An Assignment is Blackboard’s facility for electronic submission of a file or files. Blackboard’s Assignment tool can be used to add assignments to any content area in your module. You can add a file or document with instructions. Students can access the assignment next to the content they need. Alternatively create a Folder specifically for your assignments. You can also create a group assignment and release it to one or more groups in your course. When you create an assignment, a Gradebook item is created automatically to retrieve completed assignments from students, and grade these assignments.
Accommodations
You can set accommodations for students and make them exempt from certain course requirements, such as assignment due dates and time limits. To select accommodations, go to the Class Register from the Details & Actions panel. This will display all students in the module. Click on the ellipses (three dots) next to a student and select Accommodations. From here, you can now decide what accommodations you’d like to apply to that student.
Create the Assignment
On the Module Content page, select the Plus icon wherever you want to add an assignment. In the menu, select Create to open the Create Item panel and select Assignment. The New Assignment page opens. If you prefer, you can also expand or create a folder and add an assignment within that space.
New Assignment page
Name
Provide a descriptive name so students can easily find the assignment among your course content. On the Course Content page, the name appears as the link students select to view the materials. If you don’t add a title, “New Assignment” and the date appear in the content list.
Build assignment content
You will see a message “Use this space to build your assignment”
In this area add text and any supporting files such as the assessment criteria and additional instructions . You can do this by clicking the Plus icon in the main screen and selecting the appropriate choice – such as Add Text or Add Local File.
Note: A list of Test question types will appear on the Add Content menu. These can be ignored for a normal assignment, you do not need to add question types such as a essay question to an assignment for students to submit their work.
Accepted File Formats
Blackboard assignments have many accepted file formats. To use inline grading with Bb Annotate in the Blackboard Gradebook submissions will need to be in a supported file format (includes PDF and MS Word and PowerPoint). If you intend to use annotated marking you may wish to clarify in the assignment information the file type required.
Availability to students
By default, the assignment will be hidden from student view. This can be adjusted in the top right of the screen. You can keep it hidden, make it visible, or use Release Conditions to define when you want the assignment to be available.
Apply assignment settings
Select the Assignment Settings cog to open the panel where you provide the assignment’s details and information.
Provide a due date. Due dates appear on the calendar and in the activity stream. Late submissions appear with a Late label in the course Gradebook.
Collect submissions offline. You may want to grade student work that doesn’t require students to upload a submission. For example, you can add grades to your Gradebook for oral presentations, science fair projects, acting performances, and artwork delivered in person. By checking the Collect Submissions Offline box, this prevents students from uploading any content.
Determine the Number of Attempts. You can let your students submit more than one attempt at an assignment. When you allow multiple attempts, you can also choose how the final grade is calculated.
Select the Marking schema. The default is to mark via Points, but you can also mark as a Percentage or even apply different schemas. You can change the grading schema at any time and the change will show to students and in your Gradebook.
Other options
Anonymous marking. When you create an assignment without questions, you can enable anonymous grading so student names are hidden while you grade. You may only add text and files to anonymously graded assignments.
Under evaluation options you can enable delegated marking (sometimes referred to as Parallel Marking) by clicking the Two markers per student option. This allows you to allocate both markers and reconcilers to an assignment. Markers grade the work initially, Reconcilers decide on the final grade and feedback. Alternatively, you can enable Peer review to allow students to mark each others work.
Marking rubric. Rubrics can help you evaluate student submissions based on key criteria that you define. You can create a new rubric or associate an existing rubric. A rubric is a scoring tool that you can use to evaluate graded work. At this time, you can only add a rubric to as assignment without questions.
If you have changed any settings, click Save at the end of the settings panel.
When finished building the assignment, close down the Assignment panel by clicking the purple x in the top left hand corner. The assignment will be saved and can always be viewed in the Module Content area by module instructors.
How students upload work to assignments
Once you have created a new assignment, learners are given two options to upload their completed assessments:
Option 1
This allows learners to upload a previously created file (such as a word-processed document) through the paper clip icon. This is particularly useful if the document type includes content that cannot be easily copied and pasted.
** There are also other options available within this section where students can upload a series of other content types and links (Maths, Image, Media, YouTube Video, Cloud Storage & LTI Image
Option 2
This allows learners to simply type/input their completed work using the text editor provided, this can include copying and pasting from a previously completed document.
* If a copy and paste option is used, learners should check their work after the paste operation has completed to ensure that all embedded content (such as images) and formatting has copied across correctly
Further guidance on Creating and Editing Assignments.