Contents of this article:
- What are Assignments?
- Creating an Assignment
- Completing an Assignment - Assessor
- Unsharing a Reflection/Deleting an Assignment
- Embedding an Assignment in a Group Page
- Managing Assignments
- Managing User Permissions for Submitting Reflections
What are Assignments?
Assignments are a structured way to ask questions and collect responses within a Pathway or Group. They support a variety of formats. Assignments can be used to assess understanding, gather feedback, demonstrate learning, or guide users through specific tasks or objectives.
Creating an Assignment
To insert an Assignment into a Group page, it needs to be created first. To begin, click Assignments under your Resources on the left-hand side menu of the Group.
Create Assignment
When you're ready to begin click New Assignment.
Your Assignment will have a few fields to fill out before you begin adding questions.
- Give your Assignment a name
- Add a description (optional)
- Add a due date (optional)
- Decide whether or not the Assignment will be manually or automatically marked as complete
- Check off whether or not to Notify Assessors or the Submitter, Show Grade, or Feedback
Adding Questions
Click the Add Question button to add questions to the assignment.
The questions will appear on the right-hand side for you to tailor as you like.
The question options available are:
Text – Request a written response.
Multiple Choice – Request selection from predefined options.
Number – Request a numeric response.
Date – Request a specific date.
Rating Scale – Request a rating on a defined scale.
Attachment – Request a file upload.
Guide – Request insertion of a Guide.
Reflection – Request a reflective response for a specified purpose.
When filling out your question, you will:
Type your Question
Add a (optional) description to the question to help the user with context
Choose the question privacy, Private or Visible
Choose whether or not the question will be required
To remove a question, simply click the red 'X' in the corner.
When you've finished adding questions, click the Create button to finish the process.
Text
Type a question that will require a written response from the user.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Multiple Choice
Type a question that request a selection from predefined options. You may set as many answers as needed and select whether or not the user can select more than one option. To add an option, type in the field provided and it will be added automatically.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Number
Type a question that requires a numeric response.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Date
Type a question that requires a date as an answer.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Rating Scale
Type a question to evaluate a specific item. Configure the Minimum and Maximum values, which appear on a slider for the user.
The Low and High labels can be customized. Fields are pre-populated for demonstration purposes.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Attachment
Here, you can ask the user to upload an attachment to the assignment.
The user can only attach one file per question. If you want for them to attach more files, add as many more 'Attachment' questions as you like.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Guide
You can ask the user to attached a Guide from our collection.
They will only be able to select one Guide per question. If you would like for them to add more than one, you can add more 'Guide' questions to the Assignment.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Then,
Reflection
You can ask the user to submit a reflection from their Reflection Library.
They will only be able to submit one reflection per question. If you would like for them to add more than one reflection, you can add more 'Reflection' questions to the Assignment.
What the user will see when completing the Assignment:
Add Heading
If you'd like to add text before, between, or after your Assignment questions, click the + Add Heading button.
Fill out the text box with the content you'd like to add:
Then, choose whether you'd like it to be in Heading, Subheading, or Paragraph style.
Adding Assessors
There are two tabs at the top, one for Assignments, and another for Assessors.
Group Admins will already be set as Assessors for Assignments. You can add additional Assessors with the Add+ button, provided they are a member of the Group. Only Assessors will be able to create Assignments.
Completing an Assignment - Assessee
Click on the Open button to view the assignment.
Once the Assignment is complete, the button can be found at the bottom of the page.
Completing an Assignment - Assessor
Locate the assignment you would like to mark complete and click Open.
The next screen shows a list of all the users who have made a submission.
Click the View button for the Assignment you would like to mark.
You will then see all the questions that the user has answered.
If you've chosen to add a Grade, you may add that now. Once finished, .
The Status for that Assignment will change to Completed for the assessor and user to see.
The user can open the assignment in the same way and will now see the (optional) grade and feedback at the bottom of the assignment.
If you initially set the assignment to automatically 'mark as complete', you can still go into the completed assignment and offer a grade and some feedback if you wish.
Unsharing a Reflection/Deleting an Assignment
If you have submitted an assignment with a reflection, you will need to delete the submission in order to unshare the reflection with the assignment
From the reflection sharing modal you will see the unshare option is greyed out with the following advice
To delete the submission go to the group or Pathway with the associated assignment and locate the submission which you can then delete
Embedding an Assignment in a Group Page
Embedding an Assignment is also possible. You can embed an Assignment in the same way you would embed any other resource.
When editing a page click Insert+ then Assignment.
Once embedded, it will look very similar to how it appears to someone submitting an Assignment. The submissions made from an embed are still linked to that specific user and can be marked and completed as normal.
Managing Assignments
Using the dropdown next to the Open button for each Assignment, you will find the options to Edit, Clone and Delete the Assignment.
You can only edit an Assignment if it hasn't already been completed and submitted by a user.
Managing User Permissions for Submitting Reflections
As part of an assignment, the user may need to submit a reflection.
Due to the way the IRIS Connect system is designed permission needs to be provided by an Organisation Administrator before sharing can take place with users from outside their organisation.
Cross organisation sharing can take place via the networks feature or via a community group which has been approved for sharing (Contributors approved status). Further information about cross organisation sharing can be found here.
Sharing when permission is not yet granted
If a user shares a reflection or attachment as part of an assignment, but the group the assignment is in is not yet in the user's Contributors Approved list, the submission will be permitted but any group assessors from other organizations (who are not in a network with the user) will not be able to see the reflection..
This submission will then triggers a permission request to be sent to the user's organization administrators. If the user creating the submission is an organisation admin then the group will be automatically added to their organisation's Contriboturos Approved list and no notifications will be sent.
Further information on group administration can be found here and managing group permissions as an organisation administrator can be found here.