how to grade an assignment in brightspace

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Provide more efficient, timely, and meaningful grading and feedback. Create and edit assignments, see submission details, view submissions, associate assignments to rubrics and competencies, and return submissions with grades and feedback. On paper and observed in person assignment formats are also available.

The Create and Edit Assignments page has a fully immersive page layout. This layout is consistent with other areas of Brightspace including Assignments, Content, and Lessons, where you can upload and create a new assignment.

Access the new Assignment page

There are several different starting points to create assignments.

To create an assignment in the Classic Content Experience

• In Content , select the module where you want to create an assignment.
• Click Upload/Create .

Video: Create an assignment

To create an assignment from the New Content Experience

• From your course homepage, navigate to Content .
• In your desired module, click Create New .

Video: Assignments Creation Experience

To create an assignment from the Assignments tool

• Navigate to Assignments .
• Click New Assignment .

Fill in assignment details

When creating a new assignment, start by entering basic details such as name, grade scheme, due date, and description.

To fill in assignment details

• For Grade Out Of , enter the number of points for the assignment.

• Add to Grade Book
• Enter the Due Date for your assignment.

• If you do not wish to configure your assignment further, toggle the assignment to Visible and click Save and Close .

The new assignment is created and available to learners.

Set a start and end date for your assignment

You can further customize your assignment by setting availability dates.

To set a start date and end date

• Set a Start Date and an End Date .
• Visible with access restricted
• Visible with submission restricted

The new assignment is created with specified start and end dates.

Create a new release condition for your assignment

You can add release conditions to your assignment. Release conditions are conditions that must be met for an assignment to be made visible to learners. For example, you can set your assignment to only be available to learners when they achieve a specified score on a quiz.

To create a new release condition

• Under Condition Type , select the condition that must be met.
• Under Assignment Submission Folder , select the assignment submission folder in which this condition must be met.
• Click Create .

A new release condition is added to your assignment.

Attach an existing release condition to your assignment

You can also attach an existing release condition to your assignment.

To attach an existing release condition

An existing release condition is added to your assignment.

Make your assignment only available to a select group

You can Manage Special Access for your assignment. This enables you to make your assignments available only to a select group of users or to add individualized due dates for certain users.

To make your assignment available to a select group

• Allow users with special access to submit outside the normal availability dates for this folder.
• Allow only users with special access to see this folder.
• To add users, click Add Users to Special Access .
• Specify the Due Date and the Availability start and end dates for selected users.
• Select the check box alongside the users who you want to grant this special access to.
• Click Save and then click Save and Close .

Your assignment is configured to give special access to specific users or groups.

Customize Submission Type & Completion settings

You can also customize what type of assignment you are creating, and what file types you will accept from learners submitting their assignments.

To customize submission type and completion settings

• For File Submissions , set the number of Files Allowed Per Submission and the Submissions rules.
• For Text submissions , set the Submission rules.
• For On paper submissions , set Marked as completed to one of the available options: Manually by learners , Automatically on evaluation , or Automatically on due date .

• From the Allowable File Extensions drop-down menu, select an option to restrict file extensions on submissions for the assignment.

The assignment type and acceptable file type for submission is set.

Customize Evaluation & Feedback settings

Add rubrics, associate learning objectives, display annotations, and use anonymous marking. You can also use Advanced Assessments described below to better manage courses with large class sizes and multiple evaluators, delegate and manage evaluator workflows, and reduce bias in marking.

To add Rubrics and associate learning objectives

• Click Manage Learning Objectives .
• Click Associate Learning Objectives .
• Select the learning objective you want to add and then click Add Selected .
• On the context menu of the associated learning objective, select Add Assessment .
• Select an existing rubric or create a new rubric.
• Select the rubric criteria and specify if the assessment activity is required to complete the learning objective.
• Click Save .
• Click Close .

• Click Save and Close .

To display annotations and use anonymous marking

• From the New Assignment page, expand Evaluation & Feedback .
• To display annotation tools in the document viewer, under Annotation Tools , select Make annotation tools available for assessment .
• To enable anonymous marking, under Anonymous Marking , select Hide student names during assessment .

To set up a delegation, co-marking, or multi-evaluator workflow and enable Turnitin

• From the New Assignment page, expand the Evaluation & Feedback accordion.

• All evaluators can publish any evaluations
• Evaluators can only publish their evaluation

To match evaluators to learners, in Allocate Evaluators to Learners > Manage Allocations > manually pair learners with evaluators or select one of the following options:

• Allocate all evaluators to every learner
• Randomly allocate 1 evaluator to every learner evenly
• Randomly allocate 2 evaluators to every learner evenly
• Randomly allocate 3 evaluators to every learner evenly

Click Apply Allocation Method > Done .

To choose a multi-evaluator workflow, navigate to Coordinate Multiple Evaluators , select one of the following options:

One shared evaluation to allow all evaluators to work on the same evaluation together. Publishers release this evaluation to learners.

Multiple individual evaluations to allow evaluators to work on their own evaluations separately. Publishers aggregate results into one final evaluation and release it to learners.

If Turnitin is enabled for your role in the course, you can use the Similarity Report options while the Online Grading tools are disabled by doing the following:

• Under Turnitin Integration , click Manage Turnitin .
• Enable the Turnitin integration and click Save .

Refer to Advanced Assessment for Assignments in test, development, and staging environments of Brightspace for more information.

Add a rubric to an assignment

Preview an assignment submission

There are often situations where you would like to see the end-to-end flow of submitting an assignment you created. This can easily be accomplished by leveraging the Preview function within the Assignments tool. You can go through the process of viewing and submitting an assignment and have your preview submission available in the evaluation workflow.

To preview an assignment submission

• Select the assignment you want to preview.
• Select Allow this preview submission to be available in the folder .
• Click Add a File to submit a test assignment.

• On the Review Assignment Submission page, click Exit Preview .
• If you want to view the evaluation workflow for your assignment submission, click on the assignment where you just made the submission.
• Click Show Search Options .

• Click Apply and find your assignment submission.

You now have access to the to the evaluation screen for your assignment submission.

Brightspace Support

Grading an Assignment

The Assignment tool provides instructors with a variety of tools to help grade assignments and to leave feedback. All of this is done on the Assignment evaluation page. You are also able to attach a rubric to the assignment, provided you have created one in Brightspace. Click here for our guide on creating rubrics.

The most convenient way to grade assignments, is on the Evaluation page . Another option is to download the assignments to your computer and grade them in Microsoft Word. You can also use TurnitIn, which is an application built into Brightspace. TurnitIn offers a “Similarity Check” to alert you of any possible plagiarism, and also offers annotation tools.

Access the Assignment Evaluation page

• Download Assignment files
• Use TurnitIn

Updated Spring 2022

This takes you to the evaluation page. Here you have many options for assessment and providing feedback. Also see the image below.

• By clicking on the document, you can use the built in Annotation Tool . Click here for more information on how to use annotations. 

On the right hand side you will see the feedback panel. This panel will allow you to privately communicate FERPA-sensitive grade information with your student. You can:

• Attach and use a rubric . Click to expand the rubric and grade by criterion.
• Assign a grade. Enter manually, or if you are using an rubric this is automatic entered.
• Add text. Add images and other things with the insert stuff button in the feedback text box.
• Upload a feedback file . This can be a graded copy of the submission, instructor notes, or another file. 
• Add video or audio feedback. This feature is useful when you want to communicate more personally with your students or accurately convey tone. You can record one minute of audio or three minutes of video.

After leaving feedback and assigning a grade, you can publish feedback immediately or save your feedback as a draft and release it at a later time. This enables you to revise and review evaluations and publish your feedback to multiple users at the same time. You also have the option to retract published feedback if you want to provide an update to past evaluations but only want learners to access your most recent feedback.   

Download assignment files

It is also possible to download all user submissions in a .zip file, leave feedback within the files using the Word or PDF track changes and comment features, then upload the files back to the appropriate assignment submission folder so they appear as attachments.

• Open the Zip file that is downloaded to your computer. Enter feedback one by one, save and close the files. Do not rename the files.
• To return feedback on all downloaded submissions at once, click Add Feedback Files . Upload your compressed .zip file using the same format that it was downloaded with, then click Add .

To add the file to students one at a time , go to the Evaluation page for that student. Use the File Upload button underneath the feedback text box

Use Turnitin

Turnitin is an originality checker (sometimes also called a plagiarism detector, although that term stretches what the tool is actually capable of). However, it is possible NOT to use the originality tools, and instead use Turnitin’s robust grading and evaluation tools which include rubrics, Quickmarks, and an e-rater that assigns student essays with typical feedback for surface-level writing issues that is then fully editable by the instructor. Here are our guides for using Turnitin:

• Video Introduction to TurnitIn’s Quickmarks
• How do I enable TurnitIn on a new assignment?
• How do I enable TurnitIn on an existing assignment?
• An Overview of TurnitIn Feedback Studio
• How to use the similarity report tools in TurnitIn
• How to provide feedback using TurnitIn
• How to manually enter grades using TurnitIn
• How do I use a rubric in the TurnitIn Feedback Studio

Grading Assignments in Brightspace

This article will show you how to grade your student's assignments via the Assignment tab in the Navbar. If you would like to learn how to grade via the Quick Eval tool, check out our these slides. 

• Go to the  Assignment Menu  of your course

• Once you are here, you can view your student's submissions. To view their submission, click on either:
• The student's name
• The student's file submission

• On the right of the screen, you can enter an  Overall Grade , type  Overall Feedback , and  Include Attachments  to the feedback.
• Once you are finished, you can either  Publish  your evaluation, or  Save it as a Draft .

Supported By

• Learning Management System Support >
• Guides for Instructors >
• Assessments and Grading >
• Basics of Grading in UB Learns

Basics of Grading in Brightspace

Grading is used to provide feedback and evaluate student work. Instructors communicate to students about their performance, where they need more help to achieve the course's goals and highlight progress through grades on assignments and assessments. However, effective feedback and grading is not possible without a well thought-out grading scheme. This page provides information on how to use the Brightspace Grades Tool and Setup Wizard to ensure your course has a solid grading system in place. 

On this page:

Grading features.

The grade book in Brightspace shares many similar functions as the Grade Center in Blackboard. However, the biggest difference is in Brightspace you must first use the Grades Setup Wizard . This process is helpful to help align and plan how grades will be categorized and allocated in the system.

Create Your Grade Book: Grades Setup Wizard

The Setup Wizard is the feature that will guide you through the process of setting up your grade book in Brightspace. When you open the Grades Tool for the first time, you will click on the Setup Wizard tab to get started.

Step 1: Choose a Grading System

Weighted, points or formula system.

• A weighted system will display percentage scores for a grade item based on how much it contributes to the final course grade (e.g., 20.0%).
• A points system will display the number of points (e.g., 32 to represent 32/40 on an individual item and overall grade will be the total number of points earned).  
• A custom formul a can also be used to calculate overall grades.

Step 2: Establish Final Grade Type and Release

Release calculated or adjusted final grades.

• Brightspace will automatically calculate overall grade as grade items are submitted and scored.  
• Adjusted grades allows instructors to override calculated scores without rescoring individual grade items.  
• Note:  Depending on your course settings, not all grades may be released at the same. You can choose to withhold publishing grades until a specific time or publish grades at will at the individual graded item level.

Step 3: Grade Calculations

Ungraded items can be dropped or treated as 0.

• If you select  drop ungraded items , the grade will be calculated only for those grade items that have been scored.  
• If you select  treat ungraded items as 0 , unscored grade items will be included in the calculated score as 0’s.  

Treating ungraded items as 0’s will temporarily deflate overall grades until these items are scored.  You also have the option here to ensure that the final grade is adjusted each time a grade item is scored to allow for a running progress check.

Step 4: Choose Default Grade Scheme

• UB automatically imposes letter grades, but there may some cases where instructors want to reflect scores as percentages of points earned or simply pass/fail.  
• Note: For all schemes other than letter grades, the instructor must convert the resulting final grade to a format that is acceptable in HUB.  

Step 5: Managing View Display Options

Select the number of decimal places to display.

• This feature allows the instructor to determine how many decimal places students see in the grade book.

Step 6: Student View Display Options

Select student view display options.

• Points Grade : This setting determines whether or not the Points grade value associated with a grade item is displayed in the student view of grades.
• Grade scheme symbol : This setting determines whether or not the grade scheme symbol associated with a grade item is displayed in the student view of grades. 
• Grade scheme color : This setting determines whether or not the Grade scheme color associated with a grade item is displayed in the student view of grades. 
• Note : Both the grade scheme symbol and color must be displayed at the same time. You cannot have a grade scheme color showing without having a grade scheme symbol established.
• Decimals Displayed : This setting controls how many decimals will be displayed to a user grading a course. The value must be an integer between 0 and 5.
• Characters Displayed : This setting determines how many characters of a Text grade item users can see in their view of the Grades tool. The value must be an integer between 0 and 50. If the text item is longer than the characters displayed, the text will be truncated.
• Final Grade Calculation : This setting determines whether users can see how their final grade was calculated in the student view of Grades.

Step 7: Grades Setup Summary

Review this summary to ensure the grades for your course are configured correctly.

Grades Tool – Setup Wizard (Video)

Grade Assignments with the Grades Tool

The Grades Tool in Brightspace is equivalent to the Grade Center in Blackboard.  You will use the Grades Tool in Course Admin to set up your grade book with assignments, tests and other graded activities, and to evaluate your students' work when submitted. 

Grade items can also be created for activities that do not include a submission, such as class attendance, in-class presentations, group discussions, etc. To create assessments that utilize submissions, please visit Creating Activities and Assessments . 

Grade Scheme

The Grade Scheme is how a student’s achievement is represented on individual grade items and holistically for overall performance.  This can be represented as a percentage score (e.g., 85.0%), pass/fail, complete/incomplete, as a letter grade (e.g., B) or other such formats.  The university uses a standard grade scheme, which will be the default in Brightspace just as it has been in Blackboard, however you and your department will need to decide the criteria to meet the desired schema. The schema can be allocated to specific items or the course overall if your course, depending on the grade scheme selected.

For more information about fair and equitable grading practices at UB, see Explanation of Grades .

Grades Category

Assessments can be grouped into categories of like requirements. For example, grade items that require submitted written work can be grouped into a Grade Category called Assignments. Discrete quizzes can be grouped into a category called Quizzes. This functionality is helpful when using a weighted grading system. It also allows total weight or points for a grade category to be easily distributed across all grade items in that category.  To create grade categories:

• On the navbar, click Grades . 
• Click Manage Grades .
• Click on  New  and select Category .
• Give your category a name and select the options that are relevant for the category.
• Click Save and Close .

Grade Items

Grade items are activities you are using to measure your students’ progress in your class (known as assessments in Blackboard). These include assignments, quizzes and discussions, as well as those activities that do not require a submission such as attendance, participation, in-class exams, etc. 

For more detailed information about creating grade items, please see Quizzes in Brightspace or Assignments in Brightspace .

Brightspace categorizes grade items by the way that a grade or score is assigned. Grade Item Types represent the six approaches to scoring grade items in Brightspace.

Grade Item Types

Extra Credit and Bonus Grade Items

At times, you may want to provide extra credit work for students that will provide bonus points on top of the points they earn from regular grade items, allowing a grade to exceed 100%. These grade items must be given a numeric score. In this case, when you are creating a new grade item in the Manage Grades tab, you can choose from two checkboxes:  Can Exceed or  Bonus . There are some cautions when using these grade items:

• These can only be scored as numeric items.
• These items do not update the final grade until all other grade items have been compiled.
• To allow extra credit on a standard assignment, select Can Exceed .
• An item specifically given as an extra credit assignment is called a  Bonus Grade Item  –  all  points given are treated as extra credit. Using a Bonus Item will allow students to earn extra points without changing the final calculated grade. Bonus items will have a star next to their name in the grade book.

How to Add Bonus or Can Exceed Option to a New Assignment

• Create an assessment or class activity
• After naming your new item and putting in its point value, select  Can Exceed or Bonus .
• Add any additional rubric or display options.

How to Add Bonus or Can Exceed Option to an Existing Assignment

• Select Grades   in the navbar.
• Select Manage Grades .
• On the item you wish to add a Bonus or Can Exceed option to, click on the chevron and select Edit .
• Under Grading , click on the checkbox for Can Exceed  or Bonus .
• Select Save and Close .

Additional Resources

Brightspace-support

• Grading Assignments

Updated on Feb 02, 2024

There is a video about this topic at the end of this article.  Click Here  to go directly to the video.

Assignments can be graded in several ways in Brightspace. This article explains how to use each of the possibilities.

Table of Contents

Assess with just a grade and general feedback, annotate submissions with brightspace inline feedback, add an audio or video file, assess submissions with rubrics, annotate submissions offline in bulk, assess submissions with anonymous marking.

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. This also applies for grading in Feedback Studio.

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. 
• NB This grade will be transferred to the Gradebook , since a grade item is associated.
• Add feedback as desired. 
• 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.
• It is also possible to record  or add  an audio file . 

There is a limit of 300 thousand 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.

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 are willing 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. 

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 like Turnitin .

The inline feedback offers an addition to just adding a grade and general feedback. As shown below the left side looks a tad different, whereas the right side still offers the same fields as discussed above.

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.

The Rubrics tool is used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently. The Rubrics tool allows you to create analytic rubrics (multiple criterion) or holistic rubrics (one criterion). Once a rubric has been created and is now 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 check out this chapter 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’s 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 also works with Turnitin! Let students know they should not put their name in the title of the submission.

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 you assignment and an extensive guide on assessing submissions with Anonymous Marking.

Video Instruction

What's new.

NL: Wil je op de hoogte blijven van updates en andere wijzigingen in Brightspace? Bezoek What's New !

EN: Would you like to keep up with updates and other changes in Brightspace? Visit What's New !

Assessing Assignments & Grading

• How do I assess an assignment offline?
• How do I assess an assignment with inline feedback?
• How do I assess a group assignment?
• How do I use Submission Logs with Assignments?
• How do I filter (non) submissions?
• How do I assess an assignment using a Rubric?
• How do I attach a grade item to an assignment?
• How do I assess an assignment using anonymous marking?
• How do I place a FeedbackFruits module in my course?
• Introduction to Brightspace Grades
• Setting up the Gradebook for the first time with the Grades Setup Wizard
• Create Grade Categories
• Create Grade Items
• Set up Resits in your Gradebook
• How do I use the Formula Editor?
• Grading Students
• Grading Quizzes
• Release Grades to your students
• How do I export Grades?
• Copy your Gradebook and Grade Settings to another course
• How can I view grades of students who unenrolled from a course?
• How do I attach a grade item to a discussion topic?
• How do I use Rubrics?
• How do I create a Rubric?
• How do I associate a Rubric to an Assignment or Discussion?
• Rubrics Good to Know and FAQ
• Creating an assignment with Ouriginal
• Viewing and interpreting the Similarity Report
• FAQ Ouriginal
• What can I use Brightspace for and when should I use Remindo?
• Support for Test/Exam Applications