Add a Graded Assignment to the LMS

📌 Requirement: Pressbooks Results activated at the network level. From August to December 2024, Pressbooks is conducting a pilot program to validate and improve Pressbooks Results, followed by general availability in January 2025. If you are interested in participating in this pilot, please contact your account manager. This chapter also requires deep linking to be enabled in your institution’s LMS. Deep linking is enabled automatically when a Pressbooks network is dynamically registered as an LTI tool, but for existing registrations, it can be enabled by an LMS admin following these steps.

In the previous chapter, we covered configuring a Pressbooks chapter as a graded assignment. This chapter covers bringing assignments from Pressbooks into your LMS: Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, or D2L Brightspace. Checking at least one H5P activity for inclusion in scoring in a given chapter leads that chapter to be designated as an assignment when brought in to your LMS.

Canvas

  1. Open your Canvas course and navigate to Modules.
  2. You’ll be bringing in material from Pressbooks into a module in your course. You can create a new module using the +Module button in the top-right corner or you can use an existing module.
  3. Click the sign on the right side of the module. A Module in Canvas with a plus sign icon on its right side.
  4. An ‘Add Item to Module’ viewer will appear. Select the option to Add External tool to Module.
  5. You will see a tool (likely named ‘Pressbooks Content Selector’) associated with your Pressbooks network. Click the tool name. The 'Add Item to Module' view in Canvas.
  6. Once you’ve selected the tool, you’ll see the Table of Contents for every book from your Pressbooks network where you have the user role of AdministratorEditor, or Author. (Note: if you see no books to select from here, that means your user account in Pressbooks does not belong to any books with these user roles. If you expect to have one of these user roles in a book but it doesn’t appear for selection, please contact your network manager.) While Pressbooks Results is enabled on your network, if you have chapters in a book that include one or more H5P activities included for scoring, the chapters will be labelled as graded assignments in the content selector (as opposed to linked resources). An example of the content selector showing pages available for import from a Pressbooks book.
  7. Check the box beside a book title to select a particular book to bring in. Or if you’re looking to bring in certain pages from a book, select the boxes beside those pages to bring them in.
  8. Once you’ve selected the desired material to bring into your course, click the Select Content button.
  9. If you selected multiple pages to bring in, they have now been imported into your course. If you selected only one page to bring in, press the Add Item button to complete import.
  10. You’ve successfully brought your Pressbooks material into your course.
Please note that if you are including private content in your course (i.e. your Pressbooks book is set to private or individual pages in it do not have the ‘Show in web’ option selected), you will need to make sure your book in Pressbooks has its Settings > Sharing & Privacy > Private Content setting set to ‘All logged in users including subscribers’. If not, students mapped to the role of subscriber from the LMS will not be able to access private content when launching LTI links (they’ll see an ‘Oops! This content cannot be found’ message instead). You can update the Private Content setting in your book dashboard in Pressbooks from Settings > Sharing & Privacy.

In addition to being added to the Modules view, graded assignments in Canvas are automatically added to the Assignments view, and they have a line item created in the Canvas gradebook in Grades. Once published in Canvas (within a published course), the assignment is ready to record student scores.

By default, each line item in the Canvas gradebook created for a Pressbooks chapter/assignment is graded out of 10 points. This means that when a student’s assignment grade is calculated, their grade is passed back to the gradebook and displayed out of 10 points. For example, a student’s grade of 6 out of 8 points in an assignment would be displayed as 7.5/10 points in the gradebook.

After bringing in an assignment from Pressbooks, you can edit its settings in Canvas, setting its grade to be displayed out of a different number of points or as a percentage. To do this, launch the link to the assignment in Canvas and navigate to Edit assignment settings in the top-right corner of the page.

 

From this Edit assignment page, set the Points field to the desired value and select how you’d like the grade to be displayed in the Canvas gradebook. Then, press the Save button to save changes to the assignment.

Detail from the Edit assignment settings page in Canvas showing Points, Assignment group, and Display grade as fields.

Note: we do not recommend restricting the number of assignment attempts allowed by Canvas, in part because Canvas will treat each time a student retries an individual H5P activity as a separate ‘attempt’.

Moodle

  1. Open your Moodle course.
  2. In the top-right corner of the browser, toggle ‘Edit mode’ to on.
  3.  Beneath any Topic in the course, click the text ‘Add an activity or resource’
  4. A viewer appears showing various activities and resources. Click the one named External tool.
  5. This opens a new page called ‘Adding a new External tool‘. Skip past the Activity Name field on this page.
  6. In the Preconfigured tool field, click the ‘Automatic, based on tool URL’ text. This reveals a dropdown menu of tools to choose from. Select the option with the name of your institution’s Pressbooks network.
  7. Then, click the Select content button.
  8. You will see the Table of Contents for every book from your Pressbooks network where you have the user role of AdministratorEditor, or Author. (Note: if you see no books to select from here, that means your user account in Pressbooks does not belong to any books with these user roles. If you expect to have one of these user roles in a book but it doesn’t appear for selection, please contact your network manager.) While Pressbooks Results is enabled on your network, if you have chapters in a book that include one or more H5P activities included for scoring, they will be specified as graded assignments in the content selector (as opposed to linked resources).
    An example of the content selector showing pages available for import from a Pressbooks book.
  9. Check the box beside a book title to select a particular book to bring in. Or if you’re looking to bring in particular chapters or front/back matter from a book, select the boxes beside those pages to bring them in.
  10. Once you’ve selected the desired material to bring into your course, click the Select Content button. (Note: clicking this button without any content selected leads to an error message.)
  11. If you’ve selected multiple webbook pages to bring in, you’ll be shown this confirmation screen:
    Confirmation message in Moodle: 'The following items will be added to your course' with a list of selected pages from the content selector.
    Whereas if you’ve selected one webbook page to bring in, you’ll land on the same page but with the ‘Activity name’ and ‘Tool URL’ fields now filled in. Either way, the next step is the same: click the Save and return to course button at the bottom of the page.
  12. You’ve successfully brought your Pressbooks material into your course.
Please note that if you are including private content in your course (i.e. your Pressbooks book is set to private or individual pages in it do not have the ‘Show in web’ option selected), you will need to make sure your book in Pressbooks has its Settings > Sharing & Privacy > Private Content setting set to ‘All logged in users including subscribers’. If not, students mapped to the role of subscriber from the LMS will not be able to access private content when launching LTI links (they’ll see an ‘Oops! This content cannot be found’ message instead). You can update the Private Content setting in your book dashboard in Pressbooks from Settings > Sharing & Privacy.

Each graded assignment, upon being brought into a Moodle course, automatically has a line item created for it in Moodle’s Grades view. Once shared with students, the assignment is ready to record student scores.

By default, each line item in the Moodle gradebook created for a Pressbooks chapter/assignment is graded out of 10 points. This means that when a student’s assignment grade is calculated, this grade is passed back to the gradebook and displayed out of 10 points. For example, a student’s grade of 6 out of 8 points in an assignment would be displayed as 7.5/10 points in the gradebook.

You can edit what an assignment is graded out of in Moodle (provided ‘Edit mode’ is switched on in the top-right corner) by clicking the three dots on the assignment + ‘Edit settings’

On this Settings page, click > Grade to set a different maximum grade for the assignment.
Note: we do not recommend restricting the number of assignment attempts allowed by the LMS, in part because the LMS will treat each time a student retries an individual H5P activity as a separate ‘attempt’.

Blackboard

  1. Open your Blackboard course,
  2. Click Content .
  3. Click Books & Tools.
    Details & Actions in Blackboard including the Books & Tools option.
  4. Click Browse available partners.
  5. Click the option that corresponds to your Pressbooks network. It will either have a name like ‘Pressbooks Content Selector’ or the name of your Pressbooks network.
  6. You will be brought to a page showing the Table of Contents for every book from your Pressbooks network where you have the user role of AdministratorEditor, or Author. (Note: if you see no books to select from here, that means your user account in Pressbooks does not belong to any books with these user roles. If you expect to have one of these user roles in a book but it doesn’t appear for selection, please contact your network manager.) While Pressbooks Results is enabled on your network, if you have chapters in a book that include one or more H5P activities included for scoring, they will be specified as graded assignments in the content selector (as opposed to linked resources).
    An example of the content selector showing pages available for import from a Pressbooks book.
  7. Check the box beside a book title to select a particular book to bring in. Or if you’re looking to bring in particular chapters or front/back matter from a book, select the boxes beside those pages to bring them in.
  8. Once you’ve selected the desired material to bring into your course, click the Select Content button. (Note: clicking this button without any content selected leads to an error message.)
  9. You’ve successfully brought your Pressbooks material into your course.
Please note that if you are including private content in your course (i.e. your Pressbooks book is set to private or individual pages in it do not have the ‘Show in web’ option selected), you will need to make sure your book in Pressbooks has its Settings > Sharing & Privacy > Private Content setting set to ‘All logged in users including subscribers’. If not, students mapped to the role of subscriber from the LMS will not be able to access private content when launching LTI links (they’ll see an ‘Oops! This content cannot be found’ message instead). You can update the Private Content setting in your book dashboard in Pressbooks from Settings > Sharing & Privacy.

Graded assignments, upon import, automatically have line items added to the gradebook in Grade Center > Full Grade Center. They are ready to be accessed by students in the course with grades recorded.

By default, each line item in the gradebook created for a Pressbooks chapter/assignment is graded out of 10 points. This means that when a student’s assignment grade is calculated, this grade is passed back to the gradebook and displayed out of 10 points. For example, a student’s grade of 6 out of 8 points in an assignment would be displayed as 7.5/10 points in the gradebook.

You can edit what an assignment is graded out of in Blackboard by locating it in the course content, clicking the down arrow beside its name and clicking Edit. This brings you to a settings page with a ‘Point Possible’ field; set the desired value here and save changes.

Interface for editing page or assignment details in Blackboard including Name, Points Possible, Visible to Students, and Due Date settings.

Note: we do not recommend restricting the number of assignment attempts allowed by the LMS, in part because the LMS will treat each time a student retries an individual H5P activity as a separate ‘attempt’.

D2L Brightspace

  1. Open your D2L course and navigate to Content.
  2. You’ll be bringing in material from Pressbooks into a module within the Table of Contents. You can create a new module using the Add a module… form at the bottom of the page or you can use an existing module.
  3. Press the Existing Activities button for the module that you’d like to bring material into. You will see a dropdown list of options, including one with a Pressbooks-related name: likely the name of your Pressbooks network (in this screenshot example, ‘Pressbooks LTI Dev Network’) or a name like ‘Pressbooks Content Selector’ Dropdown menu shown when selecting the Existing Activities button in the Contents view in D2L Brightspace.
  4. You’ll see a viewer showing the Table of Contents for every book from your Pressbooks network where you have the user role of AdministratorEditor, or Author. (Note: if you see no books to select from here, that means your user account in Pressbooks does not belong to any books with these user roles. If you expect to have one of these user roles in a book but it doesn’t appear for selection, please contact your network manager.) While Pressbooks Results is enabled on your network, if you have chapters in a book that include one or more H5P activities included for scoring, they will be specified as graded assignments in the content selector (as opposed to linked resources). An example of the content selector showing pages available for import from a Pressbooks book.
  5. Check the box beside a book title to select a particular book to bring in. Or if you’re looking to bring in particular chapters or front/back matter from a book, select the boxes beside those pages to bring them in.
  6. Once you’ve selected the desired material to bring into your course, click the Select Content button. (Note: clicking this button without any content selected leads to an error message.)
  7. You’ve successfully brought your Pressbooks material into your course.
Please note that if you are including private content in your course (i.e. your Pressbooks book is set to private or individual pages in it do not have the ‘Show in web’ option selected), you will need to make sure your book in Pressbooks has its Settings > Sharing & Privacy > Private Content setting set to ‘All logged in users including subscribers’. If not, students mapped to the role of subscriber from the LMS will not be able to access private content when launching LTI links (they’ll see an ‘Oops! This content cannot be found’ message instead). You can update the Private Content setting in your book dashboard in Pressbooks from Settings > Sharing & Privacy.

A column for each graded assignment (a chapter including at least one activity for scoring) is automatically added to the D2L gradebook upon import (the Grades view). It is ready to be accessed and attempted, with scores recorded and passed back to the gradebook, from the Content view (it does not need to be added to the Assignments view).

By default, each line item in the D2L gradebook created for a Pressbooks chapter/assignment is graded out of 10 points. This means that when a student’s assignment grade is calculated, this grade is passed back to the gradebook and displayed out of 10 points. For example, a student’s grade of 6 out of 8 points in an assignment would be displayed as 7.5/10 points in the gradebook.

To edit the number of points an assignment is displayed out of, navigate to the Grades view in D2L and click the down arrow to the right of the name for a given assignment. In the dropdown menu that appears, click Edit.

Dropdown menu shown when clicking the down arrow beside an assignment name in the D2L Grades view; includes the 'Edit' option.

You’ll be brought to a page with a ‘Grading’ section where you can input a desired Maximum Points value for the assignment.

Maximum Points field in the D2L Edit Item page.

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The Pressbooks Network Manager's Guide Copyright © 2024 by Pressbooks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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