit them in bulk.

You can edit grade items in bulk from the Manage Grades tab. First, select the grade items you want to edit and then click Bulk Edit.


You will see the short names when you view your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab.
Want more information?
Brightspace Tip #464: Simplify Assignment Collection
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