How to Setup an Assignment Activity v2

How to Setup an Assignment Activity v2

Note:  You need Teacher or Manager access before you can perform this action.

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

Students can submit any digital content (files), such as word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, or audio and video clips. Alternatively, or in addition, the assignment may require students to type text directly into the text editor. An assignment can also be used to remind students of 'real-world' assignments they need to complete offline, such as artwork, and thus not require any digital content. Students can submit work individually or as a member of a group.

When reviewing assignments, teachers can leave feedback comments and upload files, such as marked-up student submissions, documents with comments or spoken audio feedback. Assignments can be graded using a numerical or custom scale or an advanced grading method such as a rubric. Final grades are recorded in the grade book.

To add an Assignment activity within a course page follow the steps below:

Step 1: To start making changes on your course page, click on the toggle to turn Edit Mode on.


Step 2: Once the edit mode is activated, you can either choose to edit an existing topic or add a new one.
Adding a topic:


Step 3: Click on Add an activity or resource.


Step 4: Click Assignment from the list of the Activities.


Step 5: Fill out the information needed and adjust the settings for the Assignment Activity.

Name*
(Mandatory field) enter the name of the Assignment activity in the Name text box.
Description Enter the relevant description in the "Description" text area that describes the Assignment if needed.
Display description on course page
(checkbox) If enabled, the description of this activity will be shown on the course page.
Activity Instructions
The actions you would like the student to complete for this assignment. This is only shown on the submission page where a students edits and submits their assignment.
Additional Files
You may upload additional files such as templates.
Add button to add files.
Only show files during submission
Tick the box to only show files on he submission page. Otherwise, files will be shown on both the assignment and submission page.


Allow submissions from
This stops students from submitting before the shown date, but it doesn't hide the assignment and any included instructions or materials.
Due date Submissions are still allowed after this date but will be marked as late. Disable it by unticking the checkbox. Assignments without a due date will appear on the dashboard with 'No Due Date' displayed
Cut-off date
After this date, the submit button will be hidden, and students will not be able to submit.
Remind me to grade by A date needs to be entered here for the assignment to display on the teacher's Course overview block and in the Calendar. It will show when at least one student has submitted.
Always show description
If disabled, the assignment description above will only become visible to students on the "Allow submissions from" date.

Submission types Here you can decide how you wish students to submit their work to you.

Note: If Submission comments are enabled in Administration>Plugins>Activity modules>Assignment>Submission plugins, students will be able to add a note to their teacher on submitting work. If Anonymous submissions are enabled, student comments display in the gradebook as from "Participant 01 etc" to avoid revealing identities.

Online text
Students type their responses directly in Moodle using a text editor (such as the Atto editor which automatically saves text at regular intervals.)

It's possible to set a word limit on an online text assignment. Students get a warning if they try to exceed the word limit. Numbers are counted as words and abbreviations such as I'm or they're are counted as single words.

File submissions
Students can upload one or more files of any type the teacher can open. The teacher can annotate uploaded PDFs, docx and odt files within the browser, and on saving, the annotated file is made available to the student. (Check with your admin that Ghostscript and a document converter are enabled, if you can't annotate uploaded files.) In the screenshot below, a docx file has been uploaded and converted so that the teacher may use the annotation tools to comment directly on the student's assignment.
Maximum number of uploaded files If the file submissions are enabled, each student will be able to upload up to this number of files for their submission.
Maximum submission size
The maximum upload size refers to each file a student uploads. It cannot be larger than the limit in the Course settings.
Accepted file types
The teacher can specify the types of file the students may upload to the assignment. A file type selector appears upon clicking 'Choose', offering a choice of different file types. (See the video File type selection for more information.) Leaving the field blank will allow all file types.

If the file types have been restricted, then when students attempt to submit the assignment, they will see a message telling them which files are accepted:
Feedback Types

Feedback Comments With this enabled, markers can leave comments for each submission (which appear on the assignment grading screen.)
The Atto editor now allows for recording audio and video when grading, along with the option to upload supporting files such as images.

Annotate PDF appears if this setting is enabled by the Site administrator in the Manage assignment feedback plugins section of Site admin and will allow the teacher to annotate using comments, stamps and other features.
Offline grading worksheet
This is useful if you wish to download the grading list and edit it in a program such as MS Excel.
When the teacher has completed their grading offline, they can then upload the spreadsheet, confirm the changes and the grades and comments will be transferred over into Moodle's gradebook.
Feedback files
This allows markers to upload files with feedback when marking. These files may be the marked up student assignments, documents with comments, a completed marking guide, or spoken audio feedback. It enables the Feedback Files column in the assignment grading screen (accessed from 'View/Grade all submissions'.) To upload feedback files, click on the green tick in the grade column on the grading table and then upload either with drag and drop or using the File picker.
Comment inline
If enabled, the submission text will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, makit it easier to comment inline (using a different colour, perhaps) or to edit the original text.

Require students click submit button

If this is set to 'No' students can make changes to their submission at any time. (If you want to stop them changing work once you are ready to grade, click 'View/Grade all submissions'; locate the student and From the Edit column, click the action icon and select 'Prevent submission changes'.)

If set to 'Yes', students can upload draft versions of the assignment until such time as they are ready to submit. Clicking the submit button tells the teacher they have finished drafting and want the work to be graded. They can no longer edit it and must ask the teacher to revert to draft status if they need to change it again. To do that, click 'View/Grade all submissions; locate the student and from the Edit column, click the action icon and select 'Revert the submission to draft'.
Require that students accept the Submission statement An administrator can define a "Submission statement" (see below) i.e. a statement where students promise the work is their own and which they must agree to before submitting their work. If the administrator has given teachers the option of using a submission statement or not, then it will be available in the assignment settings screen. If the administrator has forced the statement throughout the site, a teacher will not have this option in the settings but a student will see the statement when accessing their assignment.
Additional attempts (previously named Attempts reopened)
Whether a student can make additional attempts at the assignment. Changing this setting to 'Manually' allows the teacher to go into the grader and in the "Attempt settings" section set "Allow another attempt" to either "yes" or "no". Changing the setting to "Automatically until pass" requires that "Grade to pass" in the Grade section be set. If the student does not receive a passing grade then the submission will automatically be reopened and another attempt can be made.
Additional Attempts

This setting determines whether a student can make additional attempts at the assignment. For each attempt, the grade and feedback are saved, and can be viewed by the teacher and the student. The available options are:

  1. Never - Only one attempt is possible.
  1. Manually - Additional attempts may be allowed by a teacher.
  1. Automatically until pass - Additional attempts are allowed automatically until the student achieves the grade to pass set in the gradebook for this assignment.
Student submit in groups

If enabled, students will be divided into groups based on the default set of groups or a custom grouping. A group submission will be shared among group members and all members of the group will see each others' changes to the submission.
Notify graders about submissions

If enabled, graders (usually teachers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment, early, on time and late. Message methods are configurable.
Notify graders about late submissions

If enabled, graders (usually teachers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment late. Message methods are configurable.
Default for 'Notify student'

When grading each student, should 'Notify student' be ticked by default?


Grade Select the type of grading used for this activity. If 'scale' is chosen, you can then choose the scale from the drop-down menu. If using point grading, you can then enter the maximum grade available for this activity.
Grading method Choose the advanced grading method that should be used for calculating grades in the given context. To disable advanced grading and switch back to the default grading mechanism, choose 'Simple direct grading'.
Grade category

This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook.
Grade to pass
This setting determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity and course completion, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red.
Anonymous submissions
Anonymous submissions hide the identity of students from markers. Anonymous submission settings will be locked once a submission or grade has been made in relation to this assignment.
Hide grader identity from students
If enabled, the identity of any user who grades an assignment submission is not shown, so students can't see who marked their work. 
Note that this setting has no effect on the comments box on the grading page.
Use marking workflow
If enabled, marks will go through a series of workflow stages before being released to students. This allows for multiple rounds of marking and allows marks to be released to all students at the same time.
Use marking allocation
If enabled together with marking workflow, markers can be allocated to particular students.


Availability
The availability option permits students to view and access assignments and resources, there are two options available:

• Show on course page
• Hide from students

ID number
 The ID number can be entered to reference the same ID number from a third-party package especially gradebook. Otherwise, the field may be left blank.
Force Language If you force a language in a course, the interface of Moodle in this course will be in this particular language, even if a student has selected a different preferred language in his/her personal profile.
Group mode
This setting has 3 options:
• No groups
• Separate groups - Each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible
• Visible groups - Each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups
The group mode defined at course level is the default mode for all activities within the course. Each activity that supports groups can also define its own group mode, though if the group mode is forced at course level, the group mode setting for each activity is ignored.


Teachers may restrict students from accessing lessons and resources based upon a set of conditions. These conditions may be based on whether an activity has been completed or not, date restrictions when lessons can commence, a specified grade to be achieved, a certain user profile, or a set of nested restrictions based on the below settings.

Restrictions can be one, two or all of the following criterion:

Completion tracking
There are three options available:

• Do not indicate activity completion
• Students can manually mark the activity as completed
• Show activity as complete when conditions are met

Require view
 (checkbox) If enabled, student must view this activity to complete it.
Expect completed on
 This setting specifies the date when the activity is expected to be completed.


Tags
 Tags will allow students and teachers to connect to other courses and content being offered.


Competencies will not be available unless they have been set up at a course level. Administrators can set up competency frameworks and add competencies within the framework. Teachers can also add competencies to courses and course activities.

Course competencies
 Course competencies allow you to search for competencies that you’d like to link to your existing activity.
Upon activity completion
There are four options to select once an assignment has been completed:

• Do nothing
• Attach evidence
• Send for review
• Complete the competency
Send content change notification Tick the box to notify course participants about this new or changed activity or resource. Only users who can access the activity or resource will receive notiofication.

Step 6: Once everything is set, click Save and return to course.

The Assignment activity that has been created will now be displayed in the section where you selected ‘Add an activity or resource’.


Upon opening the assignment activity, the buttons for viewing submissions and grading are ready for the trainer, and the 'Add Submission' button is ready for the students' submissions.


Check out other tutorials on how to setup a Marking Guide to an Assignment Activity in these links.

  1. How to Create a Marking Guide

  2. How To Grade an Assignment using a Marking Guide


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