Assignment Tool:
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Can Students submit an Assignment through Blackboard multiple times?
The Assignment Tool in Blackboard 9.1 now provides Instructors with the option to Allow Multiple or Unlimited Submission Attempts. This is a great addition particularly when an Instructor wishes to grade individual portions of an assignment separately but average the items together to create the final grade.
To create an Assignment that allows for multiple submissions, select the Number of Attempts option desired under Option 4 Availability in the Assignment Tool setup. Options include: Allow single attempt; Allow unlimited attempts, and Number of attempts (a field provided here allows the Instructor to determine or limit the attempts).
See the detailed instructions in the Assignment Tool tutorials.
Can I allow additional attempts for an Assignment without clearing a previous attempt?
Yes. New to Blackboard 9.1 when the Assignment Tool is used to submit assignments, the Instructor has the ability to Allow Additional Attempts instead of Clear Attempt.
To accomplish this task, click the Action Link button (chevron sign) associated with the Student for whom the additional attempt should be added. From the resulting menu, select View Grade Details. Within Grade Details the Instructor will find the Allow Additional Attempt button. Click OK when prompted to add additional attempt. The screen will refresh showing the date and time of the attempt addition.
Important: Allowing additional attempts could complicate the grading of the assignment depending upon the Grade Attempts option set for the column through the Grade Center.
How do I determine how a Multiple Submission Assignment is graded within the Grade Center?
If an Instructor sets an Assignment to allow Multiple or Unlimited Submissions it is necessary to tell the Grade Center how those submissions should be graded. Once in the Grade Center, click on the Action Link Button (chevron sign) next to the Assignment column name. Select Edit Column Information from the resulting menu. In Option 1 under Score Attempts Using, select one of the following options:
- Grade of Last Attempt (default)
- Highest Attempt
- Lowest Attempt
- Grade of First Attempt
- Average of Attempt Grades
When you’ve finished editing the column, click [Submit] to finalize the changes.
Can I grade Assignments anonymously?
Yes. The Grade Anonymously option is a new feature in Blackboard 9.1 for both Assignments and Tests. Once in the Grade Center, click on the Action Link Button (chevron sign) next to the Assignment or Test column name. From the resulting menu, select Grade Anonymously. This option will take the Instructor to a view of Grade Details where students are identified by numbers and displayed in no particular order.
Important: Grade Anonymously assumes that the students used the Text Editor to compose and submit the Assignment. It is important to note that if students submitted the assignment as documents identified with their name, the grading of those documents will obviously no longer be anonymous.
Why should I set Due Dates when creating an Assignment?
Setting Due Dates within Blackboard provides visual cues for both the Instructor and Students regarding Assignment status. Assignments that have come past due or are submitted after the due date are identified as Late in the To Do module for students and in the Needs Attention and Alerts modules for Instructors. Due Dates also appear in My Grades for Students and can be used by Instructors to generate various Reports, make grading decisions, etc.
See Course HomePage and Notifications tutorials for additional information.
Why would I set an Assignment to be submitted by a Group of Students?
The Assignment Tool in Blackboard 9.1 now allows the Instructor to restrict access to an Assignment to members of a Group thus accomplishing a true “Group Grade”. Setting the Assignment Recipients to a Group means that
- One member of the group may submit the assignment on behalf of all the students in that group. (If multiple attempts are selected, other students may also submit parts of the assignment as well.)
- All members of the Group receive the same grade for the paper/items submitted for that assignment. (This can be modified by the Instructor if a individual performance within the group is being taken into account.)
- If a Group Grade is not desired, an assignment may still be released to a specified group of students using Adaptive Release. In either case, Groups must be created first. See the Groups Tutorials for additional information.
How do I access the Assignments submitted by the Students to grade them?
Submitted Assignments can be accessed through the Grade Center. Once in the Grade Center, click on the Action Link Button (chevron sign) next to the Assignment column name. From the resulting menu there are three possible options:
- Grade Anonymously (New)
- Grade Attempts
- Assignment File Download
For further instructions on accessing Assignments for grading, please refer to the Grading Student Assignments Offline and Grading Student Assignments Online tutorials.
Can I use the Assignment File Download option for Assignments allowing multiple submissions?
The option to Grade Assignments Offline using the Assignment File Download option will only download the most recent or last submission attempt for each student. If the assignment is set to only grade the final attempt, then the Assignment File Download can be used. If the Instructor wishes to review all attempts, it is recommended that the Instructor follow the instructions for Grading Student Assignments Online.
Why can’t I see the YouTube videos and other media files students embedded within Assignments that I downloaded from Blackboard?
YouTube videos, Flickr images, etc are embedded as HTML code through the Text Editor in the Assignment. When the assignment file is downloaded from Blackboard, it is downloaded as a .txt document not an .htm document. Thus, when the document opens in NotePad, WordPad, or TextEdit the embedded features are not visible except as code.
To view these files as .htm pages, change the file name from “filename.txt” to “filename.htm”. Then open the file in a browser window such as Firefox or Safari
Blogs
Why am I unable to add a Blog to my course site?
Unfortunately, once you set a blog to Private, the only individual who can be granted permission to see the blog is the owner of that blog. The Instructor can view the blog postings and comment on the blog without being a member of the blog.
If the goal is for each student to have their own blog, but that others can read and comment, it is suggested that Group Blog be selected as the blog type. Select the member of the group blog. In the Non-member Settings area, select the setting(s) most appropriate for the goal of the blog. Options include:
- Allow non-members to view the blog.
- Allow non-members of the blog to: Read Comments, Write Comments, Delete Comments
See the Blog tutorials for more information.
Can I allow other students to see Private blogs?
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It’s easy. Just click “Edit Text” or double click me and you can start adding your own content and make changes to the font. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.
If a Private Journal is set to include All Course Members does that mean the students can see each other’s private entries?
Actually, no. Setting the Journal to private but including All Course Members means that each student can only see their own postings but the instructor can see the postings from all students in one location instead of needing to visit separate blogs.
If private journal entries are being graded, setting the journal to include All Course Members will create one Grade Center column within which the Instructor can add the student’s grades. While it may be desirable to create a Private Journal for each student, if the journals are being graded this would create a column for each journal created.
See the Journals tutorials for more information.
Can Blogs be graded?
Yes. When creating individual and/or group blogs, click the option to Create Grade Book Entry for this blog. Type an Entry Name and Points Possible. Then, select Yes or No for display grade to students.
The complexity in setting blogs to be graded is that the Points Possible should represent the cumulative points possible for all the blog entries posted by the student. Students just need to be made aware that the grade they see for the Blog will change during the semester to reflect the weekly postings.
For example: If the expectation is that students post every week of the semester and that each post is worth a maximum of 10 points, then the cumulative points possible would be 100. If the Instructor is grading weekly, then the grade displayed to the Student in My Grades will change weekly until the final posting is graded.