E-learning Resources Centre

Table of Contents

25Course Assignments
25.2Assignment Settings

Updated in July 2025

25.2_AssignmentSettings.png

Blackboard Reference Materials

Please refer to the Blackboard Official Guide for details:
[Blackboard Official Website] Assignment Settings

25.2.1 Details & Information

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(a) Provide a due date
Due dates appear on the calendar and in the activity stream. Late submissions appear with a Late label in the course gradebook.

Note When necessary, the due date can be extended as exception for particular students. For details, please refer to [Blackboard Official Website] Grant Exceptions and Exemptions

(b) Prohibit late submissions
Enforce a hard deadline and prevent a late submission. In-progress and saved attempts will auto-submit at the due date. Students will receive a submission receipt email. Specified accommodations are still honored.

Note If students have submitted attempts, teachers cannot change the due date to a date in the past. If the due date has passed, you can't select the Prohibit late submission setting.

(c) Prohibit new attempts after due date
Prevent students from beginning a new attempt after the due date. Specified accommodations are still honored.

(d) Allow class conversations
What if your students have questions about an assignment? Teachers can allow conversations within an assignment, and anyone can contribute. As the conversation develops, it appears only with the relevant assignment.

[Blackboard Official Website] Conversations

(e) Collect submissions offline
Teachers may want to grade student work that doesn’t require students to upload a submission. For example, teachers can add grades to your gradebook for oral presentations, science fair projects, acting performances, and artwork delivered in person.

[Blackboard Official Website] Collect submissions offline

25.2.2 Formative Tools

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(a) Formative assessments
to monitor student learning and provide immediate feedback that can be used to improve instruction and enhance student performance. Formative assessments help both teachers and students to identify areas of strength and areas that need further development.

[Blackboard Official Website] Formative Assessments

25.2.3 Presentation Options

25.2_AssignmentSettings_PresentationOptions.png

Note If the assignment contains questions, Presentation Options allows teachers to control how the assignment's content is presented to students.

Note Teachers cannot choose these options until the assessment has questions.

Note Teachers cannot update these options after students start their submissions.

(a) Display one question at a time
Due dates appear on the calendar and in the activity stream. Late submissions appear with a Late label in the course gradebook.
- Focus on a single question at a time
- Enhance browser performance for student access on older computers
- Enhance experience for students in remote areas with poor network connections
- Have an improved user experience when test taking from a mobile device, where touch scrolling can lead to mistakes

(b) Prohibit backtracking on questions
Enforce a sequence through questions in an assessment with the Prohibit backtracking option. A sequence is important when upcoming questions provide hints or reveal answers to earlier questions. Once students answer the question and continue to the next one, they cannot go back.

Note When "Prohibit backtracking" has been enabled, "Display one question at a time" is recommended.

Note If students skip questions, an alert informs them that they cannot go back once they have done so.

(c) Randomize questions
Each time a student begins a test attempt, the questions appear in a different order.

Note If the test include references to the question numbers as they appear on the Content and Settings tab, do not use the Randomize questions option. The random order changes the question numbering and may cause confusion.

(d) Randomize answers
Answers appear in order as teachers create the test. Each time a student begins a test attempt, the answers appear in a different order.

(e) Randomize pages
If the assessment includes questions across multiple pages (for example a page of Multiple Choice questions followed by a page with Essay questions), Randomize pages randomizes the order in which these pages are displayed. Do not randomize first page allows you to lock the first page in place.

[Blackboard Official Website] Assessment Settings

25.2.4 Marking & Submissions

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(a) Grade category

(b) Attempts allowed
Note Once students have submitted their attempts, the submissions cannot be modified.

Note Teachers can allow students to submit more than one attempt at an assignment. When allow multiple attempts, teachers need to choose how the final grade is calculated.

Note When necessary, more attempts can be granted as exception for particular students. For details, please refer to [Blackboard Official Website] Grant Exceptions and Exemptions

(c) Mark using
- Letter: the existing grading schema, use mark % to convert to the letter grades. Teachers input marks, students will see the corresponding grade letters.
- Points
- Percentage
- Complete/Incomplete: Teachers input marks, students will see Complete/Incomplete. Any marks > "Complete"; zero mark or empty > "Incomplete".

(d) Anonymous marking
When teachers create an assignment without questions, teachers can enable anonymous grading. Student names are hidden while teachers grade. Teachers may only add text and files to anonymously graded assignments.

[Blackboard Official Website] Enable anonymous grading
(e) Evaluation options - 2 markers per student
The system randomly assigns graders teachers choose so each student has two graders for the assignment. The grading workload is distributed evenly among the graders. Graders can only open the submissions of the students assigned to them. Instructors or reconcilers determine the final grades for students.

[Blackboard Official Website] Parallel Grading
(f) Evaluation options - Peer rivew
Peer review allows students to review their peers’ work through criteria-based evaluation. Select Select peer settings to assign the number of reviews per student, assessment due date, and peer review due date.

[Blackboard Official Website] Peer Review for Qualitative Peer Assessments

Note Evaluation options (2 markers per student and peer review) are disabled for an assessment with questions.

(g) Post assessment marks automatically
Automatically post a student’s grade once grading is completed. Turn the setting off if teachers want to manually control grade publication.

25.2.5 Assessment security

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(a) Access code
To control when students can submit an assignment. Access codes are generated randomly by the system.

Note On the Course Content page, students can view the assessment unless teachers add release conditions or hide it. Students can open the Details & Information panel to view any instructions. Students cannot start the assessment without the access code.

[Blackboard Official Website] Access codes

25.2.6 Additional Tools

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(a) Time limit
A time limit can keep students on track and focused on the test because they have a limited amount of time to submit.
- Work is automatically saved and submitted when time expires: If a student doesn't submit within the time limit, the system saves and submits the test automatically.
- Students have extra time to work after the time limit expires: In the menu that appears when you select this option, choose the amount of extra time.
Note Students see the time limit with other test details on the Course Content page. When students select Start attempt, they'll receive a pop-up window to start the timer before they can access the test.

Note The timer keeps running whether or not students are actively working on the test. The timer appears at the bottom of the window to let students know how much time is left. If they save a draft or leave the test window, the countdown continues and their work is saved and submitted when time is up.

Note If students have a time limit accommodation and teachers allow more time to complete an assessment in the settings, the times are combined. For details, please refer to [Blackboard Official Website] Make Accommodations

(b) Use marking rubric
A rubric is a scoring tool to evaluate graded work. Rubrics can help teachers evaluate student submissions based on the defined key criteria.

[Blackboard Official Website] Create Rubrics

(c) Goals & standards
Teachers can align an assignment to one or multiple goals. Teachers and institution can use goals to measure student achievement across programs and curricula. Teachers can also align individual questions to goals.

[Blackboard Official Website] Goals

(d) Assigned groups (i.e. Group Assignment)
Teachers can create an assignment for one or more groups of students. By default, Teachers assign a grade to each group as a whole, but Teachers can change a group member's individual grade.

[Blackboard Official Website] About group assignments

25.2.7 Description

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The description appears with the assignment title on the Course Content page. This is where you can provide students with more information about the assignment. The maximum length of a description is 750 characters.

Note Plain text only, no formatting can be added.