Add an Assignment Activity to a CLE Course

The assignment activity allows instructors to collect work from students, review it, and provide feedback including grades. The work a student submits is visible only to the teacher and not to other students. Assignments allow for due dates that automatically appear on a CLE Calendar and the grades are automatically entered as items in the CLE Grade book.

Students can submit any digital content (files), including word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, and video clips. Assignments don’t necessarily have to consist of file uploads - teachers can configure settings so that students type directly into a text field in the CLE.

An assignment activity can also be set up to not accept any student submissions and serve as a reminder to students of a ‘real-world’ assignment they need to complete and to record grades in the CLE gradebook for activities that don’t have an online component.

Create an Assignment Assignment Settings Grade an Assignment

To create an assignment:

1. Log in to the CLE (cle.ucsf.edu).
2. Go to the CLE course where you would like to add the Assignment activity.
3. From the gear icon at the top-right of the CLE, select Turn editing on.
4. Inside the course section where the Assignment should be displayed, click the Add an activity or resource link.
5. Near the top of the window that appears, select the Assignment activity, then scroll to the bottom of the window and click Add.
6. On the new assignment’s settings page, configure the assignment options. The page opens with General, Availability and Submission types settings in view. Select topic headings to make additional settings for submission types, grading,  groups, etc., or select Expand all (top right) to view all possible settings. For more information on these options, see Assignment Options (below), or click the help icon () next to any option.
7. Select Save and return to course to return to your main course page, or Save and display to view the assignment page.

Below are assignment settings that can be configured:

General

• Assignment name (required)
  This name displays as a link on your course page. Use something unique that clearly identifies this assignment from other course activities. We also recommend keeping the name short.
• Description (optional)
  Enter a summary of the assignment and instructions. You can also Display description on course page. Select this option to display the description underneath the assignment link on your course page. (This works best if the description is very concise).
• Additional files
  Drag and drop files into the upload field to append the file to the assignment Description.

Availability

Select Enable check boxes to set a date and time for:

• Allow submissions from
  Determines when students can begin to submit to the assignment.
• Due date
  Determines when the assignment will be due. The due date will show in the course Calendar and within the Activities block.
• Cut-off date
  Determine when the assignment will no longer accept submissions. 

Submission Types

• Submission types
  With Online text, students can enter text directly into an editor.  If File submissions are enabled, students can upload one or more files. 
  Note: To create an offline assignment where students will submit or perform work outside Moodle, leave both Online text and File submissions unchecked. You can still provide a description, set due dates and have the activity show in the course Calendar and Gradebook.
• Maximum number of uploaded files
  If file submissions are enabled, each student will be able to upload up to the set number of files for their submission.
• Maximum submission size
  If file submissions are enabled, each upload cannot exceed this file size per upload. (If a student can upload multiple files, and uploads files at different times, the total can exceed the set size.)
• Accepted file types
  To limit submissions to specific file types, select Choose. A pop up window will open with file type options. Select the file types for which submissions you would like to enable by clicking the radio button next to each option. Select Save changes.

Feedback Types

• Feedback comments
  If enabled, graders can provide written feedback for each submission. These comments are from the grader to the student.
• Feedback files
  If enabled, graders can upload files containing feedback when marking assignments. For example, you can upload marked up student submissions, documents with comments, or spoken audio feedback.
• Offline grading worksheet
  If enabled, graders can download a spreadsheet to enter grades without having to be logged in to Moodle. This can be useful if you anticipate grading while disconnected from the Internet. 
• Comment inline
  If enabled, the submission text will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline or to edit the original text.

Submission Settings

• Require students to click submit button
  If enabled, students will have to select a Submit button to declare their submission as final. Requiring the Submit button allows students to keep a draft version of the submission on the system.
  Note: If this setting is changed from No to Yes after students have made submissions, the submissions will be regarded as final.

• Require that students accept the submission statement
  If enabled, students will be shown a statement that declares they are submitting their own original work and they will have to accept the statement before their submission is processed.
• Attempts reopened
  If set to Manually, the student's submission can be reopened by a teacher. If set to Automatically until pass, the student's submission is automatically reopened until the student achieves a passing grade (defined under Grade).
• Maximum attempts
  The maximum number of submission attempts that can be made by a student. After this number of attempts has been made, the student's submission will not be able to be reopened.

Group Submission Settings

• Students submit in groups
  If enabled, students submit work together in groups rather than individually. For example, a group of students can submit one file that contains the joint work of the group. 
• Require all group members submit
  If enabled, all students in a group must individually select the Submit button in order to acknowledge that they are signing off on their group's joint submission.
  Note: This option is available only if both the Students submit in groups and Require students select submit button are enabled.
• Grouping for student groups
  This is the groupings that the assignment will be grouped in the gradebook. If enabled, this option shows which Grouping has been selected in the CLE course.

Notifications

• Notify graders about submissions
  If enabled, instructors and TAs will receive an email alert whenever a student makes a submission. (This may not be manageable in a class with a large number of students.)
• Notify graders about late submissions
  If enabled, instructors and TAs will receive an email alert whenever a submission is made after the due date.
• Default setting for "Notify students"
  If enabled, the default setting for notifying students when grades are released will be set in the assignment grading interface. This can be changed manually during grading. For more information, see CLE Notifications.

Note: Students always receive an email confirmation when a submission is successfully made.

 Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings

• Set Enable Turnitin to Yes.
• Set Display Similarity Reports to Students to Yes. This allows students to view Similarity Reports within each created assignment.

          For more, see Turnitin Assignment.

The assignment page for a Moodle assignment activity allows you to do several important grading functions. Grades entered on this page will appear in the corresponding grade column of the gradebook. We recommend grading Assignments from this page, rather than entering grades in the Grader report, especially if you want to provide feedback as online text comments or in files.

Before starting

If you want to hide grades and feedback from students until a provisional date, then you will need to either hide the grades in the Grader Report, Otherwise grades will display to students as you save them one by one. The CLE allows you to automatically hide grades and feedback until a set date: 

1. In the Grader Report, turn editing on; further settings and controls display.
2. In the activity's column, in its Controls row, click the Edit icon; a settings page displays.
3. To reveal the settings for dates setting, click the link to Show more; further settings display.
4. For the Hidden until setting, click its Enable checkbox; it becomes editable.
5. Type in the date and time to reveal the marks and feedback.
6. Save.

        

Grading from the Assignment page

1. On your CLE course page, click the name of an Assignment activity. The Assignment page opens and displays the description of the assignment and a summary of submissions.
2. Below the summary, click View/grade all submissions. The View/grade all submissions page will open.
3. The View/grade all submissions page displays a table showing student names when submissions were last modified, online text submissions, and file submissions.
4. To view and grade individual submissions, under the Grade column heading, click Grade. The Grading page will open.
5. On the Grading page for each student, you will be able to view online text, download submitted files, enter and reply to Submission comments, enter Feedback comments, upload Feedback files, and grade the submission.
6. On the Grading page for each student, you can also use the CLE built-in Annotation tool to add feedback to students' submissions. To annotate students' submissions, see below: Annnotating assignment. 
7. Complete your grading as needed by clicking Save changes or Save and show next. To notify students of a grade change via email, click the Notify students checkbox before saving entries.

Annotating assignment

On the grading page, you can 

① View students submissions
② Annotate submissions with annotation tools
③ Switch student to grade
④ Give grades (point scale or rubric)
⑤ Leave feedback comments

You can annotate students' submissions (pdf, docx, odt, rtf, or online text) using a variety of tools, such as the comment, selection, shape, and stamps, which may be saved to a comment bank.

a. Comment Tool

a1. Draw text box
a2. Select the color of the text box

b. Selection Tool

b1. Grab the screen to navigate inside the assignment preview area
b2. Select an item to edit, move or delete

c. Shape Tool

c1. Scribble lines
c2. Straight lines
c3. Rectangles
c4. Circles
c5. Highlighter
c6. Select the color of the shapes and the highlighter

d. Stamp Tool

d1. Apply stamp
d2. Select stamp

Offline Grading for CLE Assignment Submissions

Offline grading allows you to grade Assignment submissions without being logged in to CLE or connected to the Internet. There are two options to grade assignments offline: download assignment submissions or use the grading worksheet.

Option 1: download assignment submissions

If you’d prefer grading offline, downloading submissions is still an option although you won’t be able to use the aforementioned Annotation tool. 

1. Download the assignment submission.

• To download all submissions, go to Assignment > View all submissions > Grading action > Download all submissions.

       

• To download a single submission, go to Assignment > View all submissions > Click a file in the File submissions column.

       2. Add assignment comment with the applications on your computer (Word, Adobe Acrobat, etc).

       3. Upload the assignment in the Grading page.

Option 2: use the grading worksheet

With the grading worksheet, you can enter grades into a customized grading spreadsheet and upload the spreadsheet to Moodle at a later time.
Note: Offline grading is not available for assignments that use an advanced grading method (e.g., Rubric or Grading Guide).

Enable Offline Grading in Assignment Settings

1. On your main course page, click Turn editing on (green pencil icon , top right), and the edit links will appear.
2. Next to the Assignment you want to configure, click Edit (below link) and from the Edit drop-down menu select Edit settings. The Assignment's Settings page will open.
3. Click the Feedback types heading to expand it.
4. For Offline grading worksheet, select the check box .
5. At the bottom of the page, click Save and return to course.

Download the Grading Worksheet

1. On your main course page, click the link to the assignment you want to grade. The Assignment summary page will open.
2. On the Assignment summary page, click View/grade all submissions. The Assignment submissions page will open.
3. At the top left of the page, from the Grading action drop-down menu, select Download grading worksheet.
   
   The worksheet will download to your computer as a .csv file.
   Note: If the assignment allowed Online text submissions, student submissions will be included in the Online text column of the spreadsheet. 
4. Open the downloaded .csv file in any spreadsheet program. You can input grades and feedback comments as text entries.

   • Enter grades in the Grade column according to grade settings for the assignment (the maximum possible grade will show in the Maximum grade column).

   • Enter feedback in the Feedback comments column.

5. When you are finished entering grades be sure to save the modified spreadsheet as a .csv file.

Upload Grading Worksheet

1. On your main course page, click the link to the assignment you want to grade. The Assignment summary page will open.
2. Click View/grade all submissions. The Assignment submissions page will open.
3. At the top left of the page, from the Grading action drop-down menu, select Upload grading worksheet.
   
   The Upload grading worksheet page will open.
4. On the Upload grading worksheet page, drag and drop your modified grading worksheet file from your computer into the file area. Alternatively, click Choose a file... to find and select your worksheet file for upload.
   Note: Make sure that the worksheet is saved in comma separated values format (.csv).
5. Click Upload grading worksheet. The Confirm grade import page will open.
6. On the Confirm grade import page, click Confirm. You will be returned to the Assignment submissions page.

Grading Worksheet

Grading Worksheet is a spreadsheet that you can download from the grading page in an assignment activity. You can fill out this spreadsheet and upload back to the Assignment to update the grade.

To use Grading Worksheet:

1. Go to Assignment > View all submissions > Grading action > Download Grading Worksheet
2. A .csv file will be downloaded to your local drive. Open the file, enter student grades and comment, then save
3. Go back to the View all submissions page in the Assignment
4. From the Grading Action drop-down menu, choose Upload Grading Worksheet
5. Upload the updated Grading Worksheet. Wait for the file name to appear in the box
6. Click Upload Grading Worksheet; a Confirmation box displays the students grades and feedback that will be imported – review this carefully
7. Click Confirm; a summary of updates displays
8. Click Continue