Grade an Assignment

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Overview

The Assignment tool is used by instructors who would like students to submit a file for a graded assignment. Students may upload Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or any other file type that the instructor can work with. Blackboard provides an easy method for grading each submission and providing feedback to the student.

Enter Grades in Bulk

  • It may be more convenient to download all the students' submissions for an assignment to your hard drive so that you can work on them independent of Blackboard. This process involves zipping up and downloading all the student's submissions for a particular assignment. See Download Submissions for Offline Review.
  • If you already have all of the grades for an assignment because you are grading offline, it may be more convenient to enter these grades through the Grade Book tool. See Grade Assignments in Bulk.

Grade assignments you received outside of Blackboard

  • You will need to use the Grade Book tool to give a grade to a student who submitted their assignment to you via e-mail or some alternative means. See the Grade Book tutorial on Entering Grades.

Grade an Assignment

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  • Under the Teach Tab, go to Assignments
  • Click the ActionLinks ActionLinks icon icon next to the assignment you wish to review
  • Select View Submissions

 
  • NOTE: If you do not see the Assignment you are looking for, it may be displayed on the next page. At the bottom of the window, you will find Next Page Next Page and Previous Page Previous Page icons you can use to navigate through the list of Assignments.
Can't find what you're looking for?
There are several possibilities:
  • Are you in the correct Tab (Build, Teach, Graded, Submitted, etc.)?
  • Is it on the next page? Permanently increase the default number of items displayed per screen by modifying your global Bb's Paging Preference.
  • Select the All tab
  • The status of all your students is available in this view
    • Not Started indicates the student has NOT started the assignment.
    • In Progress indicates that the student has started, but has not submitted assignment.
    • Graded indicates that the assignment has already been graded.
  • Sort your list of students by First Name by clicking on the Assigned to header

    NOTE: If you wish to sort by Last Name, select the Build tab > Manage Course > Settings > International. Change the Name format to Last, Other First Prefix (Suffix). Return to the Assignment Dropbox in the Teach tab and click on the Assigned to header to sort by Last Name.
  • Click on the ActionLinks ActionLinks icon icon next to the assignment you wish to grade
  • Select View Submissions

  • Enter your grading comments and add any necessary attachments
  • Are you using Grading Forms?
  • Select the Return graded submission... radio button, and fill in the appropriate grade
    • REMINDER: You must Release the column in the Grade Book for students to view their grades
  • Click Save

NOTE: You will need to use the Grade Book tool to give a grade to a student who submitted their assignment to you via e-mail or some alternative means. See Modify/Override Grade.


Streamlined Grading Methods

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  • It may be more convenient to download all the students' submissions for an assignment to your hard drive so that you can work on them independent of Blackboard. This process involves zipping up and downloading all the student's submissions for a particular assignment. See Download Submissions for Offline Review.
  • If you already have all of the grades for an assignment because you are grading offline, it may be more convenient to enter these grades through the Grade Book tool. See Grade Assignments in Bulk.
  • Use the Grade Book tool to give a grade to a student who submitted their assignment to you via e-mail or some alternative means, and not through Blackboard. See Modify/Overide Grades.

 
Download Submissions for Offline Review

It can be more convenient to download all the students' submissions for an assignment to your hard drive so that you can work on them independent of Blackboard. The steps below outline the process of zipping up and downloading all the student's submissions for a particular assignment.

  • Under the Teach Tab, go to Assignment Dropbox (1)
  • Make sure you're on the Submitted tab
  • Change the View by (2) drop down menu to the Assignment you want to download and press the Go button
  • Select the Check Box (3) at the top of the list of submissions. This will select all the submissions displayed on that page at once.
  • WARNING: Verify that all of the submissions are displayed on the page. If they are not, change your paging preference to increase the number of items displayed on the page. TIP: Permanently increase the default number of items (e.g. submissions) displayed per screen by modifying your global Bb's Paging Preference.
  • Press the Create Printable View (4) button. This will compile all the assignment submissions into a single screen from which to download.
 

  • Press Save to File

  • Press OK

  • Under the Build tab, go to the File Manager
  • Select My Files at the top of the screen
  • Click on the ActionLinks ActionLinks icon icon next to the Assignment Submissions Zip file that was generated
  • Select the Download option from the drop down menu

  • Press Save

  • Navigate to the location you would like to save the assignments to
  • Press Save

  • When the download is complete, press the Open button

  • You will be able to view a folder containing the assignments of each student
  • Press the Extract all Files option under Folder Tasks
  • Extract it to the same location the zip file is stored

  • Once extracted, you can read and modify the students' submissions from your hard drive

  • When you're ready to enter grades for each student, follow the next steps of this tutorial

 
Grade Assignments in Bulk

The following tutorial shows how to enter the grades in bulk through the Grade Book tool. This method also allows you to give a grade to a student who submitted their assignment to you via email or some alternative means, and not through Blackboard.

  • Under the Teach Tab, click on Grade Book.
  • Click on the ActionLinks ActionLinks icon icon of the column, and select Edit Values
  • NOTE: If you do not see all of the students you are looking for, they may be displayed on the next page. At the bottom of the window, you will find Next Page Next Page and Previous Page Previous Page icons which you can use to navigate through the list of students. Permanently increase the number of students displayed per page with the Grade Book tool's Page Preference Page Preference icon—also located at the bottom of the window. (The Grade Book tool uses a separate paging preference setting and does not use the global Bb's Paging Preference setting defined in Bb's My Settings.)

  • Enter your student's grades. Once you have finished, press Save

Reminder: In order for students to see their grades, you must first Release the column in the Grade Book

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