The support tabs below will guide you through how to create a folder and add a description to a folder. The tutorials contain video guidance along with text and screenshots to support you as you create submissions, grade items, and give feedback to your students with the annotations tool in Brightspace.
Below you will find information on how to: Create a draft submission point, create a submission point, create a grade item and providing feedback using the annotations tool.
This tutorial is a point of reference for the benefit of course administrators, or administrators at our partner institutions who have responsibility for the setting up of assignment submission points. If you're a lecturer on a course with a designated course administrator, please speak to your course administrator if you need any submission points to be set up.
1. Navigate to the Assignments area, by selecting ‘Assessment’ from the navbar and choosing ‘Assignments’.
2. Create a new assignment.
3. For ‘Instructions, refer to ‘Standard wording for Brightspace submission folders’ and amend if necessary.
4. ‘Assignment Type’, ‘Submission Type’ and ‘Files Allowed Per Submission’, the settings should be the same as the final (non-draft) submission point.
5. Under ‘Submissions’, leave as ‘All submissions are kept’ for level 3, 4 & 5 modules. For level 6 and 7 modules, select ‘Only one submission allowed’.
6. The ‘Category’ will need to be ‘DRAFT Submissions’. If you’ve already created this category, select it from the dropdown menu. If not, double-check that it doesn’t already exist, before selecting ‘New Category’ and naming it ‘DRAFT Submissions’.
7. For ‘Score Out Of’ – just put 100. As this assignment won’t be graded, it doesn’t matter.
8. Do not associate to a grade item. (Grade Items are for the summative assignment submissions).
9. Leave the other options as their default values.
10. Move to the 'Restrictions' tab.
11. Set an end date, which will generally be for the end of the academic year. This is important because, depending on the students' level, they will be allowed fewer draft submissions in the next year of their study, but will still be able to access this module and submission point. If your module ends at a different time, or students still need it open for slightly longer, modify the date accordingly.
12. Move to the ‘Turnitin’ tab. 
13. Check the box for ‘Enable GradeMark’ for this folder.
14. Leave the ‘Transfer’ option as normal.
15. Check the box for ‘Enable Originality Check for this folder’.
16. Check the box for ‘Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their submission folder’.
17. For ‘Frequency’, leave it as it is.
18. Select ‘More Options in Turnitin’.
19. Select ‘Optional Settings’
20. IMPORTANT. Under ‘Submit papers to’, change it to ‘Do not store the submitted papers’. If this option isn’t changed, their final (non-draft) assignment will result in a very high similarity score, as they would in effect have plagiarized themselves.
21. Leave all other options as they are. (Do not be tempted to save these settings for future use, as this would affect the creation of final assignment points).
22. Select ‘Submit’.
23. Select ‘Save and Close’.
How to Create a Submission Point with Anonymous Marking
This tutorial is a point of reference for the benefit of course administrators, or administrators at our partner institutions who have responsibility for the setting up of assignment submission points. If you are a lecturer on a course with a designated course administrator, please speak to your course administrator if you need any submission points set up.
1. Navigate to the Assignments area, by selecting ‘Assessment’ from the navbar and choosing ‘Assignments’.
2. Click 'New Assignment'
3. In the 'Instructions' area, please refer to 'Standard Wording for Brightspace Submission Folders' (Found HERE) and amend if necessary.
4. 'Assignment Type' will generally be 'Individual Assignment'. 'Submission Type' will generally be 'File Submission' and 'Files Allowed Per Submission', should generally be set to Unlimited.
5. Under 'Submissions', select 'Only the most recent submission is kept'.
6. Choose the right category for the assignment, if necessary,
7. 'Score Out Of' should generally be set to 100.
8. IMPORTANT: Set the grade item for the assignment. If this is a summative assignment, it will need a grade item. A grade item is the link between an assignment and the gradebook, which is used for final grades, If you need to set up a new grade item, follow the steps on this tutorial to do so: How to Create a Grade Item
9. Anonymous Marking is mandatory for all summative assessments from January 2021. To do this, make sure that 'Hide student names during assessment' is ticked.
10. Leave the other options as they are. It is important that 'Make annotation tools available for assessment' is selected so that lecturers can give feedback within Brightspace itself.
11. Back at the top of the page, move to the 'Restrictions' tab.
12. Make sure that 'Hide from Users' is not selected.
13. Set the Due Date in accordance with the Module Specification
14. Set the Start Date. This is generally fourteen days before the due date.
15. Set the End Date. This is usually 3 working days after the due date.
16. Move to the Turnitin tab.
17. Check the box for 'Enable GradeMark' for this folder. You will need to wait a few seconds while Brightspace syncs with Turnitin before the rest of the options become available.
18. Leave the 'Transfer' option as normal.
19. Check the box for 'Enable Originality Checks for this folder'
20. Make sure that the box for 'Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their submission folder' is unchecked. (Students do not see their similarity reports for final submissions).
21. For 'Frequency', leave it as it is.
22. Select 'Save and Close'.
You should see the assignment under the 'Assignment' tab. The symbols next to it indicate that it has Anonymous Marking and Turnitin enabled.
In order to have an assignment pull through to the 'Gradebook', a 'Grade Item' needs to be set up. The grade item is the link between the two. Therefore, all summative assignments should have a grade item so that the scores pull through to the grades area. Formative assignments should not.
You can create the grade items before the assignments by following these steps, or during the creation of assignments when given the option of 'new grade item'.
1. Select 'Assessment' from the navbar.
2. Select 'Grades'.
3. Select the 'Manage Grades' tab.
4. Select the 'New' dropdown menu.
5. Select 'Item'.
6. The majority of grade items will be numeric, so select that.
7. Enter the name of the assessment to be graded into the 'name' box.
8. The short name is optional. Don't worry about this unless the name of the grade item is very long.
9. If you have separated the grade items into categories, you can put it into a category here, or make a new category. Categories can themselves take up a certain weighting of the overall marks for the module. (For example, you might have a category called 'Essays', which comprises 50% of the module weighting, and four grade items within this category for each summative essay). As with the 'weighting' option (step 11), this will need to be set in accordance with the module specification.
10. The 'Maximum Points' box should nearly always be set to 100.
11. Enter the assessment component’s weight (component weighting can usually be located in the module descriptor in the course handbook).
12. Leave 'can exceed', 'bonus' and 'grade scheme' as they are.
13. If a rubric is attached to this assessment, you could add it here.
14. Under 'Display Options', make sure that the options to display class average, distribution, and the override settings are not checked.
15. Scroll back to the top of the page and click on the “Restrictions” tab.
16. Select “Hide from Users” (this will mean the whole grade item is not visible to students until the module leader chooses to release the grades and feedback)
17. Click “Save and Close”.
If you did this while creating the assignment, you continue with the rest of the steps to create the assignment.
If you created the grade item before the assignment, all you will need to do is select the grade item at the relevant point when you create the assignment.
If the assignment was already created, you can attach it to the grade item by doing so under 'Edit Assignment'. (Select 'Assessment' from the navbar, select 'Assignments', select the dropdown arrow by the relevant assignment, select 'Edit Assignment'.)
1. First, go to Assignments and then click the assignment you wish to mark
2. Now you will find a list of submissions. Each student will be assigned an Anonymous User ID, you will find the submitted file(s) for each students associate. By clicking on the file, a new window pops up.
3.Here you can add your feedback. This will be visible for the student after publication. You can also access the Turnitin similarity report as you would normally. An anonymous student ID is also passed to Turnitin, so no student names are visible when checking the report. Turnitin should no longer be used to annotate or grade student work.
4. Lecturers can only publish anonymous marking using 'Publish All Feedback', to prevent identifying learners through selective anonymous marking feedback submission. Note that the 'Publish' button is disabled on the submission page. Select 'Save Draft' to save, then click 'Back to Submissions'.
Brightspace now has a tool for providing annotation-based feedback, just like Turnitin. The advantage of using Brightspace for this is that the feedback can be viewed or submitted in the same environment, which is simpler for both staff and students.
5. Select Publish All Feedback to publish all feedback. This will only be available when at least one feedback is saved as a draft. This will also make any unmarked work lose its anonymous student IDs, see red box below.
Once grades are published student IDs become available with associated submissions.
