The assignment activity allows instructors to collect work from students, review it, and provide feedback including grades. The work a student submits is visible only to the teacher and not to other students. Assignments allow for due dates that automatically appear on a CLE Calendar and the grades are automatically entered as items in the CLE Grade book.
Students can submit any digital content (files), including word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, and video clips. Assignments don’t necessarily have to consist of file uploads - teachers can configure settings so that students type directly into a text field in the CLE.
An assignment activity can also be set up to not accept any student submissions and serve as a reminder to students of a ‘real-world’ assignment they need to complete and to record grades in the CLE gradebook for activities that don’t have an online component.
To create an assignment:
- Log in to the CLE (courses.ucsf.edu).
- Go to the CLE course where you would like to add the Assignment activity.
- At the top-right of the CLE, turn Edit mode on.
- Inside the course section where the Assignment should be displayed, click the Add an activity or resource link.
- Near the top of the window that appears, select the Assignment activity, then scroll to the bottom of the window and click Add.
- On the new assignment’s settings page, configure the assignment options. The page opens with General, Availability, and Submission types settings in view. Select topic headings to make additional settings for submission types, grading, groups, etc., or select Expand all (top right) to view all possible settings. For more information on these options, see Assignment Options (below), or click the help icon (the "?" for tips on option settings) next to any option.
- Select Save and return to course to return to your main course page, or Save and display to view the assignment page.
Below are assignment settings that can be configured:
General
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Assignment name (required)
This name displays as a link on your course page. Use something unique that identifies this assignment from other course activities. We also recommend keeping the name short. -
Description (optional)
Enter a summary of the assignment and instructions. You can also Display description on the course page. Select this option to display the description underneath the assignment link on your course page. (This works best if the description is very concise). - Activity Instructions (optional)
You can specify the actions you would like your students to complete for this assignment. This will only be shown on the submissions page where a student edits and submits their assignment. -
Additional files
Here you can add files that may be of help to the students as they do their assignments, such as example submissions or answer templates.
Availability
Select Enable checkboxes to set a date and time for:
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Allow submissions from
Determines when students can begin to submit the assignment. -
Due date
Determines when the assignment will be due. The due date will show in the course Calendar and within the Activities block. -
Cut-off date
Determine when the assignment will no longer accept submissions.
Submission Types
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Submission types
With Online text, students can enter text directly into an editor. If File submissions are enabled, students can upload one or more files.
Note: To create an offline assignment where students will submit or perform work outside Moodle, leave both Online text and File submissions unchecked. You can still provide a description, set due dates, and have the activity shown in the course Calendar and Gradebook. -
Maximum number of uploaded files
If file submissions are enabled, each student will be able to upload up to the set number of files for their submission. -
Maximum submission size
If file submissions are enabled, each upload cannot exceed this file size per upload. (If a student can upload multiple files and upload files at different times, the total can exceed the set size.) -
Accepted file types
To limit submissions to specific file types, select Choose. A pop-up window will open with file type options. Select the file types for which submissions you would like to enable by clicking the radio button next to each option. Select Save changes.
Feedback Types
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Feedback comments
If enabled, graders can provide written feedback for each submission. These comments are from the grader to the student. -
Feedback files
If enabled, graders can upload files containing feedback when marking assignments. For example, you can upload marked-up student submissions, documents with comments, or spoken audio feedback. -
Offline grading worksheet
If enabled, graders can download a spreadsheet to enter grades without having to be logged in to Moodle. This can be useful if you anticipate grading while disconnected from the Internet. -
Comment inline
If enabled, the submission text will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline or edit the original text.
Submission Settings
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Require students to click submit button
If enabled, students will have to select a Submit button to declare their submission as final. Requiring the Submit button allows students to keep a draft version of the submission on the system.
Note: If this setting is changed from No to Yes after students have made submissions, the submissions will be regarded as final.
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Require that students accept the submission statement
If enabled, students will be shown a statement that declares they are submitting their original work and they will have to accept the statement before their submission is processed. -
Attempts reopened
If set to Manually, the student's submission can be reopened by a teacher. If set to Automatically until pass, the student's submission is automatically reopened until the student achieves a passing grade (defined under Grade). -
Maximum attempts
The maximum number of submission attempts that can be made by a student. After this number of attempts has been made, the student's submission will not be able to be reopened.
Group Submission Settings
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Students submit in groups
If enabled, students submit work together in groups rather than individually. For example, a group of students can submit one file that contains the joint work of the group. -
Require all group members submit
If enabled, all students in a group must individually select the Submit button to acknowledge that they are signing off on their group's joint submission.
Note: This option is available only if both the Students submit in groups and Require students select submit button are enabled. -
Grouping for student groups
This is the groupings that the assignment will be grouped in the gradebook. If enabled, this option shows which Grouping has been selected in the CLE course.
Notifications
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Notify graders about submissions
If enabled, instructors and TAs will receive an email alert whenever a student makes a submission. (This may not be manageable in a class with a large number of students.) -
Notify graders about late submissions
If enabled, instructors and TAs will receive an email alert whenever a submission is made after the due date. -
Default setting for "Notify students"
If enabled, the default setting for notifying students when grades are released will be set in the assignment grading interface. This can be changed manually during grading. For more information, see CLE Notifications.
Note: Students always receive an email confirmation when a submission is successfully made.
Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings
- Set Enable Turnitin to Yes.
- Set Display Similarity Reports to Students to Yes. This allows students to view Similarity Reports within each created assignment.
For more, see Overview: Turnitin for Faculty.
The assignment page for a Moodle assignment activity allows you to do several important grading functions. Grades entered on this page will appear in the corresponding grade column of the gradebook. We recommend grading Assignments from this page, rather than entering grades in the Grader report, especially if you want to provide feedback as online text comments or in files.
Before starting
If you want to hide grades and feedback from students until a provisional date, then you will need to either hide the grades in the Grader Report, Otherwise, grades will display to students as you save them one by one. The CLE allows you to automatically hide grades and feedback until a set date:
- In the Grader Report, turn Edit mode on; further settings and controls display.
- In the activity's column, in its Controls row, click the Edit icon; a settings page displays.
- To reveal the settings for dates setting, click the link to Show more; further settings display.
- For the Hidden until setting, click its Enable checkbox; it becomes editable.
- Type in the date and time to reveal the marks and feedback.
- Click Save.
Grading from the Assignment page
- On your CLE course page, click the name of an Assignment activity. The Assignment page opens and displays the description of the assignment and a summary of submissions.
- Below the summary, click View/grade all submissions. The View/grade all submissions page will open.
- The View/grade all Submissions page displays a table showing student names when submissions were last modified, online text submissions, and file submissions.
- To view and grade individual submissions, under the Grade column heading, click Grade.
- On the Grading page for each student, you will be able to view online text, download submitted files, enter and reply to Submission comments, enter Feedback comments, upload Feedback files, and grade the submission.
- On the Grading page for each student, you can also use the CLE built-in Annotation tool to add feedback to students' submissions. To annotate students' submissions, see below Annotating assignment.
- Complete your grading as needed by clicking Save changes or Save and show next. To notify students of a grade change via email, click the Notify students checkbox before saving entries.
Annotating assignment
On the grading page, you can
① View students' submissions
② Annotate submissions with annotation tools
③ Switch student to grade
④ Give grades (point scale or rubric)
⑤ Leave feedback comments
You can annotate students' submissions (pdf, docx, odt, rtf, or online text) using a variety of tools, such as the comment, selection, shape, and stamps, which may be saved to a comment bank.
a. Comment Tool
a1. Draw text box
a2. Select the color of the text box
b. Selection Tool
b1. Grab the screen to navigate inside the assignment preview area
b2. Select an item to edit, move or delete
c. Shape Tool
c1. Scribble lines
c2. Straight lines
c3. Rectangles
c4. Circles
c5. Highlighter
c6. Select the color of the shapes and the highlighter
d. Stamp Tool
d1. Apply stamp
d2. Select stamp
Offline Grading for CLE Assignment Submissions
Offline grading allows you to grade Assignment submissions without being logged in to CLE or connected to the Internet. There are two options to grade assignments offline: download assignment submissions or use the grading worksheet.
Option 1: download assignment submissions
If you’d prefer grading offline, downloading submissions is still an option although you won’t be able to use the aforementioned Annotation tool.
- Download the assignment submission.
- To download all submissions, go to Assignment > View all submissions > Top right-hand side> Download all submissions.
- To download a single submission, go to Assignment > View all submissions > Click a file in the File submissions column.
2. Add assignment comments with the applications on your computer (Word, Adobe Acrobat, etc).
3. Upload the assignment on the Grading page.
Option 2: Rubrics
- Under the Grade options, select Rubric from the Grading Method dropdown menu.
- Select Save and Display at the bottom of the settings window.
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This is the Advanced grading page.
- From here, you will choose to either define new grading from scratch or create a new grading form from a template.
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Define the new grading form from scratch.
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Scroll below the rubric to review the rubric options. When using a rubric, it is a common best practice to allow students to preview the rubric before the assignment and to display the points for each level.
- Create a new grading form from a template.
- Scroll down until you locate your saved rubric.