Canvas: Create an Assignment
Assignments can be individually assigned or assigned to groups, and they can be set to be peer reviewed.
Basic Steps to Create an Assignment
- In the course menu of your Canvas course, click Assignments.
- At top right of the page, click +Assignment. (You can also add a new assignment by clicking the + sign to the right of an Assignment Group heading [A].
- In the Assignment details page that appears, in the field labelled Assignment Name, enter a title.
- In the text area below the editing menu, enter a brief description and instructions for the assignment.
- Below the text area, beside Points, enter the number of points the assignment is worth.
- Beside Assignment Group, click to select under which assignment group heading you want the assignment to list.
- Beside Display Grade As, select whether you want the score displayed as points or percent.
- Beside Submission Type, select a submission type.
- If you select On Paper or No Submission, students submit nothing online and you enter scores into the Gradebook manually.
- If you select Online, you can further select Text Entry (students enter their response into a text box), Website URL, Media Recordings or File Uploads (you can then restrict files by entering specific allowable file-type extensions for example, doc,docx,pdf).
- Beside Submission Attempts, select whether you allow one attempt, unlimited attempts or a specific number of attempts.
- Beside Group Assignment, check the box if you want students to work on the assignment as groups. Select the Group Assignments tab above for more details. Otherwise, leave unchecked.
- Beside Peer Reviews, if you would like students to complete Peer Reviews in Canvas, check this box. Select the Peer Review tab above for more details. Otherwise, leave unchecked.
- Under Assign to,
- if all students are to view and submit the assignment with the same dates, leave as assigned to Everyone, and enter the key dates.
- if some students have a different set of available and due dates, under the date entry fields, click +Add. Enter the student names, and dates in the corresponding text entry fields there.
- Once you have completed all the assignment settings, scroll to the bottom and click Save or Save and Publish.
Group Assignments
If in step 10 of the instructions on the first tab, you clicked the check box for Group Assignment, a menu opens offering to grade students as a group or individually. Canvas will use the student groups of your created Group Set. You also have the option to create a new Group Category if you have not already divided students into groups.
Peer Review
If you check this option when setting up the assignment, an options menu will open. You can either manually or automatically assign the Peer Reviews. A student can do as many Peer Reviews as there are students in the class. The reviews have to be assigned after the due date so that every student has a chance to submit their assignment. Reviews can be anonymous if you decide to check this option.
Updated September 2020