Online Assignments


Assignments allow instructors to distribute and collect your work in the online environment. A variety of activities can be created as assignments. Your instructor can use the Assignment tool to collect assignments such as papers, reports, case studies, essays, research papers, projects, and presentations. Your instructor can collect your work, review it, grade it, and provide you with feedback.


For a given assignment, your instructor will provide you with the directions and any files needed to complete it. If it is a graded assignment, you'll see it in your grades along with the due date. Any assignment with a due date will also appear in your calendar. Your instructor will post your grades once grading is complete, or they will release all grades at one time to the entire class.


Here are a few pointers when working on assignments:

  • Pay close attention to the assignment instructions. The requirements may vary from course to course, and assignment to assignment.
  • A rubric may be available to you so that you are aware of how you are being graded. If this is the case, make sure you review it carefully before starting your submission. 
  • You may be assigned to a group to complete an assignment. If this is the case, you'll see who your group members are when you start the assignment. Only one person can submit the assignment for a group. Make sure you do NOT submit it for grading until everyone in your groups agrees that it is ready for submission.
  • If your assignment allows for multiple attempts, take advantage of your instructor's revise-and-review process.
  • Submit your assignment in the file formats your instructor requested.

Submit Assignments


  • On the Upload Assignment page, review the instructions, due date, points possible, and download any files provided by your instructor. If your instructor has added a rubric for grading, you can view it.
  • Select Write Submission to expand the area where you can type your submission.
  • Select Browse My Computer to upload a file from your computer or drag files from your computer to the "hot spot" in the Attach Files area.
  • Optionally, you can type Comments about your submission.
  • After you Submit the assignment, the Review Submission History page appears with information about your submitted assignment and a success message with a confirmation number.


Create and Submit Videos


This tutorial details how to create and submit videos via Box and screencast-o-matic. PDF instructions are attached to this article.


SafeAssign


Your instructor may make an assignment a SafeAssign Assignment. SafeAssign checks your submitted work against a number of websites to look for similarities. It also checks your submitted work against other papers submitted by students in multiple institutions. It then generates an originality report that both the instructor and student can view.


SafeAssign has two primary goals.

  1. Students use the SafeAssign report to make sure they are citing sources correctly. While the Internet makes it very easy to use online resources in a paper, as a student you are responsible for creating original work and citing sources correctly.
  2. Instructors use SafeAssign to check for plagiarism.


Viewing the SafeAssign Originality Report


Surviving Tests and Assignments


If your Internet goes down or you have a power failure, DON'T PANIC! You are not the first student to have this problem.


Immediately inform your instructor of your situation. Check the syllabus for your instructor’s policy on technical difficulties during a test or assignment. 


Tips for Preventing Work Loss


  • Save a copy of anything you create in the browser if it might be used for grading. Keep all course-related files in a separate folder on your computer or cloud storage.
  • Consider composing assignments, posts, and replies offline if your internet connection is not reliable. Type in a text editor or word processing program and paste the content into the online course when you are ready.
  • Don't wait until the last minute to submit work so that you have time to handle surprise technical difficulties.


Help Site Links


Use these links to find additional information along with step-by-step instructions to completing tasks.