4.5: Creating Assignments

Assignment Information - Options, Properties, etc.

Each assignment has a name and public and private descriptions that help you communicate information to your students and keep personal notes on each assignment. 

The other properties include:

• Modality: an assignment can be summative or formative. Summative assignments are like your standard homework assignment where only students can access it, and entries/scores are retained. Formative assignments are accessible by anyone with the assignment link, and submissions are only kept for a specific session. These assignments are best for in-class “clicker” questions or informal surveys.
• Assignment Template: you can automatically populate different properties if you have created an assignment template. Your template will appear in the Assignment Template dropdown menu, and you can find more information about creating templates later on in this page. 
• Assignment Group: you can assign a given assignment to a group. Different groups will generate categories in the gradebook and impact the ADAPT grade calculation. 
• Source: Questions can be added to an assignment using the ADAPT infrastructure (internal) or another system (external). Unless you already have questions in another technology that you use, you should set your Source to internal.
• Scoring type: Questions are scored as either performance (accuracy) or completion (participation). If you choose completion, a second option menu allows you to adjust the score mode and percentage. The default is 100% for any submission. 
• Points Per Question: You can either set the point value for each question or have the question weight based on the overall assignment points. 
  • If you specify the number of points for each question, you must enter the default points in the box below. Please note that you can change an individual question’s points when adding questions to an assignment.
  • If you choose to determine the question weight by total assignment points, you must enter the overall assignment points in the box below.
• Assignment Type: The previous section outlines the four main types of assignments. Each of these types creates a different set of properties:
  • For Real Time Graded Assessments, you can adjust the number of attempts, whether or not students can view hints, and when solutions are available.
  • In Delayed Graded Assessments, you can adjust how students upload files and the default submission type.
  • The learning trees contain several options that are explained in the learning trees page.
  • In Clicker Assessments, you can adjust the time allotment for the question.
• Algorithmic: some questions have the option to adjust the amounts given in the problem so students see a unique question. This feature isn’t available for all questions, but if you choose to use different values by clicking yes. Selecting no would give every student the same question. 
• Late Policy: There are three options – Do not accept late work, accept but mark late, and accept late with a deduction. If you select late with a deduction, you will be asked to provide the late deduction percent and how often it’s applied (just once, every day it’s late, etc.)
• Include in the Final Score lets you remove an assignment from computing the final ADAPT grade. 
• Instructions: This section allows you to communicate any special instructions for the assignment to your students. For example, you can provide links to outside technology that they need for the assignment or let them know how to do a certain submission. 
• Random Sampling allows you to assign a certain number of random questions from a group. If you choose Yes, you will need to identify the number of questions assigned to students. 
• Notifications: you can automatically notify the students of upcoming due dates. Students have the option to opt out of these notifications in their settings. 
• Assign to: you can assign assessments to everybody, different sections, or individual students. The options appear in the dropdown menu.
• The next properties deal with assignment availability and due dates. For each option, you can enter the date and time. The available on sets the dates for students to access the assignment. The due date is when the assignment is due, and the final submission date is when the assignment closes for good. 
• Add Assign To: you can add different dates for different sections or individual students by clicking this button. It brings up another set of Assign To and Date options. 

 Creating A New Assignment

You can create a new assignment by selecting the “New Assignment” button at the top of your course’s homepage (see (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\))).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): New Assignment Button

 After selecting the new assignment button, the assignment properties will appear. There are a variety of properties that you can adjust for each assignment that are listed in the previous section. Properties marked with an asterisk are required and will create an error message if left blank. When you have entered the appropriate settings, click save at the bottom of the form. Your new assignment will then appear on your course homepage. 

Importing Assignments

Importing an assignment allows you to copy the properties and questions from another assignment.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Import Assignment button

Here are the instructions on how to import an assignment:

1. Click the "Import Assignment" button (see (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)))
2. Selecting the “Import Assignment” button brings up a window with several dropdown menus that help you identify the source of the imported assignment. 
3. Select the collection in the first dropdown menu. There are three options:
   • My Courses – these are courses that you have created in your account.
   • Commons - these are courses that have been added to the commons. They usually relate to a textbook, but some have been generated by LibreText conductors. You can view Commons courses by navigating to the Commons option in your Dashboard dropdown menu. 
   • All Public Courses – these are courses that were created by other instructors and shared with the public. You can view Public Courses by navigating to the Public Courses option in your Dashboard dropdown menu.
4. Identify the course in the next dropdown menu. The options in the dropdown menu will change based on your source selection. 
5. Select the assignment in the final dropdown menu. The options in the dropdown menu will change based on your course selection. 
6. Then, identify the import level. The options are “Properties and Questions” or “Just the Properties.” Importing properties and questions copies the whole assignment, where just the properties brings over the assignment properties

Copying an Assignment

You can create new or duplicate assignments by copying an assignment in your course. It’s similar to importing a course, but you must use an assignment that’s already created in your course. To copy an assignment from your course’s homepage:

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Copy an Assignment button

1. Click the Create Assignment From Template icon in the actions column of the assignment (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\))):
2. Select which part of the assignment to copy: properties and questions or just the properties
3. Select the assign to’s: 

• Copy groups and associated times – copies the due dates and assigned groups
• Don’t copy groups and associated times – leaves the due dates and assigned groups blank. 

4. Click “Yes, copy assignment!”

Once the assignment has been copied, it will appear on your course home page with “copy” added to its name. You can adjust the properties and questions by clicking the assignment. 

Creating an Assignment Template

Assignment templates allow you to set up the basic structure of an assignment that you will use frequently, and you have the option to use a template when creating new assignments. To create a template:

1. Click on the “Dashboard” menu on the upper right of your ADAPT page.
2. Select the “My Assignment Templates” option, which takes you to a new page.
3. Click the “New Template” button.
4. Fill in the template information – Name and Description
5. Fill in the properties. The properties are similar to creating a new assignment except for the “assign to” information.  
6. Click submit.

The new template will appear in the Assignment Templates page. You can edit your template by clicking the pencil icon in the actions column of that template (Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\)))

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Edit template button