D2L Brightspace: Assignment Setup

Overview

Article Audience: Faculty. Students should read the D2L Brightspace: Students' Assignment Tool article for information on how to use the Assignment tool.

• Faculty use the Assignment tool to receive student submissions, download submissions, and return them with grades and feedback. They can also review students’ submission dates, eliminating the need to collect assignments and making it easy to track when files were submitted.
• D2L's Assignment tool can be used for online and in-person classroom needs. It can be a collection point for individual course papers or group PowerPoint Presentations. Assignment submissions can be assessed from embedded videos, physical-paper submissions, and observed submissions (classroom presentations) in addition to online file uploads.

Article Sections:

• Assignment Setup
• Turnitin® Integrations in Assignments
• Additional Assignment and Tool Resources

Assignment Setup

Creating an Assignment requires a Name in order to be saved. Additional options are explained below.

The Left-hand Form fields

D2L has created a one-page creation form for assignments. The accordion options on the right side provide additional options.

• Name
  • Give a descriptive name to the assignment that is easy for students to understand. It is best practice to use the same name for the Assignment and the Grade Item and used in the syllabus.
• Score Out Of
  • Enter the point value for the assignment in the Grade Out Of field. If the assignment is to be ungraded, leave the default value of "ungraded" in the field.

• • To create a grade item, leave the drop down alone. When saved a grade item will be created in the gradebook for the same number of points.
  • For grade items already created in the gradebook, use the drop down menu to select Edit or Link to Existing.
  • For grade points viewable by the student but not associated with a grade item, select Not In Gradebook.
  • To return to an ungraded assignment, choose Reset to Ungraded. This can only be done prior to saving the Assignment. Upon saving the grade items are created and those grade items would need to be manually deleted from the gradebook.
• Due Date
  • Due Date is a soft date. Students can make submissions after the due date; the submission is marked as Late. Due dates can be entered by typing or using the date picker tool or left blank.
• Instructions
  • The HTML editor is available for use in writing the instructions for the Assignment. 
• Attachments
  • Located below the Instructions field, the attach files options represented by. The icons, from left to right are: Upload from your computer, Link from existing activities, website link, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

Below the Instructions, there are various options to attach files. The icons, from left to right are: Upload from your computer, Link from existing activities, website link, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

Right side panel menus

Availability Dates & Conditions

• Start Date
  • This field can be left blank.  When a date is entered, students cannot submit until the start date. Students will be able to see the assignment in the Assignments list, will not be able to access the folder for submission.
• End Date
  • This field can be left blank.  This is a hard date. When the submission period is over, no assignments can be submitted after the end date/time. 
• Release Conditions
  • Release conditions can be set for the folder to become visible to students. Note: if a release condition is placed on the submission folder, students will not see the submission folder until the release conditions are met.
• Special Access
  • Special Access allows selected students to divert from the saved time frames. For example, a student can take a quiz before or after the availability dates, student can see date-restricted modules earlier or after the saved dates.
  • Most of the applications for extensions or early submissions are met by the first radio button:  Allow users with special access... 
  • The second option: Allow only users... is used for restricting the visibility of the folder to only those special users. For example, a subset of the class is given access to a folder. This option might be used when Graduate and Undergraduate sections are combined in one course.

Submission & Completion

• Assignment Type
  • The default is Individual Assignment. To create a Group Assignment, the Groups tool needs to be used first to set up Groups. The Assignment Type is not editable.
• Category
  • To create a category for an Assignment select the button Edit Categories and then the button Add Category.
• Submission Type: The submission type cannot be edited after saving. There are four options:

1. File Submission - This is the historic submission folder type requiring) students to upload a file to the Assignment. Works with TurnItIn.
2. Text Submission - Students only submit text. Students use the WYSIWYG editor to deliver an assignment. Does not work well with Turnitin. (Turnitin analyzes the HTML code.) 
3. On Paper Submission - Used when physical papers are submitted, but the assessment and grading are done in D2L.
4. Observed In Person Submission -Use this submission type for in-class presentations, observed skills, oral quizzes, and similar activities.

• File Submission
  • File Submission has many options such as allowing multiple files or alerting the instructor to a new submission by email. 
  • Based on the last two submission types additional options will be given: Marked as Completed. Changes cannot be made after saving.
    • Manually by Learners - This is the default and requires students to log in to mark the paper as submitted.
    • Automatic on Assessment - When the instructor enters a grade for the student, the assignment will be marked as completed.
    • Automatic on Due date - The assignment is marked complete on the due date. It is a due date, not an end date. This can be confusing since D2L shows the due date:

• Assignment 2 has an end date of February 11, 2020 at 11:30 AM. Assignment 3 has a due date of February 11, 2020 at 11:30 AM. D2L displays both as due dates.
• As a result, Assignment 2 looks like the students have not completed their assignments:

• All the students in Assignment 3 have completed their assignment:

• How to manually remedy the first scenario, select all and click the button Mark as Complete.

• When marked complete, D2L uses the system clock for the time.
• Left on the Manually by learners option requires students to log in to D2L, navigate to the assignment, and select the box "Mark as Complete."

• Files Allowed Per Submission and Submissions
• Recommended to leave this field as the default value. 
• Allowable File Extensions
• Restrict the file types that can be submitted to an assignment folder. By default, there are no restrictions.

• D2L explains the options in the Restricted File Extensions article. Select the help button (the question mark in the gray circle) next to the Allowable File Extensions heading to read the article.
• Notification Email
• Each time a student submits an assignment an automated email will be sent to the address entered. Enter multiple emails separated by a comma. Leave blank if no notifications are desired. Enter the email address(es) after the due date to be notified of late submissions.

Evaluation & Feedback

• Rubrics
  • Rubrics are created in the Rubrics tool but linked to an assignment here.
• Learning Objectives
  • Metro State does not use the Competencies tool; Learning Objectives lay dormant.
• Annotation Tools
  • Screen readers will not work with the annotations tool. For students who need to use screen readers to see content, Annotations is not accessible to them.
• Anonymous Marking
  • This removes the student name from the assignment. Once this is checked and saved, the checkbox selection cannot be changed. A new assignment would need to be created.
• Turnitin
  • Turnitin is a plagiarism detection application integrated with assignments and can be turned on to assess the similarity between submissions and others' writings. For more on its use and setup see the Turnitin topic below.

Visibility

• At the bottom of the editing page, fixed, next to the Save and Close Save and Cancel buttons is the visibility switch which allows the instructor, from the edit screen to make the assignment visible or invisible to students.
• Visibility can also be given or taken away at the assignments tool page, through the drop down menu next to the assignment's name.

Turnitin^® Setup within D2L Brightspace Assignments

• Turnitin must be turned on BEFORE students start submissions. 
• Turnitin^® integration only works with the assignment file submission type. This cannot be used for in-class submission types.
• It is extraordinarily important that if the course instructor choose to use Turnitin®, the course instructor must turn it on. The course instructor should set up their own defaults for consistency across their courses when it comes to the implementation of Turnitin^®.

Originality Check^®

• The Turnitin^® integration is a check mark placed in the box within the Assignment submission folder within D2L Brightspace. It is recommended the first two check boxes are both selected--the second one will allow students to see their similarity score.
• To access the Turnitin^® integration, use the Evaluation & Feedback accordion in the right margin of the Assignment. Manage Turnitin^® will be at the bottom of the accordion. 

Frequency

• The default is for Turnitin to automatically run originality checking for every submission. Upon student submissions, the originality report will be requested. The other option will require the course instructor to select a button next to a submission for a manual originality report request. Below is the icon for manual submission. 
• It is recommended to leave the default which submits for every student.  

More Options in Turnitin^®

For an instructor's first setup, it is recommended to select "More Options in Turnitin^®," and then select "Optional Settings" within the pop-up window. These options are personal. Take time to read the descriptions associated with each setting. Descriptions are found by selecting the question mark that follows the options. Read them and understand what the implications are for the different options.

Submission settings

• Store in the Standard Paper Repository or not, that is the question. The Library suggests DO NOT store the submitted papers.
• Allow submission of any file type. If this is unchecked for a computer science course where programs are uploaded, there will have trouble. Computer science teachers might not want to use Turnitin for their assignment folders.
• Enable ETS e-rater - Grammar and spelling help for instructors.
• Attach a rubric (this is not a D2L rubric so it will only exist in Turnitin^® ). While this is available, it is not recommended to be utilized. Using D2L rubrics is the preferred method.

Compare against

Select submission(s) for comparison:

• Student paper repository
• Current/archived website content
• Periodicals, journals, and publications

Similarity Report

• Three different report generation options:
  • Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)
  • Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until the due date): After 3 resubmissions reports are generated after 24 hours
  • Generate reports on due date (students can resubmit until the due date)
• A separate check box is required to allow students to view their similarity reports. It is recommended to allow students the ability to see their similarity reports.
  • There are three options to exclude from the comparison:
  • Bibliographic materials
  • Quoted materials
  • Small sources

Additional Settings

• This checkbox will set the selected options as defaults for the course instructor for future Turnitin^® integrations.
• When Turnitin is on, student submissions with similarity scores display as well as the colors associated with those scores.
• Select the similarity score to access the report.
• To enable  in-line comments on student papers, select the publish feedback option. 
• For information about interpreting Similarity Reports, see library resource guide: LibGuides: Turnitin for Faculty.

Additional Assignment and Tool Resources

Additional Assignment and Tool Resources

• System Office Knowledge Base Articles [All Open in a new window, MinnState D2L Support Center]
  • Manage Assignment Submissions - Includes bulk publish feedback on page 10.
  • Create and Manage Assignments  - Assignment creation in detail
  • Assignments: How to download assignment submissions (See page 11 with a similar title)

  Assignments Tool Self-Help Video

• Create an Assignment - Instructor
• Grade Submissions in Assignments - Instructor
• Add Restrictions to an Assignment - Instructor (video includes edit of existing folder to add restrictions and can be set as you are creating the assignment folder)