Customize settings for an assignment

For information about settings for Adaptive Follow-Up assignments, see Adaptive Follow-Up settings.

Each Mastering assignment inherits its initial grading, presentation, and security settings from the category to which it belongs. The default settings in the Homework, Quiz, and Test categories work well for most assignments, but you can customize these settings for a specific assignment.

Note: If you copy an assignment with customized settings to another course, your customizations are overwritten to match the settings of the same category in the new course. If needed, you can customize the settings again.

 Video: Change default assignment settings

To customize grading, presentation, and security settings for an assignment:

1. Do one of the following:

   • As you are creating or editing an assignment, on the  Start page click Edit Settings under Grading and Presentation settings.

   • From the assignment's Overview page, click Edit Grading and Presentation Settings. View an image

     

2. Set options and values on the Basic, Advanced, and Security tabs, as described below.

   

   Basic tab (the most commonly adjusted settings)

   Setting	Description
   Allow Rework for Practice Yes No	This setting lets students rework completed items after the assignment due date has passed, provided the assignment is still available to them. An item is complete if, for each part of the item (Part A, Part B, and so on), the student has either submitted the correct answer, used all attempts, or requested the answer. You can change the assignment availability dates on the Assignments page List View. Follow these recommendations: From: Make each homework assignment available to students (visible on their Course Calendar) at least one week before the due date. Until: Set this date to match the course end date to allow students to review their work to study for final exams. More Students can rework items for practice as many times as they like after the assignment due date. Rework for practice is not saved and does not change the student's original score, the diagnostic statistics for the assignment, or the learning outcome results for the course. If the assignment is pooled, students see the same subset of items as they were given originally. If the item sequence is randomized, students see the same items, but in a different order. Items that contain randomized variables contain different randomized values when students rework them for practice. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Yes, Quiz = No, Test = No Note: You can reset an assignment for one or more students, which allows them to rework the assignment to receive a new score. See About resetting an assignment.
   Show Assignment Score Always Never Only after assignment is due Only after assignment is complete	This setting controls whether students see "Hidden" instead of their total score for this assignment on their Scores page and Assignment Grade page. Students might still see individual item scores on the Assignment Grade page, depending on your selection for Show Whether an Answer is Correct on the Advanced tab. If you select Only after assignment is complete any student who doesn't complete the assignment never sees the assignment score. To see the score, the student must reopen the assignment and complete it. If the assignment is no longer available to students, you can adjust settings per student to change the Available Until date for individual students. More Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Always, Quiz = Only after assignment is complete, Test = Only after assignment is due To specify whether students can see their total score for the course: Click course settings > Additional Course Settings > Display Settings.
   Assignment Has a Time Limit  No limit Allow __ minutes for this assignment	Consult the estimated student completion time at the bottom of the Organize Content page before you set a time limit. More In the list of assignments, a  clock icon means that the assignment has a time limit. After students start a timed assignment, you cannot change this time limit setting for the whole class. You can, however, specify a different time limit for one or more students anytime. Students cannot open a timed assignment on a mobile device, even if the assignment contains only mobile-ready items. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = No time limit, Quiz = No time limit, Test = No time limit
   Penalize Late Submissions No credit Reduce credit by __% over each day/hour late.	This setting penalizes only items that are submitted late, not the entire assignment. More Receiving no credit for late items can motivate students to complete assignments on time. Allowing late submissions can motivate students to complete unfinished work after the due date. When you reduce credit for late item submissions, the option to set a limit on reducing credit also appears. Exception: This option is not available if the assignment has a time limit. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = No credit, Quiz = No credit, Test = No credit

   Advanced tab (more detailed grading and presentation settings)

   Note: Settings marked with a in this table appear on the Advanced tab only if you edit the category. If you are customizing settings for a particular assignment, use the  Organize Content page to change these settings.

   Setting	Description
   Default Point Value per Item: __	This setting determines the default point value for all items in assignments that are added to this category. More To change point values for specific items in an individual assignment: Select values on the  Organize Content tab as you create or edit the assignment. To set up a different default point value for all items across multiple assignments: Create a new category, such as Labs, with a different default value. Then associate assignments with that new category. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = 1, Quiz = 1, Test = 1
   Randomize Item Sequence Yes No	This option can discourage cheating by randomizing the sequence of items in all assignments that are added to this category. More For extra security, combine randomized sequence with Hide Item Titles (on the Security tab) to make it more difficult for students to share item answers by identifying either item position or title. To change this setting for an individual assignment: Select or clear the check box on the  Organize Content tab as you create or edit the assignment. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = No, Quiz = No, Test = Yes
   Show Whether an Answer is Correct Always Never Only after assignment is due Only after assignment is complete	Considerations for selecting an option: Students are more likely to recognize whether they need additional help when they know whether their responses are correct. Valuable question-specific follow-up text appears only when students are shown whether their answers are correct. Showing the correct answer too soon may let students share answers with other students. Seeing correct answers after an assignment is due or complete can help students review. (Students never see correct answers for items they didn't complete.) More Regardless of which option you select, a student cannot go back to change the answer to a question after he or she has completed the question (submitted the correct answer, used all attempts, or requested the answer). Answers are submitted one by one, and students can't review and edit answers before submitting the assignment. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Always, Quiz = Only after assignment is due, Test = Only after assignment is due If you select Always The following additional options appear: If students exhaust all attempts or give up, show correct answer immediately Yes No Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Yes, Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a Limit number of attempts per question to __ Mastering doesn't count an attempt used if a student submits the same answer more than once, or if a student makes certain formatting or syntax errors, such as entering an odd number of parentheses. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Limited to 6, Quiz = 1, Test = 1 Deduct credit for incorrectly answering a multiple-choice or true/false question before the last attempt Deduction per incorrect answer: 100% divided by the number of possible incorrect answers Example: If a question has 5 answer options and 4 are incorrect, 1/4 (25%) of the possible points for that question is deducted for each wrong attempt by the student. __ % (a fixed percentage) This option is available only if the number of attempts is a value greater than 1. A small penalty for wrong answers for these kinds of questions discourages students from simply guessing wildly. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = 100% divided by the number of possible incorrect answers, Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a Deduct credit for incorrectly answering any other type of question before the last attempt Deduction per incorrect answer: __% This option is available only if the number of attempts is greater than 1. A small penalty for wrong answers discourages students from simply guessing wildly. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = 3%, Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a If you select Only after assignment is due/complete One additional option appears: If students answer incorrectly, show correct answer after assignment due date/is complete Yes No Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = n/a, Quiz = No, Test = No What students see When students are not shown whether an answer is correct (either never or before the assignment is complete or due), they see "Complete" when they submit an item in an assignment, and "Hidden" instead of their points and scores for individual items on their Assignment Grade page for this assignment.
   Students Can View Hints Always Never Only after assignment is due Only after assignment is complete	Considerations for using this option: Hints can help students answer the main question of an item part. Not all questions offer Hints. When Hints are available, a Hints link appears below the answer box. Opening Hints AFTER an assignment is due or completed can help students to study. (To see Hints, students select Review part.) Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Always, Quiz = Never, Test = Never If you select Always The following additional options appear: Give credit for correctly answering a question in a Hint Yes No Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Yes, Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a Give bonus credit for not opening a Hint. Bonus per Hint not opened: __% Giving a bonus for unused Hints is one way to provide an incentive for thinking first, before requesting a Hint. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = 2%, Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a Deduct credit for opening a Hint. Deduction per Hint opened: __% Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = No deduction [not checked] Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a Deduct credit for exhausting all attempts or giving up on a question in a Hint A small penalty for wrong answers discourages students from simply guessing wildly. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Deduct credit [checked] Quiz = n/a, Test = n/a
   Require Students to Enter Units by Default Yes No	This setting applies only to item content that asks for a value and a unit. To change this setting for specific items in an assignment: Select this option on the  Organize Content tab as you create or edit the assignment. Initial settings for provided categories: Homework = Yes, Quiz = Yes, Test = Yes

   Security tab (settings to discourage cheating and answer-sharing)

   Setting	Description
   Allow Students to Print	When students are allowed to print an assignment, they: Can work on the assignment offline before they submit their work online. Might share questions with other students. Initial settings for the provided categories: Homework = Yes, Quiz = No, Test = No
   Hide Item Titles	This setting replaces the assignment item titles that students see with something like "Item 1" or "Question 1." More When you select the check box, you are able to replace the default title, "Item," with another word. You might want to use this feature if the title of one assignment item might give an unintended clue to the answer of another item. For extra security, combine randomized sequence with Randomize Item Sequence (on the Advanced tab) to make it more difficult for students to share item answers by identifying either item position or title. Initial settings for the provided categories: Homework = No, Quiz = No, Test = Yes
   Require Password  Note: This setting is available only for a specific assignment, not for a category.	In a test center or proctored exam environment, requiring a password helps to prevent access to the assignment outside of the test venue. More The test proctor can give the password to students, or enter the password for each student. If the proctor gives out the password, you can reset it as often as necessary to ensure that students outside of the proctored setting don't learn the password from an exiting student. In the list of assignments, a  key icon means that a password is required to open the assignment. Password protected assignments are listed, but cannot be opened, on a mobile device, even if they contain only mobile-ready items. Caution your students to plan ahead to be at a computer to complete any assignment they see listed with the key icon. Minimum length of password: 1 character Allowable characters: All keyboard characters, including letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces Letters: Not case-sensitive, so DOG = Dog = dog. Initial settings for the provided categories: Homework = No, Quiz = No, Test = No
   Limit Student Access between completion and due date	This option prevents students from seeing the content or their scores for an assignment after they complete the assignment, until the due date. More Before the due date, students still see the completed assignment title in their Assignment lists, but they cannot open it or access their scores. As an instructor, your access to the assignment or scores is unaffected by this setting. Initial settings for the provided categories: Homework = No, Quiz = No, Test = Yes

3. Click Save before you move to another tab or close the window. Otherwise, your changes are lost.

4. Click Close.

See also:

About assignment categories

Edit category settings

Create a pooled assignment

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