Assigning an Activity

How to assign an activity, manage availability, and configure grading options

Ryan Burke avatar
Written by Ryan Burke
Updated over a week ago

When you assign an activity, it will be graded and recorded in your gradebook. The activity will also be added to the assignment calendar on the course dashboard.

If an activity is unassigned, students will still be able to access and complete it, but it will not be graded or recorded in your gradebook.

Assigning an Activity

To assign an activity, click on the activity in your module and click the Assign to Class switch. To learn more about adding content to a module click here.

Once an activity is assigned, you'll see two panels for Availability and Grading.

Managing Availability

The availability panel is used to set the start and end dates, manage access after the end date date, and to set time limits and other rules.

Start Date and End Date

Start Date is when the activity will become accessible to your students. Prior to this, students will be able to see the assignment, but not access it.

End Date is when the activity will be due. Students won't be able to make changes to or submit the activity after this date.

Note: the start and end dates for the activity must be within the start and end dates of your course.

Setting Dates by Section

If you've set up sections in your course, you can make an activity due at different times for each section by enabling Set Dates By Section. To learn more about setting up sections, click here.

Note: Students who are not assigned to a section will have the original start and end date used. For more information on assigning students to a section, click here.

Allowing Late Submissions

Enabling Allow Late Submissions allows your students to complete the activity after the end date.

Note: Students who complete an activity after the end date will still receive a 0 by default. To override this, you'll need to grant them an extension. Click here to learn more about granting extensions.

Lock After Close

To prevent students from accessing the activity questions after its closed or submitted, enable Lock After Close. This will disable access once the students have submitted it the maximum number of times or after the end date, whichever happens first. We recommend this for quizzes and exams where students should be able to see their scores, but not the questions once it's submitted.

Setting Time Limit

Enabling Set Time Limit allows you to set a time limit for the assignment. Once started, students must complete the activity within the set number of minutes.

Note: If multiple attempts are enabled, the time limit does not reset between attempts. To learn about resetting the time for a student click here.

Require Secret Code

Turning on the Require Secret Code switch allows you to create a code that students will need to enter in order to access the assignment. Our platform generates a secret code for you automatically once you turn the switch on, but you can change it to whatever code you want. You will need to give this code to your students when you're ready for them to access and complete this assignment.

Grading Options

Click on the Grading dropdown tab. You'll see that you have a couple options.

Autograding

Turning on the Grade Automatically switch means that students will see their grades immediately upon submissions for all auto-gradable prompts within the activity. Refer to our Grading Activity Submissions help article for more information on grading.

Turning on the Grade Automatically switch will also make an Allow Multiple Attempts switch appear.

Allowing Multiple Attempts

Turning on the Allow Multiple Attempts Switch allows you to set the number of attempts your students have on the assignment. Students will be able to see the correct answers after they've used up all of their attempts. You can also reset the number of attempts for your students if you need to. For more information on how to do that, click here.

Grading Category

You can create or assign (if you've already created one) a Grading Category for the assignment. Grading categories are used in the gradebook to group similar assignments together (e.g., homework, quizzes, etc.).

To create a grading category, simply type a category into the text box under Grading Category, then click enter or click Create.

Short Name is an optional abbreviated name for the assignment that will be displayed in your gradebook. The maximum length for a short name is 32 characters.

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