Blackboard Assignments & Tests - Frequently Asked Questions (BAT-FAQ)
Blackboard Assignments & Tests - Frequently Asked Questions
This guide answers common questions about graded assessments in Blackboard Ultra. The questions and answers below cover aspects of the Blackboard assessment process that occur primarily through the course content tab, from assessment creation by the instructor through student submission.
For questions about grading and analytics tasks that occur primarily in the gradebook tab after students have submitted work in course content area, see the Blackboard Online Grading (BOG)-FAQ.
- 1 How do I Create a Graded Assessment in Blackboard?
- 2 How can I Customize my Blackboard Assessments?
- 3 How do I Link to an Outside Assessment in Blackboard?
- 4 How do I Create a Gradebook Entry for a Blackboard Assessment?
- 5 Why Can’t I Change The Settings on My Assessment?
- 6 Can I Modify an Assessment for an Individual Student or Circumstance?
How do I Create a Graded Assessment in Blackboard?
Open the Course Content area, then scroll to the location where you want the graded item to appear in the content list. Click the plus icon on the left to add a new item, then select “create” from the dropdown menu. There are six types of gradable items that can be created in Blackboard:
Assignments are designed for assessments like papers, lab reports, research projects, etc, where students receive a single holistic grade. There is a single submission area where students can upload one or more files or write a response. The instructor can review the submission in Blackboard and enter grades and feedback all at once (rubrics can be used to break up the assignment feedback into smaller components).
Tests are designed for assessments like quizzes, problem sets, exams, etc, which comprise a set of independently-graded questions, with the overall test grade defined by the sum of the question scores. Test questions formatted as multiple choice, true/false, matching, etc are automatically graded by Blackboard. Tests can also include essay or file upload questions which are manually graded.
Forms contain individual questions similar to tests, but the individual questions are not scored/graded. Forms can be ungraded, or can receive a single holistic grade like an assignment. Forms also allow for Likert scale and ranked choice questions in addition to multiple choice and other question types available in tests. Forms can also be used for anonymous assessment or course feedback.
Discussions are designed for students to view and interact with each others' submissions in Blackboard. Students make an initial post based on the assigned discussion prompt, and can read and reply to classmates' posts as well. Discussions can be whole-class or assigned to smaller groups. Discussions can be either graded or ungraded.
Journals have a similar interface to discussions, but are private between the individual student and the instructor. Journals are useful for assessments like a weekly personal reflection, or for submitting several components or drafts of multi-step project in a single location. Journals can be graded or ungraded.
AI Conversations are activities where students interact with a chatbot tuned on instructor-selected documents in either a Socratic questioning or role-play scenario. Instructors can review and grade the transcripts of student interactions and/or assign reflection questions for students to answer after completing the chat.
How can I Customize my Blackboard Assessments?
The six types of gradable items in Blackboard are distinguished by certain features and default settings – for instance, assignments, tests, and discussions all function a bit differently in terms of how students submit their work and receive grades. However, instructors can customize and organize graded items in Blackboard to serve different instructional purposes.
For example, in a course which includes both weekly take-home quizzes and in-class cumulative exams, the instructor could customize the assessment settings as follows:
Start by creating all of the assessments as Tests, because both the quizzes and the exams are made up of individually-scored questions, so the Test item type is the best starting template. In the settings for each test, change the grading category to either “quiz” or “exam” as appropriate. This does not change the basic functions of how students submit or instructors grade the test, but allows the instructor to search and sort their gradebook by category, and apply category settings like overall grade weights or dropping the lowest score from the quiz average when calculating final grades.
For the quizzes, set the grading category to “quiz,” set due dates for Thursday at 11:59pm each week, but don’t set a time limit. Use multiple choice, true/false, or other automatically graded question types. Set the quiz to auto-grade and post grades and feedback immediately, and allow students to make up to 2 attempts and use the average of the two grades. These settings reflect a self-paced, open-book assessment, suitable for low-stakes comprehension checks or weekly review assignments.
For the exams, set the grading category to “exam,” set a due date and time to match the in-class test date, and set a time limit for 90 minutes. Use question pools to give each student a random selection of 35 exam questions out of a possible bank of 50. Set a 6-digit security code students must enter to begin the exam, which can be projected at the front of the lecture hall when the exam period begins. Restrict students to only 1 attempt, and set the exam to close and auto-submit when the time limit expires. Set the exam grades to be hidden from students until they are manually reviewed and posted by the instructor. These settings reflect a proctored, closed-book, cumulative assessment, with relatively high stakes and security measures in place to mitigate potential cheating.
Even though both of these assessments are built using a Blackboard test as the starting template, and will have the same basic interface in terms of how students complete the assessment, the differences in the test settings are tailored to fulfill two different instructional purposes.
How do I Link to an Outside Assessment in Blackboard?
Blackboard is Syracuse University’s central learning management system (LMS) and is intended to function as a central repository where students can access all course materials, activities, and feedback that the instructor makes available online, but SU Instructors have access to several other online teaching and assessment tools besides Blackboard. Generally speaking, to use these other tools most effectively the instructor should first create activities or assessments directly in the tool editor, then log in to Blackboard to create an access link and/or sync submission and grading data.
How do I Create a Gradebook Entry for a Blackboard Assessment?
Blackboard automatically creates a linked gradebook entry for all graded items created in your course. Assignments, Tests, Forms, and AI Conversations always have an entry in the gradebook, even if they are set to be worth 0 points or are not factored into the overall grade. Ungraded Discussions and Journals will not appear in the gradebook, but a linked gradebook entry will be automatically created if the discussion/journal is set to graded status.
Deleting the gradebook entry for any graded item created in Blackboard will also delete the item itself. DON’T DO IT
If you need assistance with managing ungraded assessments and gradebook entries to better reflect your intended grading policy, see our Blackboard Grading FAQ, our full index of Gradebook and Analytics help pages, or contact Online Learning Services directly to request one-on-one assistance.
You can create a manual grade entry item in the gradebook for scoring offline assignments such as in-class presentations, but students will not be able to interact with the manual column except to read the grade/feedback you enter. The Blackboard gradebook is read-only from the student perspective; if you want students to submit work or interact with an assignment, they must do so in the Course Content area through one of the gradable items detailed above.
Why Can’t I Change The Settings on My Assessment?
There are two main reasons why you might encounter an error when trying to change the settings on a Blackboard assessment.
Due Dates may conflict with a release condition or other external date setting for certain assessments.
Certain assessment settings become locked as soon as students begin working on an assessment and cannot be modified.
Date Settings Conflict with Release Conditions or other External Date
If a Blackboard assessment already has release conditions set to control when it will be made visible/hidden from students, the due date must fall within the window defined by the release conditions. Trying to set a due date either before the item becomes visible or after it is no longer available will result in an error. Assessments that have both release condition dates and a due date must adhere to the following pattern:
“Access from” release date. Students cannot open the assessment before this time. This must be the earliest date/time setting chronologically.
Submission due date. This must be set at least 1 minute later than the “Access from” release condition.
“Access until” release condition (optional). If applied, this will cause the assessment to be locked and prevent students accessing it again after the specified date/time. This must be set at least 1 minute later than the submission due date.
If there is a conflict between the release condition dates and submission due date, the release condition dates must be changed first. To do so, you must close the assignment settings, return to the course content area, then open the release conditions/item visibility settings by clicking on the visibility icon just below the item title. Once you have set the release condition dates to encompass the full range of time students should be able to access and work on the assignment (including setting “Access until” to at least one minute after the intended due date), you can reopen the assignment settings and set the due date without an error.
Certain third-party assessment tools like Turnitin or Pearson e-textbooks can also have date settings created in the external tool which can cause a similar conflict error with setting a due date in Blackboard. If you encounter such an error, the best solution is to remove/delete all date settings in the external tool, then set the Blackboard due date first, then re-apply the external date(s).
Students Have Already Begun Working
Blackboard prevents certain assessment settings from being changed after students have already begun working. For example, the time limit on a timed test cannot be changed once any student has opened the test and begun answering questions. These restrictions are meant to ensure that all students are taking assessments under the same basic conditions.
If you attempt to change one of these settings after students have begun working on the assessment, you will see an error message indicating that the setting cannot be changed because students have already started their submissions.
If you need to alter the assessment settings for a single case (or a small number of cases), such as allowing a student to restart/resubmit an assessment due to a technical problem, you can create an exception to give that individual a different due date, number of submissions allowed, etc, without altering the settings for the assessment itself.
If you need to alter the assessment settings for the entire class but are unable to do so because student submissions have already begun, you may need to create a copy of the assessment, change the necessary settings, then delete the original and have all students resubmit to the new version.
Can I Modify an Assessment for an Individual Student or Circumstance?
You can adjust assessment settings like due dates, access dates/times, or number of attempts allowed for an individual student to account for personal circumstances. Depending on the situation, you can either set an Accommodation or an Exception in Blackboard.
“Accommodation” and “Exception” are sometimes used interchangeably when speaking about meeting individual student needs, but in Blackboard they describe two different features, one of which is set in the student’s user profile (Accommodation) and one of which is set in the assessment/gradebook entry (Exception)
Accommodations are for personal circumstances which will always apply on certain types of assessment, such as student who receives +50% extra time on all timed assessments as part of a disability accommodation through the Center for Disability Resources. Accommodations are set in the student’s user profile in the course roster and will automatically apply to all relevant Blackboard assessments. In the example of the student with +50% extra time, they will automatically receive the accommodation on all Blackboard assessments that have a set time limit, with no further need for the instructor to make adjustments to the individual assessment settings.
Exceptions are for one-time alterations to a specific assessment, such as changing a due date for a student athlete who will be away at a tournament on the original date. Exceptions are set through the assessment submission/grading screen and apply only to that specific student for that specific assessment. Creating an exception does not affect the assessment settings for the rest of the students in your class.
For more information about deciding whether it is most appropriate to use accommodations vs. exceptions, see our guide on Accommodations, Exceptions, and Exemptions in Blackboard.