Acorn Help

Adding An Assignment

1. Log into ACORN and enter your course.
2. Near the top right corner of the window, click on the Turn editing on button. This button toggles between Turn editing on and Turn editing off (view image).
3. Click on the Add an activity or resource link in the appropriate week or topic, then click on Assignment under the Activities tab.
4. Type in an Assignment name - this is the link that the students will click on to access the assignment.
5. If you want, enter a Description - this is generally your set of instructions for the assignment. There is a checkbox called Display description on course page if this is what you wish to do.
6. Under Availability you have a number of options:
7. The Allow submissions from, Due date, and Cut-off date values can be either set to the appropriate dates and times and the Enable checkboxes checked in the appropriately desired fashion, or they can be ignored. If all are ignored, then assignments can be submitted at any time.
   • The Allow submissions from option prevents students from submitting an assignment before that date and time and.
   • The Due date option is just as it says.
   • The Cut-off date is the date and time at which submissions will no longer be accepted if the Enable box is checked.
   • If Due date is set but Cut-off date is NOT enabled, then assignments may be submitted late but will be flagged in red when you go to mark them.
   • The Always show description checkbox determines whether or not students can see the assignment description before the assignment is available for submissions.
8. The Submission types section allows you to set the type of assignment and related options.
   • Submission types:
     • The Online audio recording type allows students to make recordings to submit as an assignment.
     • The File submissions type is the most commonly used and combines most of the previous version's Assignment types.
     • The Submission comments option allows students to add comments to their assignment (e.g. explaining which file comes first in a programming assignment). These comments are linked to teachers' assignment comments in order to allow two-way communication.
     • The Online text type allows a student to type the assignment directly into the same HTML editor you use in ACORN.
   • The Maximum number of recordings determines how many audio recordings can be submitted per Online audio recording when that Submission type is selected.
   • The Default filename pattern option in conjunction with Allow students to change filename being set to No will force uploaded assignments to be named using one of the following two formats (sadly this only works with audio assignments):
     • fullname_assignment_course_date
     • username_assignment_course_date
   • The Maximum number of uploaded files and Maximum submission size options work just as they are named.
9. Feedback Types:
   • The Feedback comments option allows you to leave comments for each assignment.
   • The Feedback files option allows you to upload marked assignments to students (the Advanced uploading of files assignment type allowed this in the previous version of ACORN).
   • The Annotate PDF option allows you to mark the assignment online using various mark-up and comments.
   • The Offline grading worksheet option allows you to download and re-upload a spreadsheet for entering grades.
   • The Feedback PoodLL option allows you to use audio/video feedback for assignments.
   • The Require students click submit button should be left as No unless you are working with something like a thesis with ongoing edits (drafts). If set to Yes, the student must click a Submit button in order to mark the assignment as final, thus preventing them from changing it and allowing you to mark.
   • The Require that students accept the submission statement requires students to check a box before they submit their assignment which essentially states that the work is their own.
   • Setting Attempts reopened to Never prevents the students from submitting more than once. Manually means that you can allow them to re-submit. Automatically until pass can be used if you just want to allow students to be able to re-upload until the assignment is closed, until they have passed, or until the Maximum attempts number has been reached.
10. Group submission settings:
11. Notifications:
    • Unless you want to receive an email every time an assignment is submitted, set Notify graders about submissions to No. Notify graders about late submissions is similar but will only send an email when a late submission occurs.
12. Turnitin plagiarism plugin:
    • Set Enable Turnitin to Yes and then choose the appropriate options in order to send submitted files of the allowed types to turnitin.com to be checked for plagiarism. Results will show up when you view submitted assignments.
13. Grade:
    • Select the Grade out of which the assignment will be marked.
    • Typically, Simple direct grading will be the appropriate Grading method. Marking guide allows you to assign marks according to different criteria that you set up in a guide. And Rubric allows you to set up and use, you guessed it, a rubric.
    • The Grade category option allows you to list your assignment an already created category in the Grader report.
    • Blind marking, if set to Yes, prevents you from seeing the identity of the student when you mark the assignment. Once a submission or grade has been made, this option is locked.
14. Common module settings:
    • Here you can Show or Hide the assignment, assign an ID number for more complicated marking options, and select your Group settings when needed.
15. Restrict access:
    • In this section you can use various settings to restrict access to your assignment based on things like dates and times, grade conditions. You can also select whether students can either see the assignment greyed out or not see it at all when conditions are not met.