Group Submission Assignments

Assignments may be set up as group submissions or individual submissions in ISIS.

What is different about a group submission assignment

  • Group Assignments are NOT available to students automatically.
  • Group Assignments need to have the groups manually attached to them.
  • Groups of students need to be created manually in the course.
  • There is no automated announcement when a group assignment is fed into a course.
  • Group Assignments are not anonymous - they are always ‘open’ submissions.
  • Any student in a group may submit on behalf of the whole group and all students in the group will receive a receipt via the Blackboard Coursework tab.
  • Instructors are able to mark as a group or individually (depending on which marking tool used).
  • All students in a group receive their mark and feedback individually.

Steps to ensure the group assignment submission is set up correctly

  1. It is important that you check that the assignment is a group submission as early as possible.
    Instructors will receive an e-mail when the assignment is fed into a Blackboard course. To check that it is a group submission hover over the Assignment name, select the down arrow to the right and then select Edit. In the Grading section click on Submission Details - if the option ‘Group Submission’ is set, the assignment has been created correctly as a group submission. If the option ‘Individual Submission’ is set, the assignment has not been created as a group submission - please do not change this yourself. Contact your School Student Programme and Support (SPS) team as soon as possible and they will arrange for the assignment to be data fixed.
  2. If you’ve not already done so, create the groups of students
    Using the Groups function in your Blackboard course (Control Panel > Users and Groups > Groups), you need to create the groups and attach students to the appropriate groups.
  3. Attach the groups to the assignment
    You need to attach any groups that you want to submit to the assignment. Hover over the Assignment name, select the down arrow and then select Edit. In the Grading section click on Submission Details. Use the arrows to move groups from the Items to select column into the Selected Items column. Only groups which are under the Selected Items column will be able to submit.
  4. Change the availability setting
    The start and end dates for the assignment will be pre-filled with data from ISIS. The start date is usually two weeks before the due date. However, in order for the assignment to become visible to students on the start date, you need to select the Make the Assignment Available option which can be found when you edit the assignment, under the Availability section.
  5. Save your changes
    Once you’ve set the availability and added the groups, select the ‘Submit’ button to save your changes.

example screenshot of edit assignment screen showing steps 1 and 3 above

example screenshot of edit assignment screen showing steps 4 and 5 above

Back to top