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Assignments can be graded in several ways in Brightspace. This article explains how to use each of the possibilities.
Table of Contents
Please take into account that simultaneous assessment with multiple markers is not possible. If you want to grade assignments with other colleagues, please make sure you do not evaluate the same student at the same time. Your evaluation of a submission might be overruled by your colleagues when you grade the same student.
Basic
Assess with just a grade and general feedback
Go to Course Tools > Assignments and click on the Assignment you want to assess. The screen below will appear.
From the submission list view click on a submission to start Evaluation.
- On the left are all the submissions from this student. The most recent submission is always on top.
- Add a score.
- NB This grade will be transferred to the Gradebook, since a grade item is associated. "Learner View of Grade" displays the output to the student.
- Add feedback as desired.
- Either Publish your evaluation or Save Draft.
- If you choose Publish, the grade and feedback will be immediately visible for the student.
- In case you want to release grades and feedback to all students at the same time, opt for Save Draft.
- Navigate to the next / previous student submission via the arrows.
- When you have evaluated all submissions of this assignment click on Back to Submissions to return to the submission list view (or use the arrows in the top right to navigate to the next student).
- It is also possible to record or add an audio file.
The individual scores and feedback from Assignment and Discussion grade items are now synchronized with the grade book using the Update button, regardless whether a change has been made. This enables verification that the information between the grade book and the tool is properly synchronized.
There is a limit of 300,000 characters when giving feedback. When you exceed this limit the following message appears: "There is one or more errors in the information entered."
Finally, select all student submissions and click on Publish Feedback to release all grades and written feedback for this assignment.
Add an audio or video file
In order to record or add an audio file, click on the microphone icon in the evaluation.
In order to record or add an video file, click on the camera icon in the evaluation.
A new window will appear.
Click on either Record Audio or Upload File. Note that you can only record for one minute in Brightspace. However, it is possible to upload a larger file (up to 1 GB).
Enter a title, description and select the audio language if you want to generate captions for your file. Finally, click on Add and on Update.
Students are able to open this file in Brightspace and are also able to download it.
Annotate submissions with Brightspace inline feedback
Brightspace offers built-in Annotations Tools in Assignments to assess submission with inline feedback with free hand drawing, highlighting, text and note annotation. This allows you to assess submissions directly in Assignments, without using external tools or paper.
The inline feedback offers an addition to just adding a grade and general feedback.
Please see this extensive article on how to enable Annotation Tools for your Assignment and more information on how to work with inline feedback in Brightspace.
Advanced
It is possible to give feedback to multiple students at once.
Please note: this will overwrite any previously given feedback for all/the selected students.
There are two options for this:
1. Feedback to selected students: Select the students on the left and then click "Add Feedback"
2. Feedback to all students: Select "More Actions" and then select "Add Feedback to All"
This can also be accomplished by selecting the select-box at the top and then select "Add Feedback"
In the new window, type your feedback and select Save.
Note that you cannot add a file this way. However, you can add a YouTube video for instance using Insert Stuff.
Besides the option to give feedback in bulk, there is the option to retract feedback in bulk.
To do this,
(1) Select "More Actions".
(2) Select "Retract All"
The Rubrics tool is used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. These help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently. The Rubrics tool allows you to create analytic rubrics (multiple criteria) or holistic rubrics (one criterion). Once a rubric has been created and is linked to an assignment or to a discussion topic, you can then grade the students based on the rubric.
Please see this extensive article on how to assess with Rubrics or to review more information about Rubrics in general.
Note: Evaluating an assignment in bulk does not allow grading to take place in bulk, although this can easily be done in the submission overview screen.
Brightspace allows instructors to process and evaluate assignments in bulk. This is a great time save when dealing with large cohorts. In short, this feature condenses all student submissions into a .ZIP file. Instructors open the file, add their feedback, save the file and upload the ZIP file back to Brightspace. The evaluated file will become an attachment to the student’s submission.
Please see here for more information on how to annotate submissions offline in bulk.
Anonymous Marking is a setting in Brightspace which allows you to mark your students' Assignment submissions without knowing the identity of the student. As shown below, you will see names as Anonymous User 3 while evaluating with Anonymous Marking turned on.
Please see here for more information on how to enable Anonymous Marking for your assignment and an extensive guide on assessing submissions with Anonymous Marking.
When creating or editing an assignment, you can select multiple evaluators via the Select evaluators-button to grade the assignment.
This allows you to:
- Choose which evaluators can publish the grades for the assignment from the Assignment tool by setting them as publishers;
- Match evaluators to students;
- Choose from two multi-evaluator workflows: One Shared Evaluation (Co-marking) or Multiple Individual Evaluations.
It is currently only possible to assess individual assignments with multiple evaluators.
Select evaluators
Firstly, select the evaluators from the listed names:
Select publishers
After selecting the evaluators, the Evaluation & Feedback column will show multiple options regarding permissions to publish the grades and the different workflows of evaluation.
You can choose whether evaluators can publish all evaluations, only their own, or to manually select publishers out of the chosen evaluators. By choosing the latter two options, the allocation of learners to evaluators can be managed. By default, selected evaluators can evaluate all learners.
Manage allocations
The pop-up that appears after clicking Manage Allocations gives you the possibility to either manually assign the learners per evaluator, or randomize the allocation. Select one of the two options and click 'Apply Allocation Method'.
One shared evaluation (co-marking)
The first option regarding the multiple evaluations process is by co-marking. If both evaluators have permission to publish, they can both grade the assessment (and/or overwrite said grading) and publish the grade. If the grading evaluator does not have permission to publish, they can save a draft. The publishing evaluator has the possibility to overwrite the grade before publishing.
Multiple individual evaluations
In the second option multiple graded evaluations are aggregated to a single result. All assigned evaluators have to submit their evaluation with the Ready to Aggregate button. You can check the feedback from co-evaluators by clicking on their name next to the check mark. This will show their overall grade and feedback. The publishing evaluator determines the final grade and feedback before publishing in the Aggregated tab.
