Getting started Blackboard Assignment - Staff Guide

Blackboard Assignment can be used for both individual and group assessment, and offline assessments (e.g. to return grades and feedback for work where there is no submission to Minerva). They can be graded using Blackboard Grading Rubrics , annotations on the student's paper, audio/video recordings and comments/files of feedback via the content editor.

Blackboard Assignments can be graded anonymously (note that student names cannot be revealed during the grading process). Parallel grading is also supported with papers assigned randomly to 2 graders per paper.

Blackboard Assignment has an integration with Turnitin similarity reports (available from June 2024). Some settings are not supported. Turnitin similarity reports are not available for:

Group submissions
Peer Review
Parallel Grading (where 2 graders mark the same paper at the same time)

For information specific to this integration, read our guide on the Blackboard Assignment Turnitin Similarity report integration.

How to add a Blackboard Assignment to your module

Go to the Assessment and Feedback folder in your module, then open Submit My Work. This is where summative assessments should be added.

Click the + icon and select Create and then Assignment to add a Blackboard Assignment to your module. You may need to hover beneath content items to make the + icon appear.

Enter the instructions for the assessment and click Save.

Assignment settings

Click the Cog icon to access all settings and adjust as required.

Details and Information

Enter the due date or select no due date as relevant.
Options to 'prohibit late submissions' or 'prohibit new attempts after due date'. (Note that if you select 'prohibit late submissions', any 'in progress' attempts will automatically be submitted on the deadline.)
Allow class conversations. Conversations are a way for students to ask questions regarding a particular piece of Minerva content.

Collect submissions offline

Select this option to return grades/feedback for an offline assessment; eg, a presentation where students do not submit anything. Students will see the offline Assignment in their module, but it will be clear that they do not need to submit anything. When you grade papers, you will need to indicate for each student an approximate submission date and time. Then you will be able to add grades and feedback for each student. See create offline assignments on Blackboard's website for further guidance.

An alternative to using an offline Assignment is to return grades and feedback by creating a Gradable Item for offline assessment in the Gradebook. However, using an offline Assignment will give you better feedback options; eg, the option to use Blackboard rubrics and a content editor to return formatted feedback/files of feedback. A manually added Gradable Item in the Gradebook does not give you the option to use rubrics/add formatted feedback.

The differences between Offline Assignments/Gradable Items are detailed in the video below (2 mins 19 seconds).

Formative Tools

You can label an assessment as formative (and show this information to students). This can help students understand easily the purpose of assessments in the Minerva module. There are also Gradebook filters staff can use to include/exclude formative assessment.

Grading & Submissions

Grade category (usually automatically assigned, Gradebook can be filtered by category)
The number of attempts allowed
Attempts to mark (where more than one attempt is allowed)
Final mark calculation (where multiple attempts are allowed) - this is the mark you will see in Gradebook
Grade using (select points/percentage/letter/complete or incomplete)
Maximum points

Anonymous grading

Student names are hidden while you grade and are only revealed when grades are returned to students (when they are posted). Therefore, it is not possible to reveal any student’s name during the grading process. You cannot select anonymous grading for group assignments or offline assessments.

Evaluation options

Two graders per student (parallel grading)

If enabled, graders are randomly assigned to submissions. Only 2 graders per student are allowed.

To set up parallel grading:

Under Evaluation Options, enable two graders per student in the Assignment's settings.
Select the Assign graders option
Select which staff will grade the paper (assign as Grader)
Select who will reconcile the grades (assign as Reconciler). Nobody can be a grader and a reconciler at the same time. However, you can switch people’s roles during the grading process.

See parallel grading on Blackboard's website for detailed guidance.

Peer Review

Select Peer Review to enable students to review their peers' assignment submissions and give feedback. This setting cannot be used with Group assignments or if multiple attempts are allowed.

To set up peer review:

Under Evaluation Options, enable peer review in the Assignment's settings.
Then click on Select peer settings
Select the number of reviews per student and set the due dates.
Peer reviews will be available for students to complete immediately after the Assignment due date as long as there are sufficient submissions (the assigned number of reviews set by you plus one).

See Peer Review for Qualitative Peer Assessments on Blackboard's website for detailed guidance.

For text-based assignments, Turnitin offer a similar peer review tool called PeerMark which has the benefit of a similarity report being generated. See PeerMark guidance on the Turnitin website for more information.

Delegated Grading

For larger modules, it can be useful to delegate grading to different staff members. Delegated Grading facilitates this via Minerva Groups. To set up Delegated Grading, first create a Group Set. The Group Set should contain Groups for the different graders e.g. Group Tutor A for those Tutor A will mark, Group Tutor B for those Tutor B will mark etc. Assign the students to the groups as required (or use the randomise feature).

Once you have your Group Set ready, select the Delegated Grading option in the Assignment settings and assign staff to mark the different Groups. Be aware that delegated grading does not work in the same way as parallel grading. Only one grade can be applied to each paper. So, for example, if two markers add a grade to the same paper, the first grade that was added would just be overwritten by the second one.

This feature does not support group assessments or parallel grading at this time.

Read our guide on Minerva Groups for more information on how to set these up.

Assessment grade

How/when to return grades/feedback (grades can be posted to students as marked or posted manually to ensure all marks are returned at the same time)

Additional Tools

Add access code

Students will need a code to access the assessment.

Time limit

If you wish, you can create a time limit for the Assignment. This means, once a student opens the Assignment, a timer starts and they must complete it within the available time.

Use grading rubric

Blackboard rubrics can be created/added here.

Assigned groups

Select if you want students to submit groupwork. Groups can be created in Minerva and then Assignments can be assigned to Groups as required.

In the Assignment’s settings, select Assign to groups. You can reuse Groups you have already created by clicking Custom and finding the relevant Group Set.

Alternatively, you can create new Groups in the interface.

Full instructions on creating Group assignments are available on the Blackboard support site.

Originality Report

Turnitin originality (similarity) reports can be generated for supported file types - read our guide on the Blackboard Assignment Turnitin Similarity report integration

Accommodations and exceptions

Accommodations can be set for a student on a module level. Students can have a due date accommodation which means their work is never graded as late in the Gradebook. Students can also have a time limit accommodation which will be applied to all Blackboard Tests and Blackboard Assignments in the module where a time limit has been specified.

Exceptions can also be set for individual Blackboard Assignments (and Tests). You can give an individual an additional attempt(s) on Assignment. You can also extend their access to an item e.g. if it is hidden from other students, you can allow an individual student to have access.

See set exceptions and accommodations in Gradebook for step-by-step guidance.

Download submissions

There are bulk download options apart from for Group Assignments.

1. Go to the Grades view.

2. Find the relevant assignment column and select the column name/icon. This will give you the option to download submissions.

3. Select Download Submission(s) and follow the onscreen instructions.