Gradescope Group Assignments: adding a fellow group member

If your instructor has allowed you and other students to submit as a group, you can (and should) add group members to your submission.

To add group members to an assignment submission:

  • On your submission page, either select Group Members in the action bar (along the bottom of the screen) or select ‘View or Edit Group’ in the outline area of the submission (in the right hand panel).

screen grab showing the 'view or edit group' option in Gradescope

  • In the Group Members modal, enter a name to add other students, and then select Add.

screen grab showing the groups members modal for Gradescope

Note: If you cannot see your group member(s) listed in Gradescope, please contact the Course Secretary to ask them to re-sync the Gradescope roster with Learn.




Learn Ultra basics for Instructors

All teaching staff will need to interact with Learn Ultra, even if the course materials are hosted on Drupal. We have compiled links to instructions on the most common tasks you will need to perform in Learn below. If you do not see what you need below, please check out the following page, which has additional instructions and guidance materials on a range of other aspects of Learn Ultra: Using Learn as an Instructor.

Introduction to Learn Ultra: a series of short videos providing an overview of Ultra and how to navigate the site.

Adding and organising content:

*If you want to share a link with students to a file you have uploaded to the Content Collection for a course, you will need to adjust the permission settings in the Content Collection folder following these instructions from Blackboard.

Assessment and marking:

Please remember that the Course Secretary is now in charge of setting up most assignment submissions (other than things like CodeGrade or authoring quiz questions), so please contact the ITO about the creation of assignment submission boxes. Below we have provided links for guidance on accessing student submissions and how to give marks and feedback.

For Learn Assignments:

For Turnitin assignments:

  • See the Marking, Feedback and Grading section here

For Gradescope assignments:

Tools:

Note: All students, the Course Organiser, and Course Secretary will be automatically enrolled on the Learn course via a feed from EUCLID. All other teaching staff (i.e. additional lecturers and teaching support staff) will be enrolled via a feed from the School’s own databases; teaching support staff will only be enrolled in Learn once their contract is confirmed in PiP.




Allowing students extra time on quizzes

If students are permitted extra time on timed pieces of coursework as part of their extended time adjustments, then you will need to set this up for any timed quizzes/tests on your course.

If you are a member of teaching staff, please ensure that you talk to the ITO about this before enabling it for any student on your course, as there are different types of extra time adjustments that a student may have and they will help clarify for your course how these need to be applied.

Below are links for how to add these extended time adjustments in the two commonly used coursework quiz/test platforms. For both Gradescope and Learn tests, you can set up an adjustment for a student that extends across a whole course and any timed assignments within that course or grant an adjustment just for one or more individual assignments.

Gradescope: Extending assignment release dates, due dates, and time limits

Learn: Accommodations and Exceptions in Blackboard Ultra (with thanks to Teeside University for writing much better instructions on this than Blackboard itself provides)




Uploading marks (and feedback) to Learn Ultra

Note: Due to an ongoing bug in Learn Ultra, if you upload feedback to submission box in Learn, it will not be visible to students. If you want to upload feedback for an assignment that students submitted to via Learn, follow the instructions below to create a new “item” directly within the Gradebook itself, which (for some reason!) allows students to view the feedback you upload. Update: This bug appears to have been fixed, but let us know if you encounter any problems with the visibility of feedback for students.

  1. Go to the Gradebook in the course Learn page.
  2. Add a new Item to the Gradebook by hovering over where you want to add it in the list and clicking on the purple (+) when it appears and then select “Add Item”.

Then make the following adjustments when the item settings window opens:

  • It will give the item the default name of “New Item and the current date”; change this to the actual assignment’s name to ensure that students can locate it easily.
  • We recommend keeping this item hidden from student view for now.
  • The due date doesn’t really matter for this, so you can leave it as the default of the current time.
  • Set the marking as required (points, percentage, etc.) and, if points, the maximum number possible for this assignment.
  • For “Mark category”, choose Assignment.
  • Add a description if you want, but it’s not required.
  • Press Save.

  1. Download the Gradebook, selecting just the new item that you created. Make sure to tick the option to include Feedback (unless you just want to upload marks, in which case, leave it unticked). Choose to save it as an xlsx file and save it to your computer.

  1. Open the file on your device.
  2. Make sure that the header for Column G is the assignment you want to be uploading marks for (i.e. the item you just created in the Gradebook).
  3. Input the marks in Column G.
  4. Input the feedback in Column J, if you need to share this with students.

Note: Make sure you do not change the header of any of the columns or Learn may not be able to read the file properly when you upload the marks. If you need to copy and paste data from another spreadsheet, make sure that it aligns with the columns as laid out in the file you downloaded from Learn.

  1. Save the file.
  2. Return to the Gradebook in Learn and now select “Upload Gradebook”.

  1. Choose “Upload Local File” and select the spreadsheet you have just saved. Once it has loaded, untick the option for “Select All” and just leave the assignment you want to upload marks for ticked. Click “Upload”.

  1. Once Learn has uploaded the document, you will see how many students there are not marks for (i.e. those who did not submit the assignment) and also the option to post the marks that you just uploaded.

  1. Before you post the marks, it’s worth quickly checking that your upload worked. Click on the assignment name and you will be taken through to a list of all the students on the course. You can then check the a few of their marks and feedback in Learn with your spreadsheet to make sure that the upload worked properly.

Note: If you only want to post marks to certain students, you can do that from this view. Just click the “Post” button next to the name(s) of the student(s) whose marks you are to post.

  1. Once you are ready to share the marks with the students, Click to Post the marks. And then “Post All Marks” when the dialogue box opens.
  2. Go back in to the Edit view of the assignment (by clicking the three dots … at the end of the row for it) and from the drop-down menu choose to make it “Visible to students”. Press Save. The students will now be able to view their marks and feedback for this assignment.



Assignment hand-ins for Learn: guidance for students

Please read through the following guidance well in advance of any submission deadline you have.

Check file type

The Learn assignment tool will accept any file types but check the instructions for your course to see which file types are required for your individual assignment.

Check file size

If you are submitting very large files, this will affect the time it takes to upload…

Internet Connection

… We therefore strongly advise that you submit your assignment using a reliable and fast internet connection.

Check Browser

Wherever possible, use a computer and browser you are familiar with, or a computer in the public access labs, when submitting an assignment. You can check your browser compatibility from the Browser information box on the My Institution page inside Learn.

Submission Deadlines

Do not submit the assignment minutes before the deadline, because then you will have very limited time to change computers or report a problem if there is one.

Troubleshooting

If you do have a problem submitting your assignment try these troubleshooting steps:

  • If it will not upload, try logging out of Learn / MyEd completely and closing your
    browser. If possible try using a different browser.
  • If you do not receive the expected confirmation of submission, try submitting again.
  • If you cannot resubmit, contact your tutor by email attaching your assignment, and if
    possible a screenshot of any error message which you may have. (see below).
  • If you have a technical problem, contact the IS helpline (is.helpline@ed.ac.uk). Note the course name, type of computer, browser and connection you are using, and where possible take a screenshot of any error message you have.

Always allow yourself time to contact helpline / your tutors if you have a problem submitting your assignment.

Further information can be found on the IS support pages here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/learning-technology/virtual-environments/learn/assignments-marks-feedback/assignments