Canvas - How do I create an Assignment?

Assignments in Canvas meet several needs in a typical course:

• Collect student work, including files and videos, in one place
• Keep track of participation scores, give extra credit, or grade non-digital classwork
• Provide information and resources for assignments

In addition to this, the Assignments page acts as a landing page for all graded items within your course, including graded discussions and quizzes. Students can easily see due dates, what is upcoming, and any late assignments they have yet to complete from the Assignments page.

Written Tutorial

To create an assignment, follow these steps:

1. From within your Canvas course, select Assignments from the course menu.
2. Select + Assignment from the top of the page.
   • Optionally, you may wish to create an assignment group using the + Group button. Assignment groups are handy to organize your assignment, calculate subtotals in the gradebook, drop the lowest or highest score, or add a weighted grading scheme to your gradebook.
3. Enter in a name for your assignment.
4. Optionally, use the Rich Content Editor to add instructions, files, or any other information about the assignment.
5. Enter a point value for the assignment, (optionally) select an assignment group to place the assignment in, then select how you would like the grade to display. The display type is how the assignment score will appear in the Gradebook and to students.
6. Select your submission type
   • No Submission - Best used for items where students aren't submitting work, such as presentation grades or an overall participation score for the course.
   • Online - Allows students to turn in work digitally through Canvas. If selected, you can select what content formats students can upload, such as files and media recordings.
   • On Paper - Best used for items collected outside of Canvas, such as written final projects or pop quizzes given in class.
   • External Tool - A variety of tools plug-in to Canvas and can be used with the Assignments tool; unless you have a reason to use this option, select one of the previous options.
7. Select how many submission attempts students are allowed for the assignment.
8. If you are creating an Online submission type assignment, you will have the option to enable plagiarism review. Doing so will display the Turnitin settings that you can configure for the assignment.
9. If this is a group assignment, select This is a Group Assignment to utilize GroupsLinks to an external site. you already have created in the course. Group assignments expect one person to submit work on behalf of the entire group.
10. If you would like to use this as a peer review assignment, select Require Peer Reviews to configure the peer review settings.
11. If you have other users who will be grading in your course, you may wish to enable moderated grading.
12. Optionally, you can enable anonymous grading, which will hide student names in the SpeedGrader when grading student submissions.
13. Finally, set the access dates and due date in the Assign section.
    • Assign To - If needed, you can add custom access to individual students, sections, or groups. Use the + Add button to add a new section to the Assign area, which can then be customized as needed. Note: If you add a new section to the Assign area, the default "Everyone" section will change to "Everyone Else," indicating that you are making an exception for the individual(s) you select.
    • Due - Indicates when students should make their submission by; anything turned in after this date/time will clearly be marked as "Late" for both you and the student to see. Adding a due date for an assignment will automatically add it to the course calendar and Syllabus page.
    • Available From - If set, this will be the first date/time students can see the full details for the assignment and submit their work.
    • Available Until - If set, students will no longer be able to submit to the assignment at this date/time. Students can still see the assignment details, but cannot make a submission.
14. Select Save to save a draft of your assignment, or Save and Publish to make it available to students.
    • The assignment must be published for students to make submissions. If you have set an "Available From" date, students will not be able to submit until the date/time is reached.

Finally, if you wish to utilize a rubric with the assignment, you can add one! To add a rubric, visit the Assignments page in your course, then select the name of your assignment. From there, use the + Rubric button to build and save your rubric.

Video Tutorial

Join Katie from [U]Tech's Teaching + Learning Technologies as she covers the basics of setting up assignments and explaining how assignments impact the gradebook.

Canvas Guides

You may also find this Canvas Guide helpful:

• How do I create an assignment?
• How do I create an online assignment?
• How do I add a rubric to an assignment?
• The entire Assignments section of the Guides

Next Steps

Once students have submitted work, you can provide grades for their work using SpeedGrader.