Setting up assessments

All assessment within your course are created via the Assignments link in your course navigation, and will sit within an Assignment Group/s. All your course assessment items should align with section 5.1 Assessment Summary of your course profile.

The advice on this page pertains to written assignments, including portfolio assignments (Pebblepad). For information on setting up other sorts of assessments, see:

• Exams and quizzes
• Group assessments
• Video assignments
• Discussions
• Auralia (Auralia Support)

Overview of assignments in Canvas and utilising Turnitin

Online assessment submissions can be set up through either the Canvas Plagiarism Framework (CPF) or Turnitin LTI submission pathways. Both allow assignment submission, marking, feedback provision and rubrics.

The Canvas Plagiarism Framework via Turnitin can handle a variety of content types from within Canvas, including uploading a file, submitting a text entry, entering a website URL, or submitting media. The Turnitin LTI functions are performed within a separate Turnitin interface.

Further differences between the two are highlighted in the table below.

Assessment cover sheets are no longer required as we move to teaching in Canvas from T3, 2022 — find out more about how to support students with the change.

Creating an assignment in Canvas

1. Click on the Modules link in the Course Navigation
2. Click the + Icon on the relevant Module
3. Select Create Assignment
4. Enter an Assignment Name and click the Add Item button
5. Click the Assignment Name title link
6. Click the Edit Button
7. Use the Rich Content Editor to add a text description, images, text, equations or other media.
8. Enter the Points for the assignment
9. Select the Assignment Group from the drop-down menu
10. Select Points in the Display Mark as drop-down menu
11. Select the Submission Type from the drop-down menu

    Online is when you want students to submit their assignments using Canvas. You will be prompted to select from a list of Online Entry Options and given the option to enable the Canvas Plagiarism Framework (via Turnitin).

    To enable Canvas Plagiarism Framework via Turnitin, select Online >  tick File Uploads > select Turnitin from the Plagiarism Review drop-down menu. Tick the relevant checkbox options and select if/when the report will be shown to students from the drop-down menu.

    No Submission is when you don't want students to submit in Canvas. This assignment type can be used to create extra columns in the Markbook

    On Paper is when you want students to submit an assignment to you, but not through Canvas. This can apply to face-to-face courses or hybrid courses when assignments need to be handed in during class, but you still want to create a Markbook column for recording marks

    External Tool is when you want students to submit assignments using an external app enabled for your course, such as Turnitin or PebblePad. This submission type does not support group assignments or peer reviews.

    In most cases, it is recommended to enable Turnitin by using Turnitin Plagiarism Review (see above). However, to create a Turnitin submission point, select External Tool >  click Find > choose Turnitin from the External Tool Configuration list >  click Select.

    We recommend seeking advice from a Learning and Teaching Consultant (LTC) when using the External Tool Submission type.

12. Select an option from the Allowed Attempts drop-down

    Unlimited allows students to submit an unlimited number of times until the Assignment 'Until' date passes and the Assignment link is no longer available.

    Limited will prompt you to enter the Number of Attempts in a separate field. Students will be able to submit until the 'Until' date passes and the Assignment link is no longer available.

13. Specify whether the submission is a Group Assignment
14. Specify whether Peer Reviews (Canvas Guides) are required
15. Specify whether the assignment will be marked anonymously (Canvas Guides). This will hide student names from markers when they view assignment submissions in SpeedGrader.
16. Assign the Assignment to 'Everyone' in the course. Optionally, add additional Assign rules for individual or groups of students who may have different  Due and Availability dates
17. Enter the Due and Availability (from and until) Dates for the assignment
18. Click Save & Publish

For more information, see Assignments (Canvas Guides) and Creating an assignment (Turnitin Help).

Advice on marks and feedback within Canvas and Turnitin can be found in Marking assessments.

Assign to Feature

In Assignments and Discussions, an Assign To button is available. In Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes, the Assign To user interface is redesigned in a tray. Additionally, student numbers are displayed alongside student names when available.

When viewing an assignment or marked discussion, instructors can use the Assign To button to quickly manage due dates and availability dates.

For more information , see How do I assign an assignment to an individual student? (Canvas Guides)

Draft and second submissions

To allow for draft assessments within Canvas, you will need to ensure that the submission settings of your assessment allow for multiple or unlimited submissions.

Student can then review their text-matching report and choose to re-submit. Multiple submissions at the same submission point are not matched against each other, meaning that students can be confident that one attempt is not matched against another leading to a high match result.

The most recent attempt is automatically presented to markers and a student's earlier attempts can also be viewed in SpeedGrader.

For more information, see Can a student resubmit Canvas assignments? (Canvas Guides)

Turnitin LTI Gotchas

Setting up a PebblePad Assignment in Canvas

To setup an assignment in Canvas using the PebblePad External Tool:

1. When setting up a new assignment, select the Submission Type as External Tool
2. Under the External Tool Options, click the Find button
3. Scroll down the list of External Tools until you see PebblePad ATLAS, and then click Select
4. Make sure the Load This Tool In A New Tab box is ticked
5. Fill out the other assessment details as required
6. Click Save & Publish

Once you have completed the setup of your assessment submission point, you will need to access PebblePad to complete the setup of the assessment:

1. In your Canvas course, navigate to the Assignments section via the Assignments link in the Course Navigation
2. Locate the assignment you have setup for Pebblepad, then click on the name of the assignment to access the assignment details
3. Click on the button indicating to load the assignment in a new window

This will take you to PebblePad where the rest of your assessment setup needs to take place. Be aware that the PebblePad integration with Canvas only allows one workspace that can be linked to the course and does not allow for students to be organised into groups.

For more information, see Using PebblePad for Assessment (Learning and Teaching Support).

Using Padlet for Assessment

For information on how to use Padlet for assessment, see Using Padlet in Canvas.

Student View

Once you've created a submission point, you may want to use Student View to check whether it's visible to students.