The Assignment FeatureBlackboard's Assignment Feature allows students to submit an assignment through the coursesite which shows up immediately in the Grade Center, ready for you to review and grade.

You can skip the confusion and frustration some students experience when they try to send you an attachment. Everything happens through the coursesite and is archived for later use.

Assignments list the name, point value, and a description for class work. Instructors also have the option of including attachments to an Assignment. Students complete the assignment in a separate file and send it back to the instructor.

NOTE: Once a student completes and submits an Assignment the instructor may access, review, grade and provide feedback for this file in the Grade Center.

Using this Feature

1.Go to the UO Blackboard website at http://blackboard.uoregon.edu.2.Locate the Have an account? box, and enter your uoregon account us-ername (e.g. joe22) and the corresponding password (this is all the same as your email access). 3.Click the green Login button. 4.You will enter a page entitled My UO that will welcome you by name.5.The My Courses section shows a list of classes you are teaching and

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HIGHLIGHTS

1-3USING THIS FEATURE

3-4GRADING & PROVIDING FEEDBACK

4-5DOWNLOADING STUDENTS’ ASSIGNMENTS

5DELETING ASSIGNMENT FILES

Suggestions for Use• Have students submit a question(s) for use in a class discussion. Make

this assignment more robust by asking them to give you a rationale for why this question will promote a deeper understanding of the material they were assigned to read.

• At the end of class, have students submit a summary of the most salient points of that day's lecture/discussion and end with any unanswered questions they may still have or areas related to the topic that they might wish to explore further.

• Ask students to explain a term or concept presented in class in their own words and, if appropriate, give an example.

• Give students a link to an image that represents a concept you have been trying to convey. Ask students to write about the relationship of that image to the concept. For example, the image may be of a tug of war. What does this represent in terms of the article we read for today?

enrolled in. You should see a list that includes coursesites for all courses where you are the in-structor of record in the Registrar's database. All of the students who have registered in the cor-responding CRN will automatically be signed up for that blackboard coursesite.

6. Click on a course name to enter that coursesite.7. Click on the Edit Mode button so it is set to the ON setting, this button is

in the upper right area of the main display box.8. Locate the Content Area you want to add the folder to (such as your Course

Documents section). Click on the link.

9. Click the green Evaluate but-

ton and select Create Assignment option.

10. Locate the Assignment Information section and enter the appropriate information.

11. Enter the Name of the assignment (re-quired). If desired, click the color cube button to choose a title color from a win-dow of color choices.

12. In the Instructions box enter detailed in-structions for completing the assignment. Be sure to include the due date and guide-lines for completion.

13. In the Assignment Files section you can chose to attach a document, such as detailed instructions and grading criteria and/or a reading the students are responding to.

14. Select the Points Possible in the Grading sec-tion.

15. Locate the Availability section and mark the appropriate choices.

16. Determine whether or not you want to make the assignment immediately visible to stu-dents and select the appropriate radio but-ton. NOTE: If you want to make the as-signment visible at a later date, you can set the date restrictions to automate the process.

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CONSIDER THIS:Often instructors choose to add Blackboard collected assignments to the Assignments section but you can choose to add them almost anywhere in your coursesite. The key is consistency. Add Blackboard based assignments to the same places you would add in-class or homework assignments.

17. Additionally, you can allow for the students to have multiple attempts at submitting the assign-ment (this can come in handy if the student submits the incorrect paper or the their system freezes up).

18. Determine whether or not you want to track the number of times students access this assign-ment by checking off the Track Number of Views button.

19. For Due Dates you can enter in both or either the date and time this assignment is due. This al-lows for the students to track due dates on their personal Blackboard calendars, set up automatic announcements of upcoming due items, set up automatic over due emails, etc.

20. For the Recipients section you can set up the as-signment for ei-ther the entire class (default setting) or for specific Groups of Students.

21. Click the Submit button to finish adding the Assignment.

Grading and Providing Feedback

When a student submits an assignment it will appear in the Grade Center, where instructors can access and grade it. In-structors can review the student’s assignment on the Grade Assignment page.

1.From inside your coursesite, go to the course management section and the Control Panel, located at the bottom of the navigation on the left-hand side of the screen.2.In the Evaluation section, click on the Grade Center link. From this section, you can see the spreadsheet for adding student grades. If a student has submitted the as-

signment through the assignment feature, there will be an exclamation point in a green box within the appropriate spreadsheet column, and if they have not submitted an assignment there will be a dash.

3. Locate the cell of the assignment you want to grade and click on the exclama-tion point and the the down arrows to find the View Grade Details option, click on this.  

4. In the Grade Details view scroll down the page and locate the Attempts section and select the Ope Attempt button.

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5. Go to the Review Current Attempt section to find the student’s attached file and/or any com-ments they have submitted.

6. Locate the Grade Current Attempt section enter the appropriate grade information.a. In the Grade field, enter the points earned by the student.b. Add your feedback through one (or both) of the following:

i. In the Comments field, type the feedback you would like to send back to the student. ii. Attach an edited file with feedback back to the student. To attach the file, click on

the Browse for Local File button. Find the file on your computer and click the Ok button. 

7. Locate the Instructor Notes section and type in any reference notes you may wish to archive. These notes are only seen by the instructor. You may also choose to add a file to this section. To attach the file, click on the Browse for Local File button. Find the file on your computer and click the Ok button.

8. NOTE: If at some point you would like to allow a student to resubmit an assignment, you may use the Clear Attempt button.

9. Click the Submit button. Both the feedback and grade will also show up in the Grade Center. NOTE: Students can check their grade and get feedback by clicking on the Tools (sometimes called Student Tools) link on the side navigation and selecting My Grades.

10. Click the green Submit button (or Save as Dra% if you are not ready to submit the grade and comments to the student).

Downloading Students’ Assignments

When students submit an assignment it appears in the Grade Center where instructors can access and grade it. The Download Assignments page enables the instructor to download student assignments and save them.

1. From inside your coursesite, go to the course Control Panel, located at the bottom of the naviga-tion on the left-hand side of the screen.

2. In the Evaluation section, click on the Grade Center link.3. Click on the name of the assignment for which you want to download student files.4. Click on the double down arrows and then Assignment File Download.5. The instructor selects the check boxes next to the student assignments he or she would like to

download. Individual or multiple check boxes may be selected. Use the following select options to mark the files for download.a. Check/Uncheck A& - You can select all the submitted assignments by checking off the box just

below the Select Users header.b. Manually mark the checkbox or boxes of the assignments you want to download by the stu-

dent names.

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c. Select Ungraded - select this option, which is found in the Grade column, to select the check boxes and download the files for those Assignments that have not been graded.

6. Click the green Submit button. 7. A Download Assignment page appears with a message that that the assignments have been ex-

ported. Click the link on this page to save the exported assignments to a location on the hard drive where they can be accessed. The file name automatically includes the username of the stu-dent who submitted the file. For example, a file submitted by Tim McMahon (username ‘timmc’) for Week 1 Assignment might be titled, Week_1_Assignment_timmc.

Deleting Assignment Files (Assignment File Cleanup)

When a student submits an assignment it will appear in the Grade Center where instructors can access and grade it. The Remove Assignment Files page enables the instructor to delete files that are attached to an assignment. This includes:

• files submitted by a student.• files the instructor has included in his or her feedback on the Grade Assignment page.• files the instructor has included in his or her notes on the Grade Assignment page.

To delete student files:1. From inside your coursesite, go to the course Control Panel, located at the bottom of the naviga-

tion on the left-hand side of the screen.2. In the Evaluation section, click on the Grade Center link.3. Click on the double down arrows found next to the name of the assignment for which you want

to delete student files.4. Click Assignment File Cleanup.5. Select the appropriate files for deletion:

a. Check/Uncheck A& - You can select all the submitted assignments by checking off the box just below the Select Users header.

b. Manually mark the checkbox or boxes of the assignments you want to download by the stu-dent names.

6. Click the Delete button and click on OK for the confirmation pop-up window.

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About Our Organization…The University of Oregon supports the teaching endeavors of its faculty and graduate students

through the Teaching Effectiveness Program (TEP), a division of the Teaching and Learning

Center.

The Teaching Effectiveness Program offers a variety of activities and services to engage the aca-

demic community in viewing, assessing, and improving undergraduate instruction. TEP services

are free to faculty members, graduate teaching fellows (GTFs), and university departments.

The Assignment Feature by University of Oregon Teaching Effectiveness Program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Be F

ree

To Te

ach

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Teaching Effectiveness ProgramAcademic Learning ServicesUniversity of Oregontep@uoregon.edu

Additional Support for Faculty Center for Media and Educational Technologies Consulting19 Knight Library11 a.m. - 5 p.m., M - Fcmetconsult@uoregon.edu(541) 346-1942

Center for Media and Educational TechnologiesGround Floor, Knight Librarymediasvc@uoregon.edu(541) 346-3091