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Get started with Moodle assignments

At a glance

Set up a Moodle assignment activity by working through general settings, availability dates, submission types, feedback options, group submission settings, notifications, Turnitin similarity reports and grading options. Understand the standard assessment submission times, how to vary them for valid reasons, and how grade penalties and marking workflow affect the final setup.

There are four key factors to consider when setting up a Moodle assignment. Click on each of the factors for more considerations and see the accordion below for advice on appropriate settings.

Assessment format
You have the choice of allowing students to submit Online Text, File Submissions or Mahara files (if available in your faculty).
Usually only one submission type is selected. Depending on what you choose, you can set a word limit for online text or specify the type, number and size limit of files that students will be able to submit.
For learning activities where students are assessed but do not submit an assignment, for example an oral presentation, performance, etc. creating a Grade item in the Moodle Gradebook may be more appropriate. For more information, see Grade item.
Group assignments
You can enable group submissions for assignments, where all members of the group must submit the assignment individually or one member of the group can submit the assignment on behalf of the group.
If you have enabled group submissions, make sure you clearly communicate group submission requirements and advise students who are not allocated to a group to contact you before the assignment is due so that they can be allocated to a group. To check if any students are unallocated, see Groups and groupings overview.

Submission requirements

Feedback types
Students derive great value from timely, relevant and personalised feedback on their work. Consider the best ways to deliver this feedback for your assessment tasks. There are a number of options you can choose for the feedback type and grading method. Your selections in the Moodle assignment settings will affect the layout and grading options available in the grader interface for your assignment.
Feedback types include:
- Feedback comments (this also enables you to embed Panopto video)
- Annotation of PDF submissions
- Uploading files
- Commenting Inline on online text submissions
- Offline grading worksheet which can be imported into Moodle
Grading methods
- Simple direct grading lets you grade assignments by point value using the quick grading function in the Grader report. The grader provides only a final grade and feedback to students. Simple direct grading is suitable for smaller assignments and is the most commonly used grading method.
- Rubrics or Marking guides are recommended for more complex assignments or assignments with multiple graders as they provide clarity on the grading scheme for both students and markers. There are limitations to Moodle rubrics and marking guides as they have less flexibility with point allocation and penalties. You can share a copy of your rubric or marking guide with students in Moodle beforehand so they understand the expectations and what they will be graded on.
Marker allocation
You can assign marking of individual or groups of student assignments to markers with marking workflow. This also allows you to monitor the progress of the marking process.
If you have enabled marker allocation and workflow, do not change these settings after students have submitted their assignments. This is because changing workflows in the middle of the assignment process will cause potential technical issues.
Enable anonymity
You can enable students' assignment submissions to be displayed anonymously to graders or graders to appear anonymously to students. This can be a useful way to reduce unconscious bias in grading.
Anonymised student assignments will be displayed to markers as a participant number rather than by their name. However, if a student has included their name in their assignment submission, it will still be visible to markers.
Grade penalties
You can automatically apply late penalties to students’ grades in line with the Monash Marking and Feedback Procedure, ie. 5% of available marks per day or part thereof. The penalty is displayed to students and teachers in the grader report and the assignment grader interface.
Turnitin
Turnitin is a tool that enables student submissions to be checked for matching or highly similar text against an online database including academic papers, previous Turnitin submissions, and the World Wide Web. Turnitin will return a report with a percentage of similarity.
Turnitin should assist you in making your own judgement in regards to Monash University's standards of academic integrity. However it should not be regarded as a “plagiarism detector”, as there are various reasons texts may be similar, for example block quotes, technical terms, similar sources based on assigned reading, etc.
Make sure students understand this, as well as your expectations for Turnitin.
Assignment draft feedback
By default, students can submit an unlimited number of drafts through Turnitin before the assignment due date. A similarity report will be generated immediately for the first 3 submissions. After 3 submissions, the similar reports will be generated after 24 hours.
This allows students multiple opportunities to submit their assessment and review the associated similarity report so that they can refine and improve their work, identifying where they need to strengthen their adherence to academic conventions and practice.

Review all settings carefully when creating your Moodle assignment activity, as once students have made submissions, you will no longer be able to change some assignment settings. Make sure they are clearly stated for students.

Best practice for common assessment scenarios

Explore the following best practice solutions for several commonly encountered scenarios when setting up and managing assessments on Moodle.

Assessment types where there is a scaffolding resource, such as an online lesson to be completed before it launches into the assessment prep. For exmaple, group work ePortfolio.
Best practice solution
1. Ensure each scaffolding resource has completion tracking enabled. For more information, see Track activity completion.
2. Use completion tracking to check the activity/resource has been completed.
3. In Assessment description let students know that their work will not be assessed until the related activity/resource has been completed - add this reminder in the post class section of the relevant week.
Students complete a 100% single project based assessment with multiple milestone points. For example, building a website where the website is worth 100% and handed in at the end of the unit. However the student submits multiple iterations of the website as milestones for feedback throughout the unit.
Best practice solution
1. Create a category in gradebook with 0% weightingand give it a name, for example,draft website submissions. For more information, see Set up Moodle Gradebook (Add categories) .
2. Create assignments for each milestone and place them inside this category.
3. Create the final assignment submission and place it outside of this category.
4. Be sure to include that each of the milestones have 0% weight in their title. For example, 'Draft website submission 1 (milestone - 0% of total marks)'.
  Note: Due dates will still display on the dashboard for un-weighted activities.
Students complete a thesis over two units and only receive a grade when they submit their work at the end of the second unit. The work they submit in the first unit is still valid, and there is still ‘assessment’ content that they need to access but because the Gradebook setup is 0% and they are not awarded a grade/mark, nothing appears in the assessments tab in the first unit.
Best practice solution
Given the specific challenge presented in this scenario, it is advised that you use the Project template and hide the Assessment section. Assessment items can still be created as usual in the Learning sections. They will still be visible in the Learning sections and Unit Dashboard.
Please note: Use of the Project template will result in assessments not being automatically populated to the Schedule tab
Key assessment information such as learning outcomes and weightings are displayed on the Assessment Summary table at the level of handbook assessments, but not at the level of individual assessment items. If you want to show these details for individual assessment items, follow these steps.
Best practice solution
1. Ensure that all essential assessment information is entered into the assessment into the Assessment description or the related Activity instructions.
2. Include your learning outcomes at the beginning of the assessment description.
3. Put the weighting for each assessment in the assessment title, or in the description. For example, Assessment 1 (15% of total marks).
When a Moodle unit has multiple cohorts attached, the Assessment page dynamically generates assessment sections for each assessment item from CourseLoop in the order courses are listed in the Callista block. Depending on if multiple cohorts have the same or different assessment regimes, there are different approaches for managing the assessment sections.
For more information, see Manage Assessment sections for multi-cohort units.
Oral presentations and other forms of individual assessment often take place over a period of one or two weeks, where individuals or groups are asked to present at random or with little notice. As such, the individual presentations have no fixed due date.
Best practice solution
Please note: The following solution may cause additional challenges in regards to individual extension dates.
1. Set the Allow submissions from date to the first date the activity will be run. For example, Week 9 of your unit.
2. Set the due date for the activity be set the to the last date the activity will be run. For example, Week 10.
3. Let your students know that the assessment will be conducted during the Week 9-10 tutorials - do this in the Assessment description.
The activity/assessment needs to have separate due dates for each student/group without being replicated/multiple versions displayed in the assessment section.
Best practice solution
1. Use the group override feature and set a separate due date for each group. For more information, see Set up extensions and resubmissions (group overrides).
The unit requires the creation of a supplementary assessment that only appears on the Assessment summary table of students who are eligible. For more information, see Supplementary assessment.
Best practice solution
1. Create a group specifically for the students undertaking the Supplementary assessment. You will need to create one group for each supplementary assessment. For more information, see Create groups and groupings.
2. Create an Assignment activity and include “Supp” or “Supplementary” in the assessment name. This helps the spec con team clearly identify that the assessment is not eligible for special consideration.
3. In the Special Consideration settings for the assessment, specify the following:
  - No - Is Special consideration available/applicable?
  - Yes - Is this a graded activity that contributes to the final mark?
  - Yes - Has the Dean (or delegate) approved that Special consideration is not available for this activity?
  - In the Reason why Special consideration is not available for this activity comment box, specify the following: "Supplementary assessment - not eligible for Special consideration”.
4. Restrict this assessment to only those in the group undertaking the supplementary assessment. For more information, see Restrict access to a resource or activity: Conditional restrictions.
5. Provide the relevant information around the supplementary assessment (including a link in the supplementary assessment information page) in the Unit information section.

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Get started with Moodle assignments

At a glance

Assessment format

Group assignments

Assignment submission

Reasons for varying submission times

Note

Feedback types

Grading methods

Marker allocation

Enable anonymity

Grade penalties

Turnitin

Assignment draft feedback

Best practice for common assessment scenarios

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Best practice solution

Your feedback matters