Assignments – Page 2

Brightspace Tip #255: Simplify Assignment Collection

Janice FlorentSeptember 6, 2021Leave a comment

The disruption due to hurricane Ida may be forcing you to rethink how you will collect and grade assignments in your courses during the disruption. When classes resume this week, many faculty will move to meeting with their classes remotely at the regularly assigned class time or perhaps move to asynchronous class meetings.

One question we have been asked is about collecting and grading assignments in Brightspace. You can use the Assignments tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees!

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The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Brightspace's Assignments Tool allows instructors to create a secure location for students to submit class assignments.

The Assignments tool allows instructors to set up a place for students to submit their assignments digitally, with the ability to:

Control the window for submission
Facilitate individual submissions or group submissions (provided the groups have been set up using the Groups tool first)
Collect and assess submissions (with a connection to the Grades tool, if needed)
Enable plagiarism detection through Turnitin

Additionally, you can use Brightspace's Interactive Rubrics to increase efficiency. The interactive rubrics allow instructors to establish set criteria for grading assignments. Instructors can attach rubrics to assignment submission folders so that the criteria are visible to students at any time, only after grading has been completed, or not shown to the students at all. The rubrics click-and-score simplicity saves time when grading because rubrics are built into the grading workflow. For more information about rubrics refer to Brightspace Tip #204: Interactive Rubrics.

Follow these steps to do it.

To create an assignment submission folder using the old assignment creation experience:

On the NavBar (of the course you want to create a submission folder), click Activities and then choose Assignments from the drop-down menu.
Click New Submission Folder.
Enter a Name for your submission folder.
Select a Folder Type.
Do any of the following:
- Select a Category or click New Category to organize your assignment submission folders.
- Select a Grade Item, or click New Grade Item.
- To assign a score, enter a value in the Out Of field.
- To associate a rubric to the folder, click Add Rubric, or Create Rubric in New Window.
- Enter instructions in the Instructions field.
- Add attachments in the Attached Files area.
- Expand Show Submission Options and select the appropriate settings.
- Enter your email address in the Notification Email field to receive an email message when a new submission is uploaded to this folder.
- Choose the option to hide student names during assessment, if appropriate.
Click Save.

Follow these instructions if you are using the New Assignment Creation Experience.

Note: You can add the Turnitin plagiarism detection feature to the assignment submission folder using the options in the Turnitin tab. Follow these instructions to enable Turnitin for the assignment submission folder.

Want More Information?

Assignments:

Turnitin:

Rubrics:

Brightspace Rubrics Tool

Assignments Tool Training Recap
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: "I'll never complain about my inbox again" by Clint Lalonde is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Brightspace Tip #208: Assignments – Special Access

Janice FlorentFebruary 8, 2021Leave a comment

Did you know Special Access is an option available in the Assignments tool that allows the instructor to grant learners special accommodations? Special Access permissions allow instructors to set different availability dates and times for specific learners. For example, you could extend the deadline for learners who require remedial help or who are submitting work beyond the original scope of the assignment. You can also add Special Access after an assignment’s end date has passed for learners who have a legitimate excuse for missing the deadline or for learners you want to submit additional material, such as planning notes or a bibliography.

Special Access using the New Assignment Creation Experience — Add Special Access in the New Assignment Creation Experience

Special Access using the classic experience — Add Special Access in the classic experience

Select Allow users with special access to submit outside the normal availability dates for this folder if you want to give certain students different submission options from the rest of the class.
Select Allow only users with special access to see this folder if only certain students are allowed to see this folder.
Click Add Users to Special Access to select students who will get the special access.

Want more information?

Allow Special Access for Assignments
Set Release Conditions and Special Access in Assignments
Brightspace Tip #142: Simplify Assignment Collection

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Brightspace Tip #205: ‘Observed in Person’ Assignments

Janice FlorentJanuary 31, 2021Leave a comment

The 'Observed in Person' assignment submission type is for situations where a learner needs to present something or demonstrate something and an instructor needs to confirm that it was completed. This submission type allows instructors to create assignments for a wide variety of activities and provide evaluation and feedback for these assignments in Brightspace.

The ‘Observed in Person’ submission type is meant for scoring and evaluation of a learning activity such as demonstration, presentation, lab test, etc.

There are four submission types to choose from when creating an Assignment in Brightspace. The submission types are:

File submission: learners upload and submit a file to the assignment.
Text submission: learners post text, image, or a link to their work in a text box within the assignment.
On paper submission: learners submit a physical copy of their assignment directly to their instructor. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.
Observed in person: allows instructors to observe learners as they perform tasks, such as in-class presentations, and evaluate the observation. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.

There are three options to mark an ‘Observed in Person’ assignment as completed:

Automatically on due date – Brightspace marks the assignment as completed on a pre-set date.
Automatically on evaluation – Brightspace automatically marks the assignment as complete when the instructor evaluates the assignment using any of the assessment methods in Brightspace.
Manually by Learner – The student will mark the assignment as complete.

The assignment can be assessed using text/audio/video feedback, Brightspace interactive rubric, or by assigning a grade.

Want more information?

What is an ‘Observed in Person’ assignment?
Create assignments and assess submissions
Brightspace Tip #142: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #204: Interactive Rubrics
Brightspace Tip #102: Video Notes
Brightspace Tip #157: Video Notes - Closed Captions
Brightspace Tip #169: Video Notes - Recording Limit

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Brightspace Tip #198: Copy Assignments

Janice FlorentJanuary 12, 2021Leave a comment

The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Students use the Assignments tool to upload and submit assignments directly in Brightspace, eliminating the need to mail, fax, or email their work to instructors. On paper submissions, and observed in person assignments are also available and do not require file submissions to be made in Brightspace.

Did you know that you can quickly create new assignments from existing assignments using the Copy Assignment option? The Copy Assignment feature copies all settings of an existing assignment except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.

Example of the Copy Assignment option as it appears in the drop-down menu for existing assignments — The Copy Assignment option appears in the drop-down menu for existing assignments