Create a diagnostic assignment

Although students can take diagnostics on their own, you may prefer creating diagnostic assignments. You can distribute the available diagnostics across assignments however you like. For example, you may want to cover multiple topics in one assignment, or you may prefer one diagnostic for testing grammar, another for sentence structure, and another for punctuation.

You can use a diagnostic exercise only once per course. After you attach a diagnostic exercise to an assignment, that exercise will not be available the next time you create a diagnostic assignment.

Diagnostic assignments have a unique feature in that you can specify the number of times students can take each exercise. The default is once (1 time). If you set the number of attempts to a higher value, the student can retake the exercise up to that number of times. Each time a student starts to retake an exercise, the student's prior score and results for that exercise are removed from the gradebook, My Study Plan, and Resources. These prior scores and results cannot be retrieved. Also, a student can exhaust the option to retake an exercise only up to the due date and time.

As with other assignments, if the student does not complete it by the due date and time, the gradebook flags it as late (L). However, a student can still complete the first instance of an exercise, and the resulting grade will replace the late flag in the gradebook.

When a student completes a diagnostic exercise, the MyLab:

• Displays the results to the student with links to the appropriate topics in Resources so the student can hone his or her skills.
• Adds links to these topics in the students' My Study Plan.
• Marks the topics as required in Resources.

When a student completes all the assignment's exercises, the MyLab records the results in the Gradebook's Student Results Summary.

View a video on creating a diagnostic assignment.

To create a diagnostic assignment:

1. Do one of the following to display the Assignment Builder:
   • Click Create Assignment under Manage Assignments on the Home page.
   • Click the Assignments tab. Then click Create Assignment.
2. Select Diagnostic and click the Continue button.
3. Proceed through the Assignment Builder, completing the entries for each step and then click the Continue button.

   For details on a step's entries, click its link:

   Step 2: Select diagnostics

   Step 3: Set titles and dates

   Step 4: Set points possible

   When you complete the Step 4 entries, the MyLab creates the assignment and displays the Confirmation page, which shows the assignment details. You can edit the assignment now by clicking an Edit button or later from the Assignments page.

4. Do one of the following:
   • Click the View All Assignments button to go to the assignment list on the Assignments page.
   • Click the Create New Assignment button to add another assignment.

See also:

Create assignments | Edit an assignment | Activate and deactivate assignments | Delete an assignment | Test assignments

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