Assignment – Individual

 

This guidance contains all the assignment settings for setting up individual assignment submissions. Please refer staff to the Assignment Quickstart Guides for quick assignment setup.

Once one or more students have submitted an assignment; do not change any of the assignment settings, as doing so can cause student submissions to be hidden and unavailable for marking

Demonstration Video

Turn editing on. This will reveal an option to add an activity or resource at the bottom of each topic within the module. Click Add an activity or resource (in the section/topic where you want the assignment to be located), then select Assignment from the Activity list and then click Add.

General settings

Setting

Description

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Assignment name

Write a meaningful Assignment name.

Add New Assignment

Description

Provide clear instructions to your students about the assignment.

Display description on the module page

If ticked, the above Description will be displayed under the assignment link on the module page. If left un-ticked, the description will be displayed only when the assignment page is selected.

Additional files

Additional files for use in the assignment, such as for example submissions or answer templates, may be added. Download links for the files will then be displayed on the assignment page under the description. Note: Even where the Display description on the module page is ticked, the file only displays under the description when the assignment page is selected. The file is not displayed under the assignment link on the module page.

Availability settings

  • We recommend that assignment deadlines are set between 9-5 Monday-Friday to ensure educational technology, technology, and course office support is available for students who experience problems submitting assignments.

  • All assignment submission areas with deadlines should be clearly visible to students from the start date of the module. Assessment criteria should also be available to students from Moodle.

  • If you do not need to provide your students with extra time to submit, we recommend you set the Cut-off-date to the Due date. If no Cut-off date is set, students who click on their assignment to review their submission are marked as late even if they make no changes to their assignment submission.

Setting

Description

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Allow submissions from

Sets the date from when students will be able to submit to their assignment. This is enabled by default.

Assignment Availability

Due date

Sets the Due date for the assignment. This is enabled by default. We recommend that assignment deadlines are set between 9-5 Monday-Friday to ensure educational technology, technical and course office support is available for students who experience problems submitting assignments.

Cut-off date

Enabling the Cut-off date allows students to submit after the Due date (normally with a marks penalty per day after the due date). Any submissions added after the Due date will be marked as late. Submissions will not be allowed after the cut-off date. Check the Enable box to set the date. This is not enabled by default but must be selected

 

Please note that the cut-off date does not display to students so you will need to write the cut off date into the Description if you want students to be aware of it.

If you do not need to provide your students with extra time to submit, we recommend you set the Cut-off-date to the Due date. If no Cut-off date is set, students who click on their assignment to review their submission are marked as late even if they make no changes to their assignment submission.

Remind me to grade by

The date you must complete marking. This will appear as an upcoming event on your My Moodle page.

Always show description

This is set to Yes by default. If set to No, the assignment Description will only become visible to students at the Allow submissions from date.

Submission types settings

Setting

Description

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Submission types

Select the type of assignment: File submissions (students upload a Word or PDF file) or Online text (students type rich text directly into an editor field for their submission). With Online text submissions, markers can comment on, and edit students’ text directly.

 

Submission Types

Word limit 

If Online text submissions are enabled, then you can set the maximum number of words that each student will be allowed to submit. Tick the Enable box to set a word limit.

Maximum number of uploaded files

Set the Maximum number of uploaded files as required by the assignment. Please note, this is also the maximum number of feedback files that you can attach to each individual student when providing feedback. For example, if you want a student to submit one file but want to upload two feedback files then select three files. Remember to advise the student on how many files they should submit in the assignment instructions.

Maximum submission size

This setting defaults to the maximum upload limit for Moodle of 200MB.

Accepted file types

Accepted file types can be restricted by entering a semicolon-separated list of types, for example ‘video/mp4; audio/mp3; image/png; image/jpeg’. You may also limit to extensions by including the dot, for example ‘.png; .jpg’ If the field is left empty, then all file types are allowed.

Feedback types settings

Setting

Description

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Feedback types

Under the Feedback types, you can select how you want to manage your feedback. All three options are checked by default and we recommend not changing this option

 

  • Feedback comments. The marker can leave feedback comments for each submission.

  • Feedback files. The marker will be able to upload files providing feedback when marking the assignments. These files may be, marked-up student submissions, Word documents with comments or spoken audio feedback.

  • Offline grading worksheet. This setting enables the marker to be able to download a worksheet with fields to add in grades while they are offline and when ready, upload the worksheet into Moodle to automatically populate student grades (and comments where enabled) with the data inserted on the worksheet.

 

Feedback types

Comment inline 

If enabled, this setting allows the submission text to be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline (using a different color, perhaps) or to edit the original text.

Submission settings

Setting

Description

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Require students click submit button

We strongly recommend that you do not change this setting from the default of No as this can cause problems for students submitting. If set to Yes, students will have to click a Submit button to declare their submission as final. If they forget to click the Submit button before the deadline then their submission will show as late. A second issue is that if students click the Submit button before the deadline, but then update their work and wish to upload this newly edited file they will be unable to do so as they have already declared their submission to be the final one. They would then need to contact their lecturer and ask them to manually send their submission back to them.

Submission settings

Require that students accept the submission statement

This is set to Yes by default. We ask that you do not change this so that students confirm that they understand what is required of them when submitting assignments to City.

Attempts reopened

If you require students to resubmit an assignment following a fail at the first attempt you will find the improvements in assignment resubmission useful. This setting allows you to specify how assignment attempts are reopened. The options available are:

 

  • Never (assignment does not allow multiple attempts),

  • Manually (Lecturer reopens the assignment for the student), or

  • Automatically until pass (Assignment automatically reopens until the student reaches passing grade that has been set by the Lecturer in the Gradebook).

Maximum attempts

This setting allows you to specify how many attempts students should have at resubmitting an assignment once it has been reopened. To enable a resubmission, this needs to be set to at least 2.

Group assignment submission settings

These settings enable you to set up a group assignment. For an individual assignment leave all the settings as default. If you are setting up a group assignment then please see the Group Assignment Quickstart Guide.

Notifications settings

Setting

Description

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Setting

Description

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Notify graders about submissions

If set to Yes all lecturer roles will receive an email every time a student submits to the submission area.

 

Notifications settings

Notify graders about late submissions

If set to Yes all lecturer roles will receive an email every time a student adds a late submission to the submission area (after the due date).

The Default setting for “Notify Students” 

This field controls when to notify students of their feedback and sets the default value for the “Notify students” checkbox on the grading form. The default value is Yes.

Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings

You can generate Originality Reports for PDF and Word assignments submitted using Moodle’s assignment activity.

We recommend using Moodle assignment feedback functionality and not GradeMark when marking your Moodle assignment with Turnitin plugin enabled. Do not use Feedback Studio to provide grades and feedback for student assignments as there are issues with synching grades between Moodle assignment screen and Feedback. Students have also reported difficulty in opening Feedback Studio feedback in Moodle assignments. Use Moodle’s feedback functionality for adding feedback.

Before you enable Turnitin in your Moodle assignment have a look at the Accepted file types to ensure your assignment requirements are met.

Accepted file types

Turnitin currently accepts the following file types for upload into an assignment:

  • Microsoft Word™ (DOC and DOCX)

  • Corel WordPerfect®

  • HTML

  • Adobe PostScript®

  • Plain text (TXT)

  • Rich Text Format (RTF)

  • Portable Document Format (PDF)

  • Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX, and PPS) (Unable to generate an Originality Report )

  • Hangul (HWP)


For assignments that accept any file types the following image file types can be displayed and rendered in GradeMark, but will not generate an Originality Report:
JPEG

  • GIF

  • PNG

  • TIFF

  • BMP

  • PICT

Non-supported file types

  • Microsoft® Works (.wps) file types.

  • Apple Pages file types.

  • Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (i.e. .ods).

  • GDOC files (.gdoc) which are just links to online Google Document files, but don’t actually contain text or the document’s content. Google Drive must be used to upload Google Docs.

  • Microsoft Word 2007 macros-enabled (.docm) files.

All other file types that are not one of the file formats listed above will be accepted by Turnitin when the setting for Allow submission of any file type is set to Yes, but the file may not be displayed in GradeMark. When files cannot be displayed in GradeMark, Lecturers and Tutors are still able to download the original files.

  • The file size may not exceed 40MB. 

  •  Text only files may not exceed 2 MB.

  • Files must contain at least 21 words of text.

  •  PDF documents must contain text to generate an originality report. PDF files containing only images of text will be rejected during the upload attempt if the setting Allow submission of any file type is set to No and if set to Yes, will not generate an originality report.

Setting

Description

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Enable Turnitin

Select Yes if you want to generate an Originality Report.

Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings

 

Display Originality Reports to Students

The Default is No. This setting allows you to display Turnitin originality reports to student users. If set to Yes the originality report generated by Turnitin is available for the student to view. Showing students their originality reports and teaching them how to interpret them can be part of a learning activity about plagiarism and academic writing.

When should the file be submitted to Turnitin?

This setting cannot be changed from the default of the Submit file when first uploaded.

Allow submission of any file type?

This allows your students to submit any file type, but please note that an Originality Report will not be generated for all file types.

Store Student Papers

The default setting is Standard Repository. If No Repository is chosen, the student papers will be checked against the Turnitin Databases but will not be submitted to the Database.

 

If you are using Turnitin for formative assessment or have confidential project assignments you might not want the papers to be stored in the repository so that a formative draft does not show up as a copy for the summative submission so you can select No Repository.

Check against stored student papers

The default setting is Yes. This checks student submissions against papers previously submitted to Turnitin from students at City and other Universities using Turnitin.

Check against internet

The default setting is Yes. This checks student submissions against internet content stored in the Turnitin database.

Check against journals, periodicals, and publications

The default setting is Yes. This checks student submissions against journals, periodicals, and publications stored in the Turnitin database.

Report Generation Speed

The default setting is to Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are allowed until due date). Originality Reports for the initial submission by each student to this assignment will be generated immediately. Students may resubmit as often as they wish until the assignment due date. Originality Reports for the second or subsequent submission will require a 24-hour delay before the Originality Report begins processing. Only the latest submission is available to the Lecturer or student. Previous versions are removed. Student submissions will compare against one another within the assignment on the due date and time which may result in a change in the Originality Report, Similarity Index and results at the due date and time. Other options available are:

 

  • Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are not allowed) – Originality Reports for all submissions will be generated immediately. Students cannot resubmit papers. Submissions must be deleted by the Lecturer to enable resubmission.

  • Generate reports on the due date (resubmissions are allowed until due date): Originality reports will not be generated for any submission until the due date and time of the assignment. Students may resubmit as many times as needed until the due date and time without receiving reports. Resubmissions may not be made after the due date and time of the assignment.

Exclude Bibliography

The default setting is No. You can choose whether to include or exclude the Bibliography from the Similarity Index and Originality Report. This means that the similarity index will be reduced in all instances where the Bibliography is excluded.If set to Yes, excludes content underneath the words, references, bibliography.

Exclude Quoted Material

The default setting is No. You can choose whether to include or exclude any text within quotation marks from the Similarity Index and Originality Report. This means that the similarity index will be reduced in all instances where the quoted material is excluded. If set to Yes, excludes content enclosed between double quotation marks or content that is indented.

Exclude Small Matches

The default setting is No. You can choose whether to exclude small matches from the Similarity Index and Originality Report. The other options available are Words or Percent. Either the number of words or percentage of text to be excluded can be added to the box underneath this field.

Attach a rubric to this assignment

We do not recommend the use of Feedback Studio to mark Moodle assignments, so do not use this setting.

Grade settings

Setting

Description

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Grade

Select the Grade type. The options are None, Scale or Point. If Scale is chosen, you can then choose a scale from the Scale drop-down options. If the scale you want to use is already available in the drop-down list select the scale from the list. If you want to set up a custom scale, follow our guide to Add a new scale. Example scales are: 

 

  •  Like Rating to set up a scale for students to indicate if they  ‘Like’ forum posts.

  • Pass or fail to indicate if a student gains a pass or a fail.

  • Separate and Connected ways of knowing. Based on the theory of separate and connected knowing. More information can be found on the Moodle.org website.

If Point is chosen, you can enter the maximum grade available for this activity in the Maximum points field.

 

Grade settings

Grading method

  • The Simple Direct Grading method is the most commonly used grading option.

  • The Marking Record is an advanced grading method where a lecturer can enter a comment per criterion and a mark up to a maximum.

  • The Grading Method is an advanced grading form used for criteria-based assessment. The rubric consists of a set of criteria. For each criterion, several descriptive levels are provided. A numerical grade is assigned to each of these levels. The rater chooses which level answers/describes the given criterion best. The raw rubric score is calculated as a sum of all criteria grades. The final grade is calculated by comparing the actual score with the worst/best possible score that could be received.

Grade category

This determines where your assignment will sit within the grades area. You will need to set up the categories in the Grader report first. Please see the link to the grades guidance at the bottom of the page for more information on categories.

Grade to pass

This setting determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity and course completion, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red.

Blind (Anonymous) marking

Blind marking hides the identity of students to markers. Blind marking settings will be locked once a submission or grade has been made in relation to this assignment. Please note that this setting should not be used in conjunction with the notify graders settings as this will reveal the students’ identity via the emails sent. If you have enabled blind marking, you will need to click reveal student identities in order to release grades and feedback to students. Do not reveal student identities until the grading process is complete as this option cannot be re-enabled.

Use marking workflow

We recommend using Groups under Common module settings to Facilitating multiple markers. This requires less manual intervention than the settings Use Marking workflow and Use marking allocation.

If this setting is set to Yes, marks will go through a series of workflow stages before being released to students. This allows for multiple rounds of marking and allows marks to be released to all students at the same time.

Use marking allocation 

 If enabled together with marking workflow, markers can be allocated to particular students.

 

When you are ready to save the assignment settings click on the Save and Display button to view the assignment submission area.

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