Assessment

Anonymous Assignments

Anonymity must be applied before any student submits for Blackboard Tests, Assignments and Turnitin Assignments.

Settings compatible with anonymous grading within Blackboard Tests & Assignments

These settings and features work with anonymous marking:

• Due date. When a due date passes, anonymous marking remains in effect.
• Prohibit late submissions.
• Prohibit new attempts after the due date.
• Multiple attempts.
• Allow class conversations.
• Formative assessments.
• Time limit.
• Rubric.
• Two graders per student.
• SafeAssign: Results are hidden while anonymous marking is enabled. After you post marks, names are shown, and you can view the Originality Reports.

Settings not compatible with anonymous marking

These settings and features don't work with anonymous marking:

• Peer review.
• Post assessment marks automatically.
• Assessment results settings – for anonymous assessments, marks and feedback are made available once marks have been posted. 

Click to Learn more about Blackboard Anonymous Marking

Turnitin

You can enable Anonymous Marking the setting up your assignment. Select the checkbox to obscure student names within the assignment inbox, Similarity Report, and online grading until the assignment's feedback release date. Student names may be revealed for an assignment by clicking on the anonymous marking enabled button to reveal the author's name for the paper. Once a name has been revealed, it cannot be re-anonymised. 

Group Assignments

Blackboard Tests and Assignments, Discussions, Turnitin Assignments

Turnitin does not have a group assignment feature - all students will be able to submit individual files. 

You create a group assignment nearly the same way you create assignments for students to complete individually. Gradebook items are created automatically.

Note: If students with accommodations are in a group, all students in that group inherit the accommodation for that item. For example, you create a group assignment and one group member has a due date accommodation. That group's work isn't marked late if they submit after the due date.

Click to Learn more about Blackboard Group Assignments

Creating Offline Assignments

Adding a Calculation Column for Offline/Manual Assignments for a Blackboard Assignment or Test,

• Create your Blackboard Assignment or Test as normal.
• In the settings, select Collect submissions offline.
• Add your assignment or test details, due dates, and max points (100) as normal.

Create an offline assessment as a Gradebook item

1. Click on Markable Items in Gradebook.

Hover over a line between two gradable items and click on the "+" that appears.

Select Add Item.

• Enter a descriptive name for the column.
• Choose whether the item is Visible to students.
• Select a mark schema from the dropdown menu.
• To use Grades Journey, the maximum points need to be 100.
• Select the correct Mark Category.
• Add a description.
• Click Save​​​​​.

Click on the Marks Tab to view your Manual Column. 

In the grid, you can select a student's markable item to open a menu with these options:

• View - Go directly to the assignment submission and start marking.
• Post (Release to Students) - Post a mark that's been assigned but not yet released to students.
• Add or edit exceptions - If an assignment is timed or has a due date, you can add exceptions here, as well as allow multiple attempts.
• Add or edit exemptions - You can remove an assignment from being counted towards a student's overall mark.

What is the difference between Discussions and Journals?

Discussions are open to all students or groups of students. Students can comment on the posts of others. You can allow students to post anonymously in Discussions.

Journals are private between the student and the Instructor.  Other students cannot view the content of another student's Journal.

Turnitin and Blackboard SafeAssign Similarity Reports

It is important to note that the similarity scores for Turnitin or Blackboard SafeAssign reports are not a measure of plagiarism within a piece of work but represent where there are similarities to other sources (journals, essays, books, etc.). A submission with a high similarity score might be satisfactory once the bibliography, cover sheet, etc., are accounted for. In contrast, a submission could have a low score but could be heavily paraphrased from other sources without citation. Lecturers should advise their students not to focus solely on achieving a similarity score below a certain percentage, as there are many other dimensions to consider when correctly citing sources. Example advice from the Turnitin website.

Similarity Reports are typically generated after 15-30 minutes for first submissions, but may take longer during peak assessment periods. Resubmissions take 24 hours to generate and cannot be expedited. Therefore, for some assessment types with tight deadlines, it may not be practical for students to see their score before the submission deadline; therefore, design your assessment with this in mind.

Managing Submission Issues

If a student has issues submitting, we would advise them to contact the module instructor in the first instance. Please do not advise students to contact the IT Service Desk directly for issues such as resetting or deleting assessment attempts. This should be handled by the module instructor(s), as they manage the assessment settings within a module.

We strongly recommend that if there are submission issues due to account/access problems, etc., with an individual student, please accept the submission via email as proof of submission until the issue is resolved. If an instructor cannot resolve the issue themselves, the instructor can contact us for advice via itservicedesk@tcd.ie.

How to Post (Release) Marks to Students

Select Gradebook on the Top navigation

You can post marks from:

• The Overview Marks or Markable items views in the Gradebook
• The Submissions page of the assessment

To release a mark, select Post mark, which appears next to each mark you haven’t released yet, or select Post All Marks to release all marks and feedback to your students. Posted marks are labelled as posted.

When you post marks, students can view them, along with any feedback you provide. All feedback, including ungraded attempts, is shown to students.

You cannot hide a mark once it has been posted, unless the entire assessment is hidden from students.

Additional links to Blackboard External Help

Below are external links and additional resources to help you get started with Blackboard Assignments.

If you are new to using online assignments, we would recommend that you create a standard online assignment as above before using some of these features.

Blackboard Assignments Hub Page

Rubrics Guide

Creating Weighted Total Columns

Navigating the Gradebook

Viewing Grade History

If students or staff are experiencing issues accessing Blackboard or specific modules, please contact the Teaching & Learning IT team via the IT Service Desk by one of the following methods.

You can email the service desk at itservicedesk@tcd.ie. Please ensure you fill in the 'Subject' field with Ultra: when emailing.

Email the Service Desk

Phone: +353 (01) 896 2000
Web Portal: assist.tcd.ie

Service desk opening hours are:
Monday - Friday: 09:00 - 17:00