How to create a Moodle assignment

Moodle Help & Support (Staff)

This refers to Moodle 4.1 from August 2023 onwards

A Moodle Assignment is an activity requiring students to either upload files or text, or that relates to an offline or other activity that needs to be marked. 

NOTE: Marking in Moodle assignment should be carried out only with the Moodle marking tools.
It is not intended that Turnitin Feedback Studio be used to mark a Moodle assignment. Turnitin in a Moodle assignment is solely intended for the production of similarity reports. 

1. Navigate to your module and click the editing icon (located in the top-right of the screen)   
2. Within the section you wish to create the assignment click on the + Add an activity or resource link.
   
   
3. Towards the top, in the ACTIVITIES section, click the icon for 'Assignment' and the assignment settings page will load

Settings explained

General

• "Assignment name": Enter the assignment name, preferably recognisable and unique. 
• "Description": In the Description enter information about expected file type the student should submit and also provide a link to the assignment submission checklist: http://bit.do/assignmentcheck. This link helps increase the chances of  the student's work being successfully submitted. 
  • To add the checklist link either type in the link address or the word Submission checklist. Highlight the link address or the words then press the chain icon button .

• • A pop up window will appear. Type the link address http://bit.do/assignmentcheck in the "Enter a URL" text box. Check the box for "Open in new window" (this will mean the checklist opens in a new tab). Then press the 'Create link' button.

• "Display description on module page": Tick this box for the Description text to appear beneath the Moodle assignment, this is recommended because it enables students to see any key information before they submit. 
• "Additional files": If you want to add a file for students that will assist them in the assignment then you can add this here.  

Availability

Set the dates and times in Allow submission from and Due date for the assignment and ensure the check boxes are ticked. It is recommended that Always show description is ticked. 

• "Allow submissions from": This is the date and time when students can start submitting.  
• "Due date": This is the date and time for the deadline of the assignment. 
• "Cut-off date": After this date and time is passed students will not be able to submit at all. 
• "Remind me to grade by": The expected date that marking of the submissions should be completed. This date will appear as a reminder in the calendar and on dashboard notifications if the new overview block is selected.

Submission types

Leave the 'File submissions' check box ticked as this will enable students to upload files. If you want students to type directly into a Moodle assignment or submit video, then tick the check box 'Online text'. Select the maximum number of files they can upload if needed, leave the "Maximum submission size" at default unless you wish to restrict file size. 

• "Submission types": Online text, file submission or both. If Online text is selected then can set a word limit. 
• "Maximum number of uploaded files": Defaults to 1 but you can allow up to 20 files.
• "Maximum submission size": Up to 250mb
• "Accepted file types": Able to restrict what file types will be accepted. Separate by using a comma, for example: .pdf, .docx   

Feedback types
Under "Feedback types" you have a selection of options which will impact how you give feedback to students. For the majority of general feedback, 'Feedback comments' and/or 'Feedback files' should suffice. Below gives an explanation about what type of each feedback offers. 

• 'Feedback comments' (selected by default). This means entering the score and the student feedback within Moodle. 
• 'Offline grading worksheet'. This enables you to download and upload a spreadsheet of grades in bulk. If you click the ‘Feedback comments’ button as well then you will have a column within the spreadsheet to enter feedback. This may not be suitable for longer types of written feedback as this will need to be entered into Excel. 
• 'Feedback files'. This enables you to return files to the student, such as marked-up student submission documents with comments or even audio files with feedback. 

Note: If you wish to annotate the students’ submission, we recommend that you request your students to submit in PDF (if applicable) then you will be able to annotate their PDF submission regardless of what type of feedback selected. It does not work with any other file format. 

Submission settings
If you expect the student to submit an initial draft then set "Require students to click submit" button to 'Yes', if not then leave as 'No'. "Require that students accept the submission statement" should be set to 'Yes'. 

• "Require students click submit button" (students can keep a submission in draft form and resubmit if necessary until they click submit to send it finally for marking).
• "Require that students accept the submission statement" (if this is important).
• "Additional attempts" (you can make each attempt final, permit resubmission to be enabled for a student by an editing teacher or allow the student to resubmit until they achieve a required pass grade).
• "Maximum attempts" (number of resubmissions allowed).

Group submission settings

If you wish to set up a group assignment then set "Student submit in groups" to 'Yes'. You can then make selections as to whether students all need to submit as part of a group or someone from the group does. Please visit our How to enable group submissions in a Moodle assignment page for more information. 

• "Students submit in groups": If enabled students will be divided into groups based on the default set of groups or a custom grouping. A group submission will be shared among group members and all members of the group will see each others changes to the submission.

Notifications

"Notify graders about submissions" will send an email to all Teachers and Editing Teachers on the module every time a students submits or updates their assignment. We recommend that this is left as 'No' and "Notify graders about late submissions" is set to 'Yes'. Leave "Default for 'Notify students'" to 'No' otherwise an automated email will be sent to the student when their work has been marked. 

Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings

If you wish the assignment to be checked by Turnitin's text-matching system then set "Enable Turnitin" to 'Yes'. 

• "Enable Turnitin": Do you wish to send the submissions to Turnitin to check for plagiarism
• "Display Originality Reports to Students": Whether students can see their own originality reports. (Students can always check their work in the separate TurnitinUK Test Your Text module.)
• "When should the file be submitted to Turnitin?": Submit file when first uploaded is the default and is recommended.
• "Allow submission of any file type?": We recommend this option is set to No so that students may NOT submit files of types (e.g. .zip  or .pages) which cannot produce an originality report. If Yes is set, Turnitin will accept, but not produce reports on some files.
• "Store Student Papers: Set this to Standard repository.
• "Report Generation Speed": This refers to originality report generation (should they be generated each time a student resubmits – one per 24 hours – or only after the final submission?) and whether students can resubmit. We recommend Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are allowed until due date). 
• "Exclude Bibliography/Quoted Material/Small Matches": Choose whether to exclude the bibliography from Turnitin – this is often one of the biggest sources of matching, also exclude quoted material and small matches such as 4 or 6 words.
• "Attach rubric to this assignment": As this is a Moodle assignment leave this as 'No rubric'. You cannot use Turnitin rubrics to mark a Moodle assignment. Please contact Learning Technologies if you would like to use a Moodle rubric.
  

Grade

Set the grade options as you wish. Leave "Use marking workflow" as 'Yes', otherwise students will be able to access their mark and feedback as soon as you have finished marking. 

• "Grade": The types of grading available. Most will use 100. 
• "Grading method": Most will use default of 'Simple direct grading'.
• "Grade category": This is always set to 'Uncategorised'
• "Grade to pass": Can set a minimum grade a student must achieve to pass, has impact on activity completion 
• "Blind marking": This hides the identity of the students. Recommend that blind marking is set to 'No' if appropriate.
• "Use marking workflow": This is related to marking workflow and should be left set to 'Yes'.
• "Marking allocation": Can be used in conjunction with marking workflow option and enables the manual allocation of markers to students.

Common module settings

Restrict access

This enables you to apply a restriction such as date restriction or group restriction. You will need to click on the 'Add restriction...' button to do this and this will open a window.

If you wish to restrict the access of the assignment you can do so with ‘Date’, ‘Grade’, ‘User profile’, ‘Group’ and ‘Restriction set’.

It is recommended that if you want to restrict access then you do so via ‘Date’. To do this click Add restriction and then from the pop-up window click Date and set the date and timer restrictions you want. 

Once you are happy with how you have set up the assignment click on the 'Save and return to module' or 'Save and Display' buttons.

On your main Moodle page, click on the 'Turn editing off' button in the top right when you have finished

Similar tutorials

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