Drop Box Assignments
By creating an assignment drop box in the gradebook you can allow learners to upload assessments, and allow faculty to view and mark those assessments within the system. If a form is attached to an assessment faculty can use the form and view the assessment simultaneously.
Assignments can optionally be displayed on their due date on the learner dashboard calendar. You need a developer to enable the calendar_assignments_enabled setting if you want learners to see assignments on their calendars.
How to add a drop box to an assessment
Navigate to a course gradebook and ensure you are in the correct curriculum period.
Search for or create a new assessment.
Click 'Add Drop Box' under the Assignment column for the assessment.
Complete the required information, noting the following: Assignment Drop Box
Set submission options.
Allowing students to upload more than one file can be useful if students are submitting pictures or documentation of an experience. The maximum number of files a student can upload also limits how many files can be handed back.
Adding a dashboard notice will automatically generate a dashboard notice including assessment due date and a link to the drop box and display it to the learners responsible for the assessment. If you select a dashboard notice, the default release is immediately. To modify the release date, click “Release notice on a custom defined date” and set the release date (this section applies to the dashboard notice only, not the availability of the drop box).
Allow learners to upload new revisions will allow students to replace an existing file with a newer one.
Allow graders to see the name of the learner they are grading can be unchecked if you wish graders to work without knowing learners' identities. Note that this does not apply to the Grading Tasks view of assignments if you have a faculty member grade in Elentra.
Submission due date: If you have set an assessment due date, the submission due date for the drop box will match it. If you change the assessment due date, the assignment submission due date will automatically be adjusted. Please note that they system does allow learners to upload files after the submission due date so that late work can be submitted without additional hassle to administrative staff. If you wish to track late submissions, it is recommended that you make that selection on the edit assessment screen.
Time Release Options: Set the time release for a viewable start and finish which will control when the drop box will be visible to users. The default setting causes the drop box to be immediately visible to learners and does not set a finish date.
Click “Save” at bottom right.
Once you add a drop box to an assessment, a column will be included on the edit assessment page showing the date and time learners submitted their assignments.
How to bulk upload and download assignments to and from the drop box
Navigate to a course gradebook.
Ensure you are in the correct curriculum period.
Search for the assessment if required.
Click View Drop Box under the Assignment column for the required assessment.
Click Upload Zip of Submissions.
Where the instruction says that each uploaded file must contain the user's email address, please use the user's email address as the file title (e.g., johnsmith@email.com.doc)
Attach a file by dragging and dropping it in place or browsing your computer, and click Submit.
You can also bulk download all submitted assignments from this same page. This can be useful if you have faculty who wish to grade hard copies of an assignment.
How learners can submit an assignment to a drop box
In the top right corner click on the user name to open the personal menu options.
Click 'My Assignments'.
On the My Assignments screen, learners can see all required assignments and their due dates as well as any grades already assigned.
Click on an assignment title and then click 'Add File'.
In the popup window that opens, drag and drop or browse for a file to upload.
Provide a file title and comment (optional).
Click 'Upload'. The uploaded file will display on the Assignment Submissions list.
Depending on how the drop box was set up learners may be able to upload additional files or revised files.
Learners can also add comments to the assignment submission page by clicking 'Add Assignment Comment'.
If an organization has enabled the setting to allow learners to view assignments from their dashboard calendar learners can also access the specific assignment submission page or view My Assignments from there.
How faculty can grade drop box assessments
Make sure that faculty have been added to an assessment as a grader for them to use this process.
From the user icon, faculty can click 'Grading Tasks'.
Click on the appropriate course.
Click on the appropriate assessment.
Scroll down to view the list of learners; click in the Grade column beside a student name.
If a form has been attached to the drop box assessment the user will see a split screen with the assessment form on one half and the assignment on one half. Use the assessment form and click 'Save and Close' to just grade this one assignment, or 'Save and Go to Next' to continue grading additional assignments. (Note that the system progresses to each learner whether or not an assessment has been submitted to the drop box.)
If no form has been attached to the drop box assessment, the user can enter grades directly into the Grade column.
Note that the ability to assign a custom grade or to adjust the points per form item is restricted to administrators and course directors grading in a course gradebook. We are working on introducing the ability for faculty graders to also use these tools.
How to hand back graded responses to students
If graders have annotated files that should be returned to learners, admin users may complete this task using the Hand Back Response tool.
Navigate to a course gradebook.
Click View Drop Box.
Click on a learner name.
Click Hand Back Response and drag and drop or browse your computer for a file to attach and then click Upload.
If a revised response file needs to be added follow the same steps.
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