Another popular tool in Blackboard Learn is the Assignment Tool. The Assignment Tool can be used for many types of assignments that can be turned in. For example, students can turn in research papers, PowerPoint presentations, and group projects. Whatever type of assignment that instructors choose to make in their course, the Assignment Tool provides a drop-box for students' submissions.
With assignments, you can create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. You can create assignments in content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders.
When you create an assignment, a Grade Center column is created automatically. From the Grade Center or Needs Grading page, you can see who has submitted their work and start grading. Students access their grades from their My Grades page.
Make sure to create your instruction ahead of time. Consider the following format when developing your assignment prompt.
Be clear on expectations for the answers/conversation and are there a number of posts expected
If they need to provide links or attachments to the assignments or use the text submission box, make this clear
Be consistent in linking to the assignments within Blackboard
Consider adding "Assignment," "Paper," or "Presentation," to the title to be clear on what the specific assignment is with students.
On the Course Menu, select the Assignments link
On the page, you will see a menu bar; across the top of the page, select Assessments
Select Assignment on the pull-down menu, the Assignment window will appear
In the Assignment Information section, you can use the content editor to format text and add links. You can also add files in the Assignment Files section. To add files:
Select Browse Local Files to upload a file from your computer. The file is saved in the top-level folder in your course's file repository: Course Files or the Content Collection. You can also attach a file from the repository. -Or-
Drag files from your computer to the to the center of the Attach Files area. If your browser allows, you can also drag a folder of files. The files will upload individually. If the browser doesn't allow you to submit your assignment after you upload a folder, select Do not attach in the folder's row to remove it. You can drag the files individually and submit again.
You can use the file name as the Link Title or provide another name for the file. note, the original file name will still be associated with the file when students download it to their computers.
Select a Due Date
Assignments with due dates automatically show in the course calendar. Submissions are accepted after this date but are marked late.
You can view the late label in these areas:
Grade Center
Needs Grading page
Grading: This section is organized into three groups
Submission Details
Assignment Type
Select individual, group, or portfolio. You can require a portfolio as the assignment submission.
Number of Attempts
Allow single, multiple, or unlimited attempts. If you select more than one attempt, you can also decide which attempt to use in the Grade Center.
Plagiarism Tools
To enable the SafeAssign service, select the plagiarism tool options you want to use.
Grading Options
Enable anonymous grading
On specific date: Provide the date you want to disable anonymous grading.
After all submissions are graded, provide a due date. After students submit attempts, the due date passes, and you've graded the attempts, student anonymity is disabled.
To manually disable anonymous grading, clear the Enable Anonymous Grading check box.
Enable Delegated Grading
Grades and feedback from more than one grader help promote reliability and remove bias. You can assign specific users in your course to grade particular sets of student submissions. For large classes, you can divide up the grading tasks among TAs and other graders.
After you select the check box to enable delegated grading, you can view a list of all potential graders. Roles with default grading privileges include instructor, teaching assistant, and grader. Use the menu next to each grader's name to assign submissions to grade:
All Submissions
Random Set: Grade a random set of different students. If you assign multiple graders to grade a random set, students are distributed evenly before any student is included in multiple random sets.
Groups: Grade all students who are part of the selected course groups.
Display of Grades
Select Grade Center column settings, including whether or not to show the grade to students.
Availability
Select the check box if you wish to make the assignment available for students.
To limit the availability of the time, the assignment is checked using the appropriate boxes for “Display After” and “Display Until.” Enter a date and time for the assignment to be made available or unavailable.
You can choose one or both options depending on your availability preference.
Making the assignment unavailable will prevent the Limit Availability from occurring. Assignments must be available to limit availability.
Additionally, you can Track the Number of Views for each student in the course.
At any time, you may cancel out of the Assignment process. If you have completed the assignment and would like to save it, click Submit.
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's just a dropbox for submissions. Submitting work for review is a common practice in the classroom, whether face-to-face or online. Just like the old fashion box in front of the room, the Assignment tool in Blackboard Learn affords instructors the ability to take all sorts of students submissions from papers to presentations to weblinks. The tool is not just the place where students upload "stuff," but is an integral tool for tracking student work. It also has a great onscreen editor to provide feedback in many ways. From our September 2020, 2020 webinar, we'll start with the basics; how to create an assignment and select settings.
Whether it's a paper, presentation, scanned or text submission, the assignment tool in Blackboard acts a dropbox where students can upload directly to Blackboard. No more wading through emails or trying to figure out who has submitted and who hasn't. It's all kept track of in the Grade Center.
So what does it look like when a student submits work to Blackboard's Assignment tool and what do I do next? Are you ready to walk through the process of grading? Well, then time to grade some assignments. This snippet comes from our Grading in Blackboard webinar offered on September 10th, 2020.
Learn more about using SafeAssign:
SafeAssign workshop recording (February 27, 2025)