Assignments allow faculty members to create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. Assignments may be created from any Content Area within the Course Menu, but NIU's default Course Menu includes a menu area for Assessments.
Once an Assignment has been created, students may access the assignment, complete it in a separate file, and send it back to the faculty member from within Blackboard. The faculty member may respond to each student separately, supplying feedback about their individual assignment and attaching files, if necessary.
Assignments that are created within Blackboard will automatically generate a column in the Grade Center for that assignment.
To create an Assignment: From the Course Menu select a Content Area, such as Assessments > from the Content Area, click the drop-down menu labeled Assessments > then select Assignment
Faculty have multiple options when creating an assignment:
Assignments allow faculty members to create coursework and manage the grades and feedback for each student separately. Assignments may be created inside any folder or learning module, but we recommend creating a folder or module for each week that includes all of the content, tasks, and assessments students will complete during that time frame.
When an Assignment has been created, students may complete the assignment by submitting a file, typing their response, or embedding media from sites such as Kaltura. The faculty member may respond to each student separately, supplying feedback about their individual assignment with inline annotation or by attaching files or completing a rubric.
Assignments that are created within Blackboard will automatically generate an item in the Gradebook.
Assignments are added by clicking the plus icon inside the course and selecting Create. Learn more about adding Assignments in Ultra Course View »
Assignments in Ultra Course View can include:
Enter the Grade Center and click on the action link next to the assignment name, and click on "Assignment File Download". On the following page, check the box next to the user's name, or you can check all users at the top of the screen. Click Submit when finished, and on the following page, click the "Download assignments now" link. All files you have selected have now been downloaded in a zip file to the location you specified.
There is a different process for downloading all SafeAssign submissions.
Occasionally, point values on assignments and assessments are altered during the course copy process. To edit the points possible for an assignment:
One approach you may want to try with the Blackboard Grade Center is to add a column in the Grade Center in which you simply post for the students how many hours you have record of them completing. The column can be worth 0 Points Possible. When you are creating the column, set Points Possible to 0 and select No for the option Include item in Grade Center calculations. This will ensure that you are able to use that column to post the number of hours that a student has completed without that numerical value being added to their total points earned in the course.
You can take this same approach for other items such as attendance.
Blackboard doesn't have a built-in check, check plus, or check minus feature. However, by adding a text item to the Grade Center and using the square root sign √ in place of a check mark, it is possible to in effect assign these values.
First, add a column to the GradeCenter, making sure to enter 0 for Points Possible, to set the Primary Display to Text, and to select Nofor Include item in Grade Center calculations.
Then, click on a cell in the new column to enter a value for a student, either a √, √+, or √-. To enter a √ on a Windows PC, ensure that Num Lock is ON and then hold down the Alt key and type 251 using the number pad and then let off the Alt key. Then, a - or + can easily be entered after the √.
Because this is a text column, the values are not computed into a numeric score and are not included when Blackboard computes the total score for the course.
The easiest way to assign a course grade independent of the Total grade is to add a column to the Grade Center, set the Primary Display to Text and choose No for the option Include item in Grade Center calculations.
When entering a grade, you can simply type A, B, C, etc. in the grade cell.
For more information on the Grade Center, please visit the main Grade Center page.
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