Marking and Feedback in Blackboard Assignments
- ellen bell
- Aideen Gibson
Blackboard assignments allows you to mark and add feedback to your students' submissions in multiple ways: you can mark using a rubric, annotate the submission, feedback in a separate word document, enter your comments in the feedback field or record verbal comments.
You can use Gradebook column settings to calculate, adjust and post marks.
Instructions
Notifications of student’s submission
You can find if there are student submissions to mark in a number of ways:
In the Marks section of the Blackboard interface:
Receive an email notification by adjusting Activity Stream settings in the Blackboard interface
In your module’s Gradebook, under Overview or Markable Items tabs
In your module’s assignment dropbox under the Submissions tab:
Access student submissions
You can access student submissions via the assignment dropbox or Gradebook:
Accessing student submissions via the Blackboard assignment dropbox
Go to Course Content (default view) and locate the Assessment and Feedback folder or wherever you have located the assignment and click on Blackboard assignment dropbox (denoted by 
This opens up the assignment dropbox. Click on Submissions to see a list of student submissions. Note the bracketed number beside submissions denotes submissions
For Offline submissions, there will only be 2 tabs. Choose Marks to begin marking.
Alternatively you can go straight to Gradebook area, select Markable Items and click on the name of the assignment.
Then click on the name of the student to mark their submission:
Clicking on the students name will open the student submission, you are now ready to mark the submission.
For Offline submissions, when you choose a student, you need to Create attempt and Save for that student to begin marking and adding feedback.
Marking using a rubric
If you added a rubric to your assignment you can use this to mark the submission. Click on the rubrics icon on the right-hand side to open the rubric.
This will open up the marking rubric in the right hand panel, you can select whether you want to view the descriptions for each achievement level.
Scroll down to view each criterion and click on an appropriate achievement level. Clicking on the achievement level e.g. Good will automatically increment the student mark if you used a percentage or point rubric.
If you have used a percentage range or point range rubric, you will need to enter an appropriate value, Blackboard will automatically add these values together.
You also have the option to add personalised feedback to each criterion by clicking on the feedback icon:
Add your feedback and click on the up arrow to save, the feedback icon goes purple to denote personalised feedback.
When you have finished selecting the criterion, your mark with be tallied at the top. You can click on the three dots to override or post the mark.
Or you can post marks later and continue marking submissions by navigating student submissions using the left hand panel:
When you post the mark, students will be able to view their marked submission in Gradebook, with their attained achievement levels in each criterion displayed.
Providing feedback using the Annotate toolbar
You can feedback directly within the student's submission using the Annotate toolbar. You can draw and write or attach comments directly inside the submission.
When you open the student submission in Blackboard, you will see a black toolbar at the top of the submission - this is the Annotate toolbar.
Click on the pen tool to draw onto the student submission.
Click on the comments icon to comment directly within the submission, click Save when you are finished.
Find out more about using the Annotate toolbar to add feedback.
Adding overall feedback
Click on the feedback icon on the right hand side this will open your overall feedback panel.
Here you can type feedback directly into the text box ,…
record video or audio comments (using the camera icon in the tool bar) …
or attach a word document (using the plus with a circle).
Just click Save/ Save Changes to save the feedback for students.
Finally you can add the mark in the top right hand corner.
Click on the three dots, and select post the mark or …
… you can post marks later and continue marking submissions by navigating student submissions using the left hand panel:
When you post the marks, the feedback will be displayed to students, when they click on the assignment in their Gradebook.
Video guide to giving feedback in Blackboard Assignments 2'20min
Annotating (adding inline feedback) to Blackboard assignments with BB Annotate
Related Articles
Centre for Digital Learning Enhancement
ulster.ac.uk/learningengancement/cdle