Assignments - Faculty Portal

A video tutorial on how to create assignments in Blackboard. If you assign work for students to submit and receive grades and feedback than assignments is the tool you want.

Almost identical to an Assignment, a SafeAssignment only allows you to upload certain file types and is automatically checked for plagiarism. Instructors may also upload individual "suspicious" student papers for plagiarism check.

Blackboard’s plagiarism detection tool, called SafeAssign, is for instructors' use to discourage plagiarism in student works. To initiate an automatic plagiarism detection process for all student submissions, you simply create a regular Blackboard Assignment and activate “Plagiarism Tools” in its settings.

Direct Submit allows faculty members to submit one paper at a time or multiple papers at once in a ZIP file format for a plagiarism check.

Direct Submit allows faculty members to submit one paper at a time or multiple papers at once in a ZIP file format for a plagiarism check.

This tutorial shows you how to use the grading sidebar to see assignment submissions and annotate them with feedback for students.

Running Total - April 30, 2018 Running Total How does the Grade Center calculate grades for your students? How does Blackboard know whether to count a missing assignment as exempt or a zero? You determine this yourself by choosing the setting for Running Total. By default, Running Total is turned ON in each column in the Grade Center, which means that empty cells are not counted in any calculations. If there is no grade, it doesn't count against the student. However, if you want this to count against the student because they didn't submit an assignment, you must enter a zero in that cell. It is important to do this before the end of the semester so students know how these missing assignments impact their grade. If they are left blank, their grade is artificially inflated. You might be asking yourself, well, why don't I just turn off Running Total? If you turn off Running Total, then every blank cell in the Grade Center counts as a zero. If you set up all of your columns in the Grade Center at the beginning of the semester, that's a lot of zeros! Their first assignment might bring their grade up from 0% to 2%, which might be pretty discouraging to students. We recommend leaving Running Total on, and then adding zeros to empty columns as you enter grades. This gives students a realistic picture of their course grade at any point throughout the semester. Read about what happened to Karen Miller when she started using the Grade Center in her post, Blackboard's Gift.

Organize the Grade Center - April 23, 2018 Organize the Grade Center How organized is your Grade Center? Do you have unused columns cluttering it up? Can you easily find what you're looking for? Did you know that you can customize the Grade Center? The Grade Center comes with student data columns, and two total columns. As you add graded items to your course, they get added to the Grade Center and become the last column on the right. If you copy Grade Center columns and settings when you do a course copy, you might end up with duplicates of all of your columns! Check out the steps below to customize your Grade Center so it's nice and tidy before the end of the semester. Organize Columns Click the Manage drop down menu on the Action Bar. Select Column Organization. On the next screen, click and drag the four-headed arrow next to an item to re-order the columns. To hide columns, select the check box next to the item(s), click the Show/Hide button, and select Hide Selected Columns. To change categories, select the check box next to the item(s), click the Change Category to button and select the new category from the list. When you're done making changes, click Submit. Delete Unused Columns To delete unused columns, click the drop down next to the title of the column and select Delete Column. Tip: If you click the drop-down menu next to an item in the Full Grade Center and there is no delete button, that means that the assigned work is deployed somewhere in your class. You will need to delete the item in your content folders or discussion board to be able to delete the column. Are you ready to Calculate your Grades? Follow these steps on the Faculty Portal.

Customize how and when students see test results You can manage what students see after submitting a test by going to the test, clicking the drop down next to it and clicking Edit the Test Options. Scroll down to the section labeled Show Test Results and Feedback to Students. Here is a brief explanation of the options. By default, the first row shows what students will see after submission, which is just their score per question. This essentially lets students know what they got right or wrong, but that's it. You also have these options: All Answers: This displays the question and all of the answer choices. This reminds students what the choices were when they took the test, but it doesn't show the correct choice or what they chose. Correct: This shows what the correct answer is for each question. By itself, it doesn't show what they other choices were, so if you want students to see what all of the choices were, then you should also click All Answers. Submitted: If you want to remind students what they chose for their answer, then you can check this box. It will display the answer the student chose. However, it doesn't show what the correct answer was, or the other options, so if you want students to see those, you will need to click the All Answers and/or Correct boxes, too. Feedback: If you entered feedback on the questions when you created the test, check this box for students to see it. You have the option when creating questions to provide feedback for when a student gets the question correct, as well as when they are incorrect. Students will not see this feedback unless you check this box. Show Incorrect Answers: This displays all of the questions on the test (without the answers, unless you have checked All Answers) with a red x icon next to the questions that the student got incorrect. Students can usually figure out which questions they got wrong by how many points they received, but this is just a nice visual way to show this. Also, if you have items that need manual grading, it will put a Needs Grading icon next to the question so the student doesn't think that they automatically got that question wrong when there are no points. You can use any combination of these options to determine what you want students to see. In addition, you can also show one set of options After Submission, and then choose another set of options On Specific Date, After Due Date, After Availability End Date, or After Attempts are graded (every student must have a graded attempt to satisfy this rule). Some instructor will let the students see which questions they got incorrect After Submission, but then show all of the answers, the correct answers, and the submitted choice After Due Date. For my practice tests, I show the students All Answers, Submitted, and Show Incorrect Answers. This lets them see the whole test again and gives them the responsibility to look up the correct answers. I'm mean like that.

Do you have a student with a disibility request for an accommodation allowing them additional time on a test? If you use Blackboard for tests and quizzes, there is a setting that easily allows you to adjust the timer for individual students. Follow these steps: