Assignment activity

In this section:

• Extensions
• Late submissions
• Re-opening attempts

Extensions

• If you know in advance of students who have extensions and their adjusted deadline date, apply an override (More > Overrides).

• Overrides can be applied per user or per group. Only one user override can be applied at once. If you have a large number of students with the same extended deadline date, consider creating a hidden group and then apply a group override.
• Overrides allow you to change any or all of the Allow submissions from, Due date and Cut-off date for the selected users/groups.
• It is also possible to Grant extension to individual via the submissions page. This is a quick way to allow a student to submit without a 'late' label but there are some drawbacks to using this method:
  • The student will still see the original due date which doesn't make it clear that they have received an extension and won't be penalised.
  • Only the due date can be extended. The cut-off date cannot be extended this way. If the extension date is beyond the original cut-off date, the cut-off date will be disregarded and submissions can be made indefinitely.
  • If anonymous marking is being used, you cannot see the student name so you cannot see who to grant the extension to.

Late submissions

• Students may submit after the due date and it will show as a late submission. If a cut-off date has been set, they cannot submit beyond that date/time.
• Use the cut-off date to set a final deadline after which no submissions can be made.

Re-opening attempts

• If a student has finalised their submission but needs to make changes, you can enable this by reverting to draft. Click on the Submission actions menu and select Revert the submission to draft.

Bulk actions are also available on the Submissions page. Select a number of students using the tick boxes on the far left to activate them.

In this section:

• Preparing to grade
• Using marking worflow
• Grading
• Releasing grades and feedback

Preparing to grade

• Before you start marking the assignment submissions, check that you have enabled the required feedback options in the assignment Feedback types settings.
• Consider 'locking' submissions to prevent students from making any changes to their submission after you have begun marking. If you have set a cut-off date or required students to click the submit button to finalise, this is not necessary. Also ensure you do not lock submissions from students who have been granted extensions and are yet to submit.
• We recommend enabling marking workflow regardless of how many markers there are. If you do have multiple markers, assign the required number of submissions to each marker. Primarily this is because it controls release of feedback to students.
• If you are using a marking guide or rubric, ensure that this has been set up and attached to the assignment.

Using marking workflow

• Once students have begun submitting assignments (or even beforehand), you can allocate submissions to particular markers (if enabled).
  1. Select a number of students using the tick boxes on the left.
  2. This will enabled the bulk actions menu. Click on More.
  3. Click Allocate marker.
  4. in the pop-up window, click the Allocate marker button.
  5. The next page will list the selected users. From the Allocated marker dropdown list, select the marker you wish to assign the selected user to. The list will contain all editing and non-editing teachers enrolled on the course.
  6. Once selected, click the Save changes button.
  
• When it comes to marking, each marker can filter by their allocated submissions by clicking Advanced, selecting their name from the Marker list and clicking the Apply button.

• During the marking process, the marker can indicate at what stage a submission is. If there are multiple markers, the team should agree on the procedure depending on their marking process and whether moderation is required. It's not necessary to use all states. The workflow states are:

  • Not Marked - Submission has been made but not yet reviewed by a marker.

  • In Marking - A marker is actively reviewing and grading the submission.

  • Marking Completed - Initial grading is finished, but grades are not yet visible to students.

  • In Review - Another marker or moderator reviews the grading for consistency and quality.

  • Ready for Release - Marks have been finalised and approved but are still hidden from students.

  • Released - Grades and feedback are made visible to students.

• These states can be updated on an individual basis from a student's submission page or in bulk from the Submissions tab, selecting multiple students and using the bulk actions menu to choose Change marking state.

Grading

The below steps are of a suggested and typical grading process. Your own requirements and procedures may differ and therefore not all steps will be relevant to your particular situation.

1. Click on the assignment activity link.
2. Click the Submissions tab.
3. If marking allocation has been used, click the Advanced dropdown to filter submissions to those allocated to you (as described above - see Using marking workflow).
4. Click the Grade button on the right-hand side above the list of submissions. This will open the first student allocated to you. There is a Status filter on the previous page if you need to filter out only Submitted or Requires grading.
5. The layout of this screen will depend on how you have set up the assignment and its grading options.
   
   

Group submission feedback

• If you have enabled group submission, an extra Group column will appear in the table on the Submissions tab showing the name of the group each student has been assigned to for this assessment.
• You can grade as with individual submissions but there is an option to Apply grades and feedback to entire group. This option is set to Yes by default but you can choose to provide different grades and comments to each group member if appropriate.

• Where feedback has been applied to the entire group, it can be seen in the submissions list; the same grades, feedback and last modified date are shown for each group member.

Releasing grades and feedback

• Once grading and moderation are complete, feedback is released by setting the marking workflow state to Released. See Using marking workflow above.
• If you have enabled Anonymous submissions in the assignment settings, you must reveal student identities in order to allow students to view their feedback. This cannot be undone.
• Once the marking workflow state is Released and, where applicable, student anonymity has been lifted, the assignment grades will be sent to the Moodle gradebook.