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Assignments | How to give Evaluation and Feedback to an Assignment

The Evaluation Submission page allows to easily evaluate and assess the assignment handed in by students. With this tool, lecturers can assess the work of the students and provide feedback. When a Rubric is added, it is possible to refer to it when grading the assignment.

This article will show you:

First, navigate to the Submissions homepage going to the assignment you want to evaluate. Scroll down the page, a  list with students (or groups, if applicable) and their submissions will appear. From the list of submitted documents:  

  1. Click on one of the submissions (i.e Lorem Ipsum)
Open a Submission

This will redirect you to the Evaluation and Feedback page of the submitted document

Student Identification

On the top left corner, by positioning the cursor on the icon, the student's profile is shown. There are a few options such as e-mail, sending an instant message and viewing student's progress.

Student Identification

1. Envelop icon - to send an email to the student (Compose New Message window will pop up)

2. Speech bubble icon  - to send a message to the student (Send Message window will pop up)

3. Progress graph icon - to view the students' progress (the Progress homepage will open in a new tab)

4. User submissions - to navigate through the student's submissions

Evaluation and Feedback homepage

On the Evaluation and Feedback homepage, there are several options. Only the enabled settings will be available. For example, if the rubrics are disabled for this assignment, they will not appear on the homepage.

Evalutation and Feedback Interface

1. The Annotation Tool

The Annotation Tool allows marking up submissions using highlighting, freehand drawing, shapes, and associated commenting. Each tool has additional options to change color, font size, font, and many other customization items. Once the feedback has been published, students can view their submission with the annotations visible, providing additional context.

The Annotation Tool

It is possible to add annotations and feedback to assignments of the following file types: DOC, DOCX, RTF, ODT, PPT, PPTX, PPSX, ODP, XLS, XLSX, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, GIF and TXT.

1. Thumbnails

Page thumbnails are miniature previews of the pages in a document. Use page thumbnails to jump quickly to a selected page or to adjust the view of the page.

1. Click on the Thumbnail icon, this will open the miniature previews of the pages in the document

Thumbnail page preview

To select a different page preview,

2. Click on the downward arrow, a drop-down menu will appear

3. You have the option to select:

  • Outline - to view the schematic draft of the submitted document
  • Bookmarks - to add and view Bookmarks within the submitted document
Click on the downward arrow next to the Thumbnail icon, a drop-down menu will appear select either Outline or Bookmarks
2. Page Selection Controls

Use the buttons to navigate from one page to the next in a multi-page document.

Page control - to go back and forward through a document

1. Left arrow - to go back through a document

2. Right arrow - to go forward through a document

3. Page Layout

 The page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page,

1. Click on the Page Layout icon, a drop-down menu will appear

2. You have the option to select from:

  • Page Mode - to view the document as a single, double-page or automatic selection
  • Page Transition - to have a continuous page transition or to jump from page to page
  • Page Rotation - to rotate the page

 

Page Layout
4. Pan Mode

The visible portion of the document will change according to the movement of the mouse. Drag the mouse up or down to navigate through the pages.

1. Click anywhere in the document and move the mouse while keeping the left mouse button depressed, the hand will show as folded

Pan mode - hand folded the movement of the mouse will change the visibility portion of the document

2. The document visibility will change according to the movement of the mouse until you release the button, the hand will show was unfolded

Pan mode - hand unfolded the movement will stop
5. Zoom

Zoom operation changes the size of the font on-screen without impacting any other attribute of the document.

 

Zoom in and out by clicking on the mangifying glasses

1. Click on the magnifying glass with the - sign - to zoom out

2. Click on the magnifying glass with the + sign - to zoom in

6. Fit and Width Page

Fit and Width Page is a zoom function that toggles the paper view from fitting the whole page into the frame or fitting it to the width of the frame.

Fit Page

1. Fit Page - to change the page layout

This will shrink the page view,

 

Fit Width

2. Fit Width to revert to Fit Page view

7. Annotations Tool

An annotation tool is a text or drawing tool that helps add information to a document. For example, it can be a note that includes a comment or explanation.

More options will appear,

To make drawings, comments, text boxes and lines

Annotation Tool Bar
1. Drawing tool

Using the drawing tool,  allows you to write free-hand on the document with your mouse, move, resize, and change appearance including color, thickness, and opacity.

1. Click on the downward arrow to change drawing markup tools

2. You can select from

  • Freeform Highlight - to highlight text
  • Text Highlighter - to highlight a paragraph
  • Eraser - to erase markups
Pen tool for free-hand drawing

3. Click on the Pen

Click on the pen, more options will appear

More options will unfold,

4. Color- to select a color for the marker

5. Fill color - to select a background color

6. Opacity - to select the opacity percentage of the color

7. Thickness - to select the line width of the marker

8. Blend mode - to add an effect to the drawing

Additional options in Drawing
2. Note tool

Add longer comments that can be collapsed or expanded, to a document. Change appearance with a variety of shapes and colors.

1.  Click on the Notes icon

Comment tool bar

More formatting options will unfold,

 

More Formatting Options Comment Tool bar

2. Select the Note color

3. Choose the shape of the note

3. Text Tool

Add text anywhere on the document. Move, resize, and change the appearance. Including font, size, alignment, and color.

1. Click on the Text icon

Text tool bar

More options will unfold,

more options in the text tool bar

2. Color - to select the color of the text

3. Fill color - to select the color of the background

4. Opacity- to select the opacity percentage of the color

5. Font - to select more font options

4. Line Tool

Add lines to create line shapes anywhere on the document. The lines can be formatted by color, transparency, thickness.

To select the type of line

1. Click on the downward arrow

2. Select Arrow or Rectangle

Choose type of line (Arrow or Triangle)

3. Click on the Line icon

Line Tool bar

More options will unfold,

More formatting options Line Tool bar

4. Color - to select the color of the line

5. Fill color - to select the background color of the line

6. Opacity - to select the percentage of color opacity

7. Thickness - to select the line thickness

8. Line style - to select more line options

 

8. Undo or Redo button

Remove an annotation or repeat the action using the arrow buttons.

Left-pointing arrow to undo, Right-pointing arrow to redo.

undo/redo arrow
9. Print or Search Document

Search for words within the document or print it

Printer icon

1. Printer icon - to print the document

Search Document bar

2. Magnifying glass icon - to search the Document

3. A search bar will appear

10. Downloading or Fullscreen

Download the document or make it fullscreen

Download

1. Click on the downward arrow, a drop-down menu will appear

2. You have the option to select:

  • Download Original - to download the original uploaded file by the student
  • Download - to download the file with annotation and feedback
Fullscreen icon

3. Fullscreen icon - to toggle Fullscreen

2. Feedback Panel

On the right-hand side, you will see the feedback panel. If rubrics are used to assess submissions, the rubric opens in a pop-up window to enable easy grading, and the score transfers automatically to the Evaluation and Feedback sidebar. The overall score of the rubric transfers automatically to the Score field and appears in Grades if the assignment is associated with a grade item. The rubric feedback appears on the Feedback page to the learner.

Feedback Panel on the right
1. Submission Controls

This allow to navigate from one user's submission to the next for this Assignment

 

Submission Controls - to go back and forward the users submissions

1. Click on the arrow to navigate from one user's submission to the next

2. Ellipsis (dot-dot-dot)

This will open the Evaluation options,

Ellipsis | Evaluation options

1. Edit Activity - to open the Edit Homepage of the Assignment in a new tab

2. Special Access Dates - to open the Special Access Dates in a pop-up window

3. Rubrics

Rubrics are an assessment tool used to evaluate activities based on a predefined set of criteria

This option will only appear if you have Rubrics associated with your Assignment

Rubrics
  1. By clicking on the pop-out icon, the rubric will be opened in a pop-up window

For each criterion:

  1. Move the cursor - to select the level you want to assign to the submission
  2. (Optional) Add Feedback - to explain the level assigned
4. Overall Grade

If the Assignment is graded it is possible to directly grade it

If the Assignment is associated with a  Rubric  the overall score of the rubric transfers automatically to the Score field and appears in Grades if the assignment is associated with a grade item

Overall Grade

1. Score field - to add or edit the Overall Grade of the Assignment

2. Ribbon icon - to open as a pop-up window the Grade item associated with the Assignment

3. Progress icon - to open as a pop-up window the Item statistics of the Assignment

5. Overall Feedback

Feedback is a crucial element in the student’s learning process. Therefore, Brightspace has multiple options to provide feedback on student’s submissions to assignments. Recording audio or video is useful when wanting to communicate more personally with your students or accurately convey tone. 

Overall feedback

1. Editor text box - to write a feedback

2. Other feedback options are available:

  • File Upload - to add a file, this can be a graded copy of the submission, instructor notes, or another file
  • Attach link to Existing Activity - to attach an existing activity within he Brightspace course
  • Attach Weblink - to attach an external weblink
  • Attach from OneDrive - to attach files from OneDrive
  • Record Audio - to record an audio
  • Record a video - to record a video
6. Publishing or Saving Submission

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.

Feedback - publish or save as draft

1. Publish - to publish the grade and feedback

2. Save Draft - to save grade and feedback without publishing it

3. Greater- than sign  - to go to the next students' Assignment

4. Update and Retract
Update retract

Once the feedback is published, you can keep working on it and:

1. Update your feedback

2. Retract the feedback and restore the previous version of the submission

.

You now know how to give Evaluation and Feedback to students' submissions in Brightspace!

Want to know more about the Assessment Tool in Brightspace?

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