Group Assignment Quickstart Guide

Please ensure that all the students on your module are in a group before submissions are made. If you do not do this then one student’s assignment submission will become available to all students. All groups must be correct prior to the first submission. Changing group membership after one submission will result in assignments being deleted.

Please refer to our guidance on Adding Groups to your module for more information.

When using group assignments you need to set up and apply groupings in addition to groups. This is because group submissions can disappear if groups are used and a student is in one group and is subsequently added to another group. This setting is to be applied under step 7 of this guide.

What does the setting require all group members to submit mean?

If set to No:

All members of the group have the ability to submit a file on behalf of the group.
All group members can replace the submitted file with a new one at any point up to the assignment deadline.
Once the submission deadline is passed the submitted file is automatically assumed to have been agreed as the final one by each of the group members.

If set to Yes:

All members of the group have the ability to submit a file on behalf of the group.
Each group member must click the Submit assignment button to confirm that this is the final version of the assignment as agreed with the group.
Once a group member has clicked Submit assignment, they cannot change their mind and replace the submitted file with any other file even if the assignment deadline has not yet been reached.
Group members who have not clicked Submit assignment can replace the submitted file with a new file. If the last member of the group to submit, changes the file submission and clicks Submit assignment, other members of the group will not be able to change it. The group will need to contact the lecturer or course officer to revert the assignment to Draft (see additional note below).
The assignment is not deemed to be submitted until each of the group members has clicked the Submit assignment button.
When one student has submitted, the other members of the group will be able to see who still has to submit.

Click for more information on reverting an assignment to Draft status when ‘Require all group members submit’ is set to Yes

If the assignment is reverted to draft after it has been submitted, the submission status for each student in the group will revert to Draft but it is only the student whose record the lecturer clicked on in the grading action screen to revert the submission who needs to re-submit. The other students will have a Draft status but they will not be included in the list of students who need to submit. If the lecturer then reverts more students in the group, the status for all students in the group will still be Draft but only students whose submission status was clicked to revert the submission will need to re-submit, and not the others in the group. When all those students who need to re-submit have re-submitted, the status of the assignment in the gradebook will be displayed as Submitted for all members of the group.

Step 1- Create: Turn editing on. Open the section you would like to add an assignment in and choose Add an activity or resource.Select Assignment from the Activity list and and it will be added(and opened).

Step 2- General: In the General settings, provide a name and a description for your assignment.Check the box if you would like to Show the Description on the module page.If needed, upload the files you would like to attach to this assignment (i.e. assignment cover sheet).

Step 3- Availability: In the Availability box, select the date the assignment will be available from and the deadline for submissions (Due date).

We recommend that assignment deadlines are set between 9-5 Monday-Friday to ensure educational technology and course office support is available for students who experience problems submitting assignments.The Cut-off date is the date after the deadline that students can submit until. This is useful for managing late submissions. Please note that students who submit until the deadline can edit their assignment if the cut-off date has not yet been reached.The Remind me to grade by date appears in Module Events & Upcoming Events blocks for staff enrolled on a module to remind them of grading deadlines.

Step 4- Submission types & accepted file types: In the Submission types box, decide whether the submission will be online text or students will upload a file. Typically our assignments are File submissions so no change needs to be made.For a file submission assignment then indicate how many files students can submit from the Maximum number of uploaded files.Accepted file types can be restricted by selecting from a drop-down list. If the field is left empty, then all file types are accepted.

Step 5- Feedback types: In most cases, you will not need to change the settings in the Feedback types box.If you need to review these settings, please refer to the Feedback types of guidance.

Step 6- Submission settings: In the Submission settings box, select Yes in the Require students to click submit button only if you want all members of a group to click the Submit assignment button to confirm that this is the final version of the assignment as agreed with the group.

Step 7- Group assignment settings: The Students submit in groups option should be to Yes, to create a group assignment.

Require group to make a submissionSet this to Yes. When a student who is not in a group attempts to submit, Moodle will display a message “You’re not a member of any group; please contact your lecturer”, and the student will not be able to submit the assignment.
Require all group members submitThis setting will only be enabled if you have ticked the “Require students click submit button” earlier.

If Yes is selected, then the assignment will not be classed as “submitted” until all members of the group have submitted.

Grouping for student groups

This setting allows you to select a grouping for your assignment. If students are in more than one group on the module, or may be added to another group later, you will need to select the relevant grouping to manage the group assignment. For example, James Jones is in Project Group A and Lisa’s Personal Tutor Group on your module. If you don’t create an assignment grouping, James will have the option of submitting an assignment to two separate groups, Project Group A and Lisa’s Personal Tutor Group

If a particular grouping is selected here, then the gradebook will display any other groups and non-grouped students in the “default group”.

If “none” is selected, then the gradebook will display the names of all the groups and put any non-grouped students into the “default group”.

Step 8- Notifications : In most cases, you will not need to change the Notifications settings

Step 9- Grade: In the Grade section, select the type of grade and the grading method. The most common settings are point and simple direct grading.

If you need to use the more advance settings:
Please refer to the guidance on how to use scales as grades, and Marking Record and Grades as grading methods.
Please refer to the guidance on Facilitating multiple markers and anonymous marking if you need to set a process with several markers or blind marking.
Due to the way that groups are managed in Moodle, it is not possible to have an anonymous group assignment as the group name displays in the assignment submission area. This means that lecturers who may have set up the groups can differentiate between the submissions or can go to the groups in Moodle to see the group members via Settings >Users > Groups.

Step 10- Common settings: In the Common module settings, you can decide if you want to show or hide your assignment using the Availability settings. You do not need to change the group mode, this is managed from Group assignment settings in step 7.

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