CIRT, University of North Florida

How do I set up my course so that students can turn in assignments on Blackboard?

There are two assignment collection options available to instructors in Blackboard: the Digital Dropbox and the Assignment Manager. While both tools may be used to collect student work within your Blackboard course, they offer different options.

Digital Dropbox

The Digital Dropbox provides an area where students and instructors can store and exchange files. Students are able to store files in their Digital Dropbox and/or send files to the instructor's Digital Dropbox. Instructors are able to store files, receive file from students and send files to single, select or all students in the course. If an instructor decides to collect student work via the Digital Dropbox, the instructor goes to their Digital Dropbox through the Control Panel of their Blackboard course to locate student files.

Click here for instructions on using the Digital Dropbox.

Assignment Manager

The Assignment Manager allows instructors to build assignments within the Content Areas of Blackboard. Students are able to view an assignment and send their comments and files to the instructors from within the assignment. Instructors go to the Gradebook to view assignments and to post comments, feedback and grades.

Click here for instructions on using the Assignment Manager.

Which Tool Should I Use?

There are many factors to consider when deciding to use either the Digital Dropbox or the Assignment Manager.

1. The number of students in your course.

If you are teaching a large section or multiple sections of a course, locating files in the Digital Dropbox could prove difficult as the files are added in date order with the most recent files on top and there are not any organization or search tools available. However, if you use the Assignment Manager, it will be very easy to go to the Gradebook and locate assignment within the structure of the Gradebook.

2. The number of assignments students will complete during the semester.

If you give your students several assignments throughout the semester, locating the assignments in the Digital Dropbox may be difficult because of the lack of organization. However, the structure of the Gradebook makes locating Assignments in the Gradebook very easy.

3. Do you accept multiple drafts of assignments?

Creating an Assignment allows students to complete the Assignment once. Once the Assignment is completed, students cannot submit any other files through that particular Assignment. In this case, the Digital Dropbox would be a better tool to use as students can submit numerous files to the Dropbox. You could even use a combination of the tools and collect "Rough Drafts" via the Digital Dropbox and collect the "Final Draft" via the Assignment Manager.

4. Are any of your assignments group work?

The Assignment Manager does not allow for group submissions. The assignment goes in the Gradebook Spreadsheet row of the student who actually submitted the work. You may want to consider using the Digital Dropbox to collect group work and request files names that include the group name or last names of members of the group.