Create an Assignment

Cre­ate a new assign­ment for each activ­i­ty that requires stu­dents to sub­mit indi­vid­ual or group work, such as essays, projects, or files for grad­ing. Unlike dis­cus­sions, which are designed for inter­ac­tion and peer engage­ment, assign­ments act as drop box­es where stu­dents sub­mit their work pri­vate­ly.

When set­ting up an assign­ment, you can build it direct­ly in the course, link it to the grade­book, and orga­nize it into the appro­pri­ate cat­e­go­ry. This keeps your course struc­tured and makes man­ag­ing sub­mis­sions and grades more effi­cient.

  1. Begin by nav­i­gat­ing to Activ­i­ties > Assign­ments.
  2. Click on New Assign­ment.
  1. Enter a Title and click Grade Out Of (for grad­ed assign­ments).
  1. Enter points. To add or remove the assign­ment from the grade­book, click In Grade Book and select the appro­pri­ate option.
  • Edit or Link to Exist­ing: Cre­ates new grade item in grade­book linked to assign­ment or links assign­ment to exist­ing grade item.
  • Not in Grade Book: Keeps assign­ment out of grade­book, but allows for grad­ing and feed­back — used for for­ma­tive grad­ing and feed­back where score does­n’t count toward final grade.
  • Reset to Ungrad­ed: Used to reset assign­ment to ungrad­ed. Used for for­ma­tive assess­ments where feed­back in pri­or­i­ty.
  1. If you choose Edit or Link to Exist­ing a new win­dow pops up. By select­ing the first but­ton, Cre­ate and link to a new grade item, you cre­ate a new grade item in the grade­book that is linked to the assign­ment. NOTE: This option should only be used if you haven’t com­plet­ed your grade­book set­up.

If you have cre­at­ed your grade­book pri­or to the assign­ment (rec­om­mend­ed), select the sec­ond but­ton, Link to an exist­ing grade item, to link to your pre-cre­at­ed grade item in the grade­book.

  1. Add a Due Date.
  1. Enter Instruc­tions and upload attach­ments, links or record­ings.
  1. Add Dates & Con­di­tions, enter Sub­mis­sion & Com­ple­tion para­me­ters, and select Eval­u­a­tion & Feed­back set­tings. See Set­ting Assign­ment Para­me­ters for more details.

Cre­at­ing a group assign­ment begins with first cre­at­ing groups using the Groups tool. See the page on Groups to learn how to Cre­ate a Group Cat­e­go­ry. Once your groups have been cre­at­ed, you can choose to make an assign­ment an indi­vid­ual assign­ment or a group assign­ment.

  • Indi­vid­ual assign­ments pro­vide each stu­dent with a pri­vate sub­mis­sion area where they can access indi­vid­u­al­ized feed­back and their per­son­al grade.
  • Group assign­ments pro­vide stu­dents who are mem­bers of the same group a shared sub­mis­sion area where they can see any sub­mis­sion that has been uploaded by oth­er group mem­bers. This set­up also pro­vides instruc­tors a way to assign the same grade an pro­vide the same feed­back to all mem­bers of the group at once.
    NOTE: once stu­dents have sub­mit­ted to the assign­ment, you will not be able to edit or change the assign­ment type (e.g., you can­not switch it back to indi­vid­ual from group).

To cre­ate a group assign­ment, fol­low the first 7 steps in how to Cre­ate a Basic Assign­ment, then under the Sub­mis­sion & Com­ple­tion options choose Group Assign­ment and the appro­pri­ate Group Cat­e­go­ry. Again, see how to Cre­ate a Group Cat­e­go­ry to learn more.

When cre­at­ing a pass/fail assign­ment, you can choose to include it in the final grade (link it to your grade­book) or not. If you choose to include it, it must be linked to a Select­box grade item, which is a type of grade item you cre­ate in the Man­age Grades area. NOTE: You can­not link a quiz or a dis­cus­sion to a pass/fail Select­box item — only assign­ments.

Overview Creating Pass/Fail Grade Items and Assignments

Setting Assignment Parameters

The assign­ment edit win­dow includes 3 wid­gets on the right side that can be col­lapsed and expand­ed; each wid­get con­tains set­tings that can be adjust­ed in order to tai­lor an assign­ment to your needs. See the infor­ma­tion in the tabs below to learn more about the set­tings found in each wid­get.

You can set date restric­tions for your assign­ments, as well as add release con­di­tions and spe­cial access for spe­cif­ic stu­dents when need­ed.

Start and End Dates: Start and end dates auto­mate when stu­dents can access an assign­ment, so you don’t have to man­u­al­ly tog­gle the visible/hidden icon. If you set a Start Date and time, stu­dents won’t be able to open the assign­ment until that date and time. If no Start Date is set, the assign­ment is avail­able as soon as it’s cre­at­ed and made vis­i­ble.

Due Dates: Due dates con­trol whether a stu­dent sub­mis­sion is flagged as over­due. It’s not required to have a due date on an assign­ment, it’s sim­ply a way to track late sub­mis­sions.

Release Con­di­tions: Release con­di­tions let you con­trol when stu­dents can access an assign­ment or oth­er course items based on spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria. For exam­ple, you could make an assign­ment avail­able only after a stu­dent has viewed a par­tic­u­lar mod­ule, com­plet­ed a quiz, or achieved a min­i­mum score on a pre­vi­ous activ­i­ty.

Spe­cial Access: This tool allows you to accom­mo­date stu­dents who require access out­side of the assign­men­t’s set para­me­ters (e.g., ear­li­er or lat­er access, extend­ed due date, addi­tion­al attempts or time allot­ted). You can allow cer­tain stu­dents to have Spe­cial Access to an assign­ment or only stu­dents with Spe­cial Access to access the assign­ment. The first case is use­ful if you need to pro­vide accom­mo­da­tions, the sec­ond option is best used for reme­di­al assign­ments.

  1. From the Avail­abil­i­ty Dates & Con­di­tions menu click Man­age Spe­cial Access.
  2. From the Man­age Spe­cial Access win­dow, choose the first but­ton to allow spe­cif­ic stu­dents spe­cial access. Choose the sec­ond but­ton to allow access to ONLY stu­dents with spe­cial access.
  1. Adjust the dates and check the box next to the stu­dent with accom­mo­da­tions. Click Save.

Sub­mis­sion & Com­ple­tion options let you con­trol how stu­dents sub­mit their work to an assign­ment.

There are four sub­mis­sion types avail­able.

  1. File sub­mis­sion: Stu­dents upload a file (e.g., PDF, Word Doc­u­ment, Images) to the assign­ment.
  2. File or text sub­mis­sion: Stu­dents upload a file OR enter text into the text sub­mis­sion field to sub­mit to the assign­ment.
  3. Text sub­mis­sion: Stu­dents enter text into a text field. This type is good for assign­ments that require stu­dents to sub­mit a link to a video or a web­site port­fo­lio or blog.
  4. On paper sub­mis­sion: Stu­dents don’t upload or enter any­thing to the assign­ment in Bright­space, but this type allows you to pro­vide stu­dents with a grade and feed­back.
  5. Observed in per­son: Again, stu­dents don’t upload or enter any­thing as a sub­mis­sion to the assign­ment, but you are able to pro­vide a grade and feed­back for things like pre­sen­ta­tions.
  • Tip: To ensure you are grad­ing the most recent work uploaded by a stu­dent, chose Only the most recent sub­mis­sion is kept.

Under Eval­u­a­tion & Feed­back you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to:

  • Add an exist­ing or cre­ate a new rubric. See the page on rubrics to learn more.
  • Man­age Learn­ing Objec­tives.
  • Make anno­ta­tion tools avail­able to add feed­back direct­ly to uploaded doc­u­ments by high­light­ing, draw­ing, and com­ment­ing (this is avail­able for file sub­mis­sions only).
  • Hide stu­dent names for anony­mous mark­ing.
  • Select eval­u­a­tors.

Overview Assignment Tool