Instructor Support for Educational Systems

Grading Assignments

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Assignments can be graded in several ways in Brightspace. This article explains how to use each of the possibilities.

Please take into account that simultaneous assessment with multiple markers is not possible. If you want to grade assignments with other colleagues, please make sure you do not evaluate the same student at the same time. Your evaluation of a submission might be overruled by your colleagues when you grade the same student. This also applies for grading in Feedback Studio.

Please see here for more information.

Basic

Assess with just a grade and general feedback

Go to Course Tools > Assignments and click on the Assignment you want to assess. The screen below will appear.

ScreenSteps - Google Chrome

From the submission list view click on a submission to start Evaluation.

  1.  On the left are all the submissions from this student. The most recent submission is always on top. 
  2. Add a score
    • NB This grade will be transferred to the Gradebook, since a grade item is associated.
  3. Add feedback as desired
  4. Either Publish your evaluation or Save Draft.
    • If you choose Publish, the grade and feedback will be immediately visible for the student.
    • In case you want to release grades and feedback to all students at the same time, opt for Save Draft
  5. Navigate to the next / previous student submission via the arrows.
  6. When you have evaluated all submissions of this assignment click on Back to Submissions to return to the submission list view.
  7. It is also possible to record or add an audio file. 

Finally, you can publish all feedback via the Publish All button. A dialog window opens that shows the total number of students, for how many students feedback will be published, and how many students are not yet assessed. It is also possible to publish feedback for selected students. Check the desired students and select Publish Feedback.

ScreenSteps - Google Chrome

When you press on publish all you get a dialog confirming about what you want to publish and to who. It shows the following information:

  1. The amount of students who are able to see and submit work to the assignment.
  2. The amount of students who will receive feedback when pressing Publish.
  3. The amount of students where the feedback is not publishing as there is nothing to publish yet.

Add an audio or video file

In order to record or add an audio file, click on the microphone icon in the evaluation. 

In order to record or add an video file, click on the camera icon in the evaluation.

A new window will appear. 

Click on either Record Audio or Upload File. Note that you can only record for one minute in Brightspace. However, it is possible to upload a larger file (up to 1 GB). 

Enter a title, description and select the audio language if you are willing to generate captions for your file. Finally, click on Add and on Update. 

Students are able to open this file in Brightspace and are also able to download it. 

Annotate submissions with Brightspace inline feedback

Brightspace offers built-in Annotations Tools in Assignment to assess submission with inline feedback with free hand drawing, highlighting, text and note annotation. This allows you to assess submissions directly in Assignments, without using external tools like Turnitin.

The inline feedback offers an addition to just adding a grade and general feedback. As shown below the left side looks a tad different, whereas the right side still offers the same fields as discussed above.

Please see this extensive article on how to enable Annotation Tools for your Assignment and more information on how to work with inline feedback in Brightspace.

Annotate submissions with Turnitin Feedback Studio

If you have enabled Turnitin for your assignment, you have the option to assess submissions with Feedback Studio. 

Please see here for an extensive article on How do I assess Turnitin Assignments with Feedback Studio?

Advanced

Assess submissions with Rubrics

The Rubrics tool is used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently. The Rubrics tool allows you to create analytic rubrics (multiple criterion) or holistic rubrics (one criterion). Once a rubric has been created and is now linked to an assignment or to a discussion topic, you can then grade the students based on the rubric.

Please see this extensive article on how to assess with Rubrics or check out this chapter to review more information about Rubrics in general.

Annotate submissions offline in bulk

Note: Evaluating an assignment in bulk does not allow grading to take place in bulk, although this can easily be done in the submission overview screen.

Brightspace allows Instructors to process and evaluate assignments in bulk. This is a great time save when dealing with large cohorts. In short, this feature condenses all student’s submissions into a .ZIP file. Instructors open the file, add their feedback, save the file and upload the ZIP file back to Brightspace. The evaluated file will become an attachment to the student’s submission.

Please see here for more information on how to annotate submissions offline in bulk.

Assess submissions with Anonymous Marking

Anonymous Marking also works with Turnitin! Let students know they should not put their name in the title of the submission.

Anonymous Marking is a setting in Brightspace which allows you to mark your students Assignment submissions without knowing the identity of the student. As shown below, you will see names as Anonymous User 3 while evaluating with Anonymous Marking turned on.

ScreenSteps - Google Chrome

Please see here for more information on how to enable Anonymous Marking for you assignment and an extensive guide on assessing submissions with Anonymous Marking.

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