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Assignment settings explained

Assignment settings allow you to configure how an assignment is presented and behaves. This article will provide more information on each setting and how they work. To jump to a specific section of settings use the Table of Contents.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

You can save any assignment configurations you like as a preset or you can set your own defaults. This is recommended to save time during the assignment creation process. To learn more about presets and setting your own defaults go here.


Basic Assignment Settings

Basic assignment settings will vary the most between assignments. These settings include the total points possible for your assignment and whether or not you want student submissions to automatically go to the gradebook. You should double-check these settings before students start the assignment.

Figure 1: Basic Assignment Settings


NameDescription

Assignment name

Name of the assignment. If the assignment is configured to create a gradebook entry, the LMS Assignment will also be given this name.

Create gradebook entry

If this option is checked, Atomic Assessments will automatically create an entry in the LMS gradebook for the assignment. This can't be changed after the first assignment save.

Points possible

Total points possible for this assignment. Atomic Assessments will scale student raw scores based on this value before sending them to the gradebook.

Auto submit score to gradebook

The score will be automatically sent to the gradebook after a student completes an attempt.

Incomplete attemptsStudent attempts that were not finished by the time the lock date happens for an assignment can automatically get submitted for the student. The score that gets sent will be the score that was last autosaved for the student.

Grade server-side

This option prevents any question validation information from being sent to the client at any time and computes scores server-side rather than determining grades on the browser. While this prevents any scoring information from being sent to the browser during the activity or during review, round trip calls to the servers can decrease performance and response time. 


Please note: Selecting the grade server-side option will not display feedback for custom question types when clicking Check Answer, it disables the feedback options for correct/incorrect answer highlighting, it will not allow the use of the Give Up button, and will disable the showing of correct answers until the review page.

Assign Settings

Overrides allow you to set multiple, distinct assignment terms to accommodate different students and sections that have access to the assignment.


Each Override box will only apply those settings to the users in each Override box. You can add additional Overrides by clicking the Add Override button.

Figure 2: Assignment Override box

Override Settings

Name

Description

Assign to

Determine which users this override applies to.

Number of allowed attempts

Set for the number of allowed assignment attempts this/these user(s) get when taking this assignment. Check the box for Unlimited attempts.

Due

This date determines when this assignment is due for the assigned users. Users can submit attempts past the due date but it will be considered late.

Available from

This date determines when this assignment becomes available to the assigned users.

Until

This date determines when this assignment becomes unavailable to the assigned users. Users cannot submit attempts past this date.

Time limit (in minutes)

Set a time limit specific to the assigned users. The assignment will be automatically submitted after the time limit has passed.



Note: The allowed attempts and attempts taken numbers that show in the Canvas assignment (under the assignment name) for students will not show the correct numbers for individual overrides set in Atomic Assessments. This limitation is because Canvas doesn't support individual attempt limits in their overrides. The numbers shown here will reflect the "Everyone/Everyone Else" override. Students with individual overrides will see different numbers in the Atomic Assessments iframe. Please let students know that the numbers they see in Atomic Assessments are the accurate numbers for their assignment.


More Options

The settings under the More Options section will allow you to alter the experience of your assignment from the default assignment settings.


To access these additional settings expand the menu by clicking on the More Options arrow at the bottom of the Basic Settings section (see Figure 2 ).

General Settings

These settings will alter the student experience of an assignment. 

Figure 3: More options button location and General Settings

Score to Keep

You can specify which score to keep when multiple attempts are set for an assignment. The Latest score is kept by default.

  • Highest: The student's highest score out of all attempts will be kept as the final score.
  • Latest: The student's most recent score will be kept as the final score.
  • Average: The student's average score out of all attempts will be kept as the final score.


Name

Description

Show all items on a single page

All items and questions will be shown on a single page. This option overrides page and section breaks.

Shuffle items

Items will be shown in a different order to each student.

Show start screen

A screen with a Start button will display when a student first clicks into the assignment. Any time limits will not start until the student clicks Start.

Show remaining time

The remaining time (if a time limit is specified) will be shown in the top right corner. If enabled, this helps students manage their time more efficiently.

Timer modeTime runs only when the assignment is active - The timer will not run unless a student is actively taking the assignment. If the student leaves the assignment in the LMS and navigates somewhere else in the LMS the timer will pause.
Time runs continuously even if the student navigates away - The timer will keep running in the background for the assignment if the student leaves the assignment and comes back to it.

Hide Canvas module navigation

Hide the previous/next navigation below the assignment when students are viewing canvas modules. When the student reaches the assignment, the module navigation at the bottom will disappear until the assignment is submitted.

Require submission confirmation

A confirmation button will display asking the student to confirm before submitting the assignment.

Show summary

Students will see a summary (score, previous attempt details, retake, and/or review buttons) at the end of the assignment. When disabled, students will only see the questions with their answers (the review screen).

Allow student review

Students will be able to review their answers and feedback on any of their previous attempts. If disabled, they will see a message instead saying that their assignment has been submitted.

Show question numbers during review

Items and questions will be numbered when students review their attempts. Items with multiple questions will be separated using a period. Ex. Question 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 etc.

Question Settings

These settings allow you to configure check answer buttons and question attempt penalties. You can set check answer attempts on all questions or you can specify it by Item.

Figure 4: Default Question Settings

Enable multiple question attempts

You can configure multiple question attempts for the entire assignment, by Item, or have them never show.

  • Use Item-Level: Question attempts will be determined by what is configured on a per-question basis in Items. In order for the check answer button to appear with this setting, make sure you have configured the Check answer button and set the number of Check answer attempts for all the questions you want to allow multiple attempts on.

Figure 5: Question level check answer settings under More Options

  • Never Show: The check answer button will never display and will ignore the question level check answer settings.
  • Always Show: The check answer button will display for every question. This will override any item-level setting for this assignment only.
    • Number of allowed question attempts - Students will be able to attempt each question the number of times specified here. This is only available when the setting Enable multiple question attempts is set to Always Show
    • Unlimited question attempts - Students can attempt a question an unlimited amount of times. This is ideal for practice.
NameDescription

Show remaining attempts for questions

The number of remaining attempts for each question will be displayed at the bottom left of each question.

Show Check Answer button even after student answers correctly

If a student has answered correctly, the Check Answer button will continue to display.

Show Try Again button after an incorrect Check Answer

After a student clicks the Check Answer button and the answer is incorrect, a Try Again button will display. When the Try Again button is clicked, any highlighting and feedback disappear and the student can select a different answer. This button only shows if more question attempts remain.

Show Give Up button

When clicked, answers will be displayed for the question and there will be no more Check Answer attempts. Users will not be able to submit alternate answers, even if Check Answer attempts remain. When enabled, Correct/Incorrect highlighting and Correct Answer are always shown when the student can no longer change their answer.


Penalties

This setting will penalize students for answering a question incorrectly and deduct it from their final score. This is disabled by default.

  • Disable penalties: When a student checks their answer by clicking the Check Answer or Submit button, no penalties will be applied.
  • Use question penalties: When a user checks their answer by clicking the Check Answer or Submit button, a penalty percentage will be applied. This percentage is determined by navigating to the question settings and applying a percentage penalty.

Figure 6: Question level penalty setting under More Options

  • Apply penalty to all questions: You can set a penalty percentage that will be deducted from the question point total each time the student selects Try Again.

Feedback Timing

If you have configured your assignment to have feedback you can choose what feedback gets displayed and when. 


Highlighting is configured for auto-graded questions and will be display based on what is set in the grid. Feedback needs to be specified under the More Options settings for questions in order to display regardless of what is set in the grid.


Some settings in the grid will be grayed out if other assignment settings are specified. For example, if grade server-side is set for the assignment, then answer highlighting and the correct asnwer will not be allowed to display.


Figure 7: Feedback timing grid default settings


Name

Description

Show teacher feedback to student

The feedback that teachers have written in the speedgrader will be shown to students on the review screen.

When student checks answer

The feedback will be displayed whenever the student checks an answer

When student can no longer change answer

The feedback will be displayed when a student can no longer change their answer. For example, a student has a question with 3 attempts on the questions. The student will not see feedback until after they have submitted their third question attempt and can no longer change their answer.

After submitting assignment but before the due date

The feedback will display in the student review screen after the student has submitted their assignment and will only display before the due date set on the assignment.

After due date

The feedback will display to the student in the student review screen after the due date has passed on the assignment.

Never

The feedback will never display.

Enable hints

If hints are specified for questions they will display

Item Pools

These settings allow you to configure a custom Item pool to show each student different Items during their assignment each time they take the assignment. This option is only recommended for more advanced users of the tool.  See this article for more information on how to configure this option.


Access Restrictions

You can further restrict access to an assignment using an access code and by setting IP filter restrictions. 

Figure 8: Access restrictions settings


Name

Description

Access code

You can toggle the Require an access code option to specify an access code that students will need to enter in order to access the assignment.

IP Address Filters

Access to an assessment is restricted based on the IP address of the user’s computer. Separate entries with a comma. Valid entries are a full IP Address or those in CIDR notation such as 192.168.1.1/20




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