Assignments & grading

How assignments work

An assignment belongs to one batch, and every student enrolled in that batch gets it:

1. You create it with a title, instructions, a due date and a maximum score.
2. Every enrolled student is notified.
3. Students work on it with the assignment helper beside it, then hand in a written answer, files, or both.
4. You open the submissions, mark each one (the AI can suggest a mark) and write feedback.
5. Each student is notified when their work is marked.

Step 1: Create an assignment

1. Open My Courses in your sidebar and press Manage on the course.
2. Press Manage on the batch. The batch's assignments are below its classes.
3. Press New assignment and fill in:
   • Title: short and specific, for example "Water conservation project".
   • Due: the date and time, India time. Leave it empty for an assignment with no deadline.
   • Max score: what you'll mark it out of (100 unless you change it).
   • Instructions: the full task. See below for how to write them so the helper can use them.
   • Marking guide (optional): a rubric, how marks are given criterion by criterion, and an answer key, what a full-marks answer contains. AI evaluation marks against both. Students see the rubric through their checklist; they never see the answer key.
4. Press Create assignment. Every enrolled student is notified straight away.

Instructions the helper can use

The assignment helper reads your instructions to build each student's checklist and the last check before they hand in. It helps to:

• Put each requirement on its own line, as a bullet or a number: "Include at least two diagrams", "Cite your sources". Each becomes an item students tick off.
• State the length in words when it matters, for example "500–700 words", "about 300 words" or "not more than 250 words". Students are warned before handing in a written answer outside it.
• Say what to hand in: "one PDF", "photos of your notebook pages", "a typed answer".

The helper reads your rubric too, so a rubric line such as "Two labelled diagrams: 4 marks" also becomes something students tick off. Anything vague is listed for the student under Worth asking your teacher, so clear instructions save you questions later.

Step 2: Deadline and late work

• Due dates are India time (IST, UTC+5:30). If you teach students abroad, say so in the instructions.
• Late work is accepted and marked Late on the submission. Students see the due date has passed before they hand in.
• No due date leaves the assignment open, which suits optional practice.
• A reminder goes to every student who hasn't handed in, about two hours before the due time.

Changing an assignment

Press Edit on the assignment to change its title, due date, maximum score, instructions or marking guide, then Save changes.

• Students are told. If you change the due date or the instructions, every student who hasn't handed in gets a notification saying what changed. Changes to the title, rubric or answer key are silent.
• A new due date gets a new reminder. The two-hour reminder goes out again before the new time, even if it had already gone out for the old one.
• The maximum score locks once you start marking, because scores already given are out of the old maximum.
• Homework set from the Homework screen is changed there, not here.

You can delete an assignment with the delete button only while nobody has handed it in, so students' work is never lost.

What students see

• A notification (and an email, where email is on) with the title and due date.
• The assignment in My Courses → All Assignments, and on their dashboard home when it's the next thing due.
• Inside it: your instructions, the assignment helper, a Text answer box and a file picker.
• Files: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, photos (JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC), text and CSV, up to ten files of 10 MB each.
• After handing in, they can hand in again to replace their work until you mark it. Once marked, it's locked and they see your score and feedback.

The assignment helper

Every assignment has a helper on the student's side, in five steps. It gets students started and checks their work against your task; it never writes any of it for them.

1. Understand: your instructions as a checklist to tick off, what to hand in, the length if you set one, and anything worth asking you.
2. Plan: milestones from today to your due date, with a reminder at each if the student wants.
3. Get started: what to do first, key terms, the questions their work should answer, and chapters from the library to read.
4. Review: feedback on their draft, typed or photographed, against your requirements: what it covers, what's missing, what to do next. Four reviews per assignment.
5. Submit: a last look before handing in: unticked requirements, the length, the files, and whether photos are readable. Anything that can't be handed in (a file type the upload doesn't take, over 10 MB, more than ten files) has to be fixed first; anything else is asked about once.

Photos a student adds for a review or a readability check are looked at once and not stored. The student's own guide is Homework help.

Step 3: Review submissions

Each assignment in the batch shows its due date, maximum score and how many submissions have come in. Press Submissions to open them.

• Each submission shows the student's text answer and files.
• Used the helper above a submission lists the steps that student used: checklist, plan, where to begin, draft reviews, photo checks. You see which steps, never what they wrote.
• A line at the top says how many students used the assignment helper.
• For handwritten work, you can read the text out of a photo first, which the AI needs to mark it.

Step 4: Score and feedback

1. Enter the Score, between 0 and the maximum.
2. Write Feedback for the student: what they did well, what to fix, and how. Only that student sees it.
3. Press Save grade. The student is notified with their score.

AI evaluation, above the score, reads the submission and suggests a score, feedback and a breakdown, with how sure it is. It marks against your rubric and answer key when you've set them, and says so; without them it marks the work as a whole. Run AI only suggests: nothing reaches the student until you press Save grade. Run + apply saves the AI's score as the grade and notifies the student, and you can still change it afterwards.

Notifications

• When you post: every enrolled student.
• About two hours before the due time: every student who hasn't handed in.
• When you change the due date or instructions: every student who hasn't handed in.
• At a student's own milestones: if they made a plan in the helper and kept reminders on.
• When you mark: that student, with the score and the start of your feedback.

You aren't notified of each submission; the submission count on the assignment shows what has come in.

Good practice

• Be specific. "Solve problems 1–10" is vague. "Solve problems 1–10 from Chapter 3. Show all working. Hand in a photo of each page." leaves nothing to guess, and gives the helper three requirements to check.
• Match the maximum to the weight. A five-question task marked out of 100 makes every small slip look large.
• Mark within two days. Feedback is most useful while the student still remembers the work.
• Look at who used the helper. Many students reviewing drafts several times on one requirement usually means the requirement needs explaining in class.

FAQ

Does the helper write students' work?

No. It turns your task into a checklist, plans the time, suggests where to start and reviews drafts against your requirements. It describes what's missing and how to earn it, but never writes sentences for the student.

Can students re-submit?

Yes, until you mark it: handing in again replaces what they handed in before. After you mark it, it's locked.

Can a student see other students' submissions or grades?

No. Each student sees only their own. The batch's teachers and the course owner see all of them.

Is there a plagiarism check?

No. Asking for handwritten work as photos makes copying harder, and the helper's readability check makes sure you can read the photos.

Do students see my rubric or answer key?

The rubric, yes: the assignment helper builds their checklist from it, so they know how the work is marked. The answer key, never: only AI evaluation reads it.

Can I delete an assignment?

Yes, with the delete button beside it, as long as nobody has handed it in. After the first submission it can't be deleted, so students' work is never lost.

Can students under 18 use the helper's AI?

Where parental consent for AI help is required and not yet given, the checklist, plan and where-to-begin still work, because they're about your task; the draft review and photo check wait for consent. See Data protection.