The annotation tool in Brightspace’s Assignments allows graders to make notes, highlight, strike through text, and assign a mark all without having to download the submitted document, allowing for a streamlined grading process.

Navigate to the Assignments page

Select the Assignments tool from the course Navbar then locate the assignment on the Assignments page and click the drop-down arrow to expand the assignment actions menu. Select View Submissions or select the number in the column New Submissions to review the latest submissions only.

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Clicking on the drop-down arrow beside the assignment name reveals the option to View Submissions.

Submissions Page

On the submissions page instructors can review online or download student submissions. In the highlighted picture below there are five features instructors can use to evaluate students, share feedback and connect via email.

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Assignment Submissions Page. Highlighted are features instructors can use to streamline the process of publishing feedback, filtering the submissions list, and email students.

Highlighted Features on this page are:

• 1. Publish All Feedback - Return all grades to students at one time. CPI recommends using this option once all submissions have been graded.

• 2. Email Users Without Submissions - Clicking this button will generate a draft of an email with only those who have not submitted to the assignment as the recipients, read more about this below. (You could use this feature as a quick way to find out if any submissions are outstanding without actually sending the email).

• 3. Add Feedback Files - Share multiple feedback files to specific students or the whole class at once, read more about that process below.

• 4. Show Search options - Filter the submissions list by specific criteria such as, users without submissions, or users without feedback.

• 5. Evaluate - Review and grade student submission.

Review Student Submission & Assign Grade

On the assignment submission page select the student name or Evaluate button to review student submission. Or Select Show Search Options to quickly find specific students and filter the list of submissions via a specific criterion (i.e., Sections).

1. Select the Submission file to review the file online or select Download all files to review offline.

   1. On the document viewer page you can review the student submission. With the annotation tool you can add contextual feedback directly on the online submission file. (See Assignment Annotation Tool for details.)

2. Enter grade in the Overall Grade field.

   1. If using a rubric click on the level of achievement for each criterion. (Learn more about grading with rubrics - to be added).

   2. Optional - (but recommended) Add specific feedback in the Overall Feedback section.

3. Save Draft to save work in progress or to wait to release all graded submissions at once (recommended practice). Otherwise if you are ready to release the grade and feedback to the student, select Publish.

4. Use the navigator tool to review the next student’s submission folder.

After assigning a grade to all submissions return to the Assignment submissions page by selecting the Back to Submissions button.

Advanced Options

Publish All Feedback

Once all students have been graded, then select Publish all feedback to share assignment grades with each student and to transfer the grade to the Grades tool for course mark calculations. The confirmation page will reiterate the need to review the grades and submissions, select Yes if you are ready to publish the grades. Please note that you can still retract grades to edit them further once they have been published to the students.