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How do I assess an assignment? (grade item, rubric)

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Note: There is a bug in Assignments. In older browsers (Firefox and Safari up to version 16) it seems as if submitted documents are not being loaded. The symbol that indicates that the document is loading remains on the screen. However, the document is already there when you scroll down. 

If you want to assess an assignment (grade it) and register the result in Brightspace, you have to attach the assignment to a grade item. This way graded submissions will be registered in the grade book in Brightspace. You can also assess an assignment using a rubric if you have attached a rubric to the assignment.

Mark assignments (flagging)

You can mark (flag) specific submissions within an assignment. For example, if you are assessing submissions on an assignment together with a colleague, you can flag half of the submissions. This way one of you can assess the flagged submissions, and the other can assess the unflagged submissions. Flagging can also be used as an alert for submissions which need further inspection or discussion.

  • Navigate to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Assignments.
  • Click the desired assignment. You will land on the Users tab.
  • For each submission you will see a flag icon. Click this icon to flag an assignment (or unflag it). A filled flag means you have flagged the submission.
  • Click on Submissions to be able to filter the submissions with flags.
  • Click Show Search Options.
  1. Under Flag Status, use the drop-down menu to select whether you want to see the flagged assignments (Submissions with flags) or the unflagged assignments (Submissions without flag).
  2. Enter a keyword in the search bar (Search For). Then click Enter on your keyboard or click the magnifying glass-icon in the search bar.

You must enter a keyword in the search bar to be able to search the list of submissions. Filtering for flags only works if you enter a keyword that appears in every submission. Thus it is useful to instruct students to add a specific element to the file name of their submission, for example TITLE-S1234567. You can now enter S as a keyword, because all submissions will have this S in their name. 

Assess with a rubric

An instructional video is included for this subject. This instructional video will provide a step-by-step explanation about assessing an assignment by using a rubric. A written manual can be found below the video.

After you have created a rubric and attached it to an assignment, you can use this rubric to assess submissions.

  • Navigate to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click on Assignments.
  • Click the assignment to see the submissions you want to assess.

At the bottom of your screen you see the overview of all submissions. You can filter these submissions based on:

  1. Student name (use the search bar);
  2. Submission specifics. To do this, click the drop-down menu under Submissions and select:
    • Show everyone (all submissions);
    • Users with/without submissions (only those students who have or have not submitted their assignment). If you have filtered by Users with submissions, you can also select whether you want to see:
      • unread submissions only (Only show users with unread submissions);
      • assignments that were handed in during a specific period (you can specify the date and whether you want to see assignments that were handed in before or after that date);
      • submissions that were handed in late only (Late Submissions).
    • Users with preview submissions (for example, to see those assignments you have handed in yourself as a test);
    • Users with graded unpublished submissions (students whose assignments have already been assessed, but the assessment has not yet been published).
    • Furthermore, you can also select for each filter option whether you only want to see those students who are exempt (Users who are exempt).  
  3. Under Feedback you can filter all submissions (Show everyone) or just those with feedback (already assessed) or without feedback (Users with/without feedback).
  • In this tab you can also download files, send an email to your students, mark submissions as read/unread, delete submissions, or publish the feedback you have given. To do so, select one or more students (or click the box at the top left to select everyone) and then click on the desired action. If you select and download several files at one, these files will be put together in a zip-file.
  • Click on the file name of the document to open it for assessment/add feedback.

To assess an assignment using a rubric, the maximum amount of points a student can acquire has to be the same in both the rubric and the assignment (Out of score). To calculate the rubric's maximum score, you have to add up the highest score (belonging to the highest level) of each criterion.

You can fill out the Rubric in two ways:

  1. Click the box to open the Rubric in a new window.
  2. Click the Rubric to open a short version of the Rubric in the menu.

The first method looks like this:

  1. For each criterion, click on the level you want to award it.
  2. You can add additional feedback for each criterion. Click Add Feedback to do so. A text box will open that allows you to give feedback to a student for each criterion.
  3. On the right side you will see a column named Criterion Score. You will see the score achieved for each criterion. The Total score is the total of each of these scores.
  4. At the bottom of the rubric you can find the total amount of points a student can acquire.
  5. Overall Score shows you the performance level for the amount of points acquired. You can choose to change the automatically assigned performance level by clicking another level.
  6. Click Close to return to the assignment. The feedback will be saved automatically.

Depending on how you set up the score system you will get the possibility to assign a couple of points for each criterion. The total score (Overall Score) will be calculated based on the number of points that have been acquired. In this example 160 or more points means a level 4 score. However, this is not the maximum score! When a student has acquired 170 points, this means a level 4 score (highest level in the example rubric) but this is not the highest score for the final grade. This maximum score of the example rubric is the maximum score of each criterion added up, so in this case (5x30) + (3x10) = 180. A score of 170 would mean a final grade of (170/180)x10=9.4.

When you leave a rubric uncompleted you will receive a warning stating you have not scored all rubric criteria when you try to publish the feedback. You then have the possibility to make changes, or publish the incomplete rubric anyway.

The second method to fill out your Rubric works like this:

This version uses the shortened Rubric.

  1.  Use the slider to view and assign the levels for each criterium. You can look at the different levels by clicking the arrows on the left and right side of the bar. You can also move the gray box on the bar. 
  2. Click the gray box when it is at the right level to assign this level. A checkmark will appear in the assigned level.
  3. You will see a description of the level you have selected below the bar.
  4. Click Add Feedback to add feedback to the criterium. 
  5. Click the arrow in the right corner to fold the Rubric.
  • You can see when you have not yet filled out all criteria because of the text below the Rubric.
  • Click the statistics icon to view the statistics about the rubric.
  1. Below Overall you will find the average score of all students on the rubric as a whole.
  2. Below Criteria Statistics you will find the average score for all students for each criterium.
  3. Below Individual Statistics you will find the statistics about specific students and which lecturer assessed.
  4. Click Close to close the window.
  1. Brightspace will enter the score and calculate the grade.
  2. Below the three dots you will find three different options:
    • Edit Activity: Immediately go to the Assignment editing.
    • Preview Activity: Immediately go to the original Assignment. This applies to all people with Grader rights.
    • Special Access Dates: Immediately go to the special access features.
  3.  Use Overall Feedback to add general feedback. The feedback from the rubric will not be added here.
  4. Click Publish/Update if you want to (re)publish the feedback (and grade) to the student.
    Click Save Draft/Retract if you want to save the assessment but do not yet want to publish the result to the student.

Assess with a grade item

After you have created a grade item and linked it to an assignment, you can use this grade item to assess assignments.

  • Navigate to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click on Assignments.
  • Click on the assignments you want to assess.

At the bottom of your screen you can find an overview of the submissions per student. You can filter these submissions based on:

  1. Student name (use the search bar);
  2. The type of submissions. To do this, go to Submissions and select:
    • Show everyone (all submissions);
    • Users with/without submissions (only those students who have or have not handed in the assignments). If you have filtered by Users with submissions, you can also select whether you want to see:
      • unread submissions only (Only show users with unread submissions);
      • assignments that were handed in during a specific period (you can specify the date and whether you want to see assignments that were handed in before or after that date);
      • submissions that were handed in late only (Late Submissions).
    • Users with preview submissions (for example, to see those assignments you have handed in yourself as a test);
    • Users with graded unpublished submissions (students whose assignments have already been assessed, but the assessment has not yet been published.
    • Furthermore, you can also select for each filter options whether you only want to see those students who are exempt (Users who are exempt).  
  3. Use Feedback to choose whether you want to see all submissions (Show everyone) or just those with or without feedback (Users with/without feedback).
  • You can download files, mail them to students, mark them as read/unread, delete them, or publish the feedback you have given. To do so, select one or more students (or click the box at the top left to select everyone) and then click on the desired action. If you select and download several files at one, these files will be put together in a zip-file.
  • Click on the file name of the document to assess it.
  1. Enter the score manually. When a rubric has been added, Brightspace will calculate the grade automatically.
  2. Use Overall Feedback to give general feedback in addition to the grade.
  3. Click Publish/Update if you want to (re)publish the feedback and want to let the student know about their score.
    Click Save Draft/Retract if you want to save the assessment but do not yet want to show the student.
  • It is also possible to assess the assignment with the help of a list, if you have connected a selectbox-type grade item to the assignment.  In that case, you assign a predetermined value to the assignment that fits the students' performance.

Assessment for grade items that you publish will automatically be pushed to the Pulse app by Brightspace. When you Retract an assessment, students will no longer be able to see it in Brightspace, but it does still appear in Pulse. If you hide the assessment for a grade item after you have published it, students will not see the most recent assessment in Pulse, and neither will they receive a notification. Thus it is advised to not retract a published grade item, because this can cause confusion for the student. Instead, republish an assessment as soon as you alter it. This way, Brightspace will automatically push the new assessment to Pulse.

Assessing with anonymous marking

When you have turned on anonymous marking while creating an assignment, you can assess the assignments without seeing which student handed in the assignment.

  • While assessing, you will see the submissions by the students as Anonymous User <x>.
  • The submissions are numbered in the order in which they were handed in.
  • You can still assess these assignments like usual, but you cannot grade them. The publish button does not work yet. You can only publish with the button publish all feedback in the assignment. This means that you first have to review all of the assignments of the anonymous student(s) and then return them to all of the students simultaneously.

Assessing video assignments

If students have to hand in both a written component and a video in Kultura for an assignment, they will hand in the written file in an attachment and the video in the commentary field. While assessing you will initially be shown just the attachment, making it difficult to switch between file and video. However, you can put the attachment and commentary below one another in the evaluation screen by going to user submissions.

  • Navigate to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click on Assignments.
  • Click on the assignments you want to assess.
  • Click on the name of the student or group (not the file itself) to assess the work.

Here you will see the attachment and the video with commentary below one another. On the right side you can open the rubric, enter a score and give feedback. If you use this screen it is easy to switch between the attachment and the video while simultaneously adding the score and/or feedback.

  • After assessing a student you can easily go to the next student by clicking the arrow on top, or Next Student at the bottom of the page.
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