Location: Assign materials and manage availability > Assign assets to the calendar

Assign assets to the calendar

There are several ways to assign assets to students and track their due dates. This topic explains how to assign assets by adding them to the calendar. You can also assign assets when you do not have a calendar open. For details, see Assign course materials using the options menu.

Tip: You can click and drag assets from the Course Materials List and drop them on a calendar day. This action assigns the assets to students with the due date on which you dropped them.

After you assign an asset, the assignment due icon appears on the day you selected in the calendar and on the Course Materials > Manage Course Materials page on the left. For students, assigned assets appear when they click the calendar due icon or when they open the Course Materials > View All Course Materials page.

If you assign a folder, any unassigned assets in the folder get assigned and not the folder itself.

If students do not complete an assignment by the due date and time, the assignment is reported as past due. Past due assignments have a grade of zero, unless you extend the due date to a date in the future or enable grace period options. Appropriate grade deductions are taken when the student submits the late assignment. For details on setting grace periods, see Set preferences for an activity.

Important: You can assign only assets that are visible to your students. If the asset or folder is currently hidden, click Yes at the prompt that asks whether you want to display and assign it.

To assign assets to the calendar:

Go to the Assignment Calendar page.
On the left, select the appropriate options to locate the assets you want to assign:
- Select the VIEW BY option you want to use. For details, see Filter the course materials display.
- Use the SHOW menu to filter the list of materials. You need to open the folders to view any assets in the folder that meet the criteria you select. See Navigate folders.
  - All Items: View all course materials, including activities, folders, and assets.
  - Items Assigned: View only assigned course materials and folders that contain assigned materials.
  - Items Not Assigned: View only unassigned course materials and folders that contain unassigned materials.
  - Instructor Graded: View only course materials that are marked with the manually graded icon .
  - Machine Graded: (Auto graded) View only course materials that are graded by the application rather than by you.
  - Items with Multimedia: View only course materials that you have manually marked in the activity's preferences as including multimedia .
  - Shown Items: View course materials that have a Shown status, indicating that they are visible to students.
  - Hidden Items: View course materials that have a Hidden status, indicating that they are not visible to students.
Select Properties or Assignment Properties from the asset or folder options menu.
If prompted, click Yes at the prompt to make any hidden assets visible to students.
You can edit the assignment title in the Title field.
You can add or edit a description in the Description field.
In the Assign section, you must choose an option:
- Not Assigned: The asset does not get assigned.
- Assigned: Assign the asset with or without a due date.
  To assign with a due date:
  1. Select Assigned, and then select Assign with a due date.
  2. Click the date in the calendar on which you want to make the asset due, or type the date directly in the Due Date field.
  3. Enter the due time in hours and minutes, in HH:MM format. By default, assets are due at 11:59 PM on the due date. You can specify a different default due time on the course Preferences > General page.
  To assign without a due date, making the asset due on the last day of class, select Assigned and then clear the Assign with a due date box.
Set any additional properties for the assignment:
- To schedule when the assignment is visible to students, see Schedule or restrict assignment availability.
- To assign or schedule the assignment to certain students or groups, see Control who can access assignments and when.
- To restrict the assignment to certain machines, see Control which computers can access assignments.
- To have the assignment open in a pop-up window, open full screen, or require a password, see Set assignment and asset properties.
When you finish, click Save.

Assign folders

When you assign a folder, the assets in the folder are assigned. However, because a folder can contain a variety of assets, there are a few rules to keep in mind.

Hidden" assets: Hidden assets are not visible to students. If the folder or one or more assets in the folder are marked as hidden, those hidden assets are changed to shown automatically so that you can continue to assign them to students.
"Instructor only" assets: Assets marked as instructor only are never visible to students.
If a folder is marked as instructor only, you cannot assign the folder unless you change the folder properties on the Course Materials > Add from Library page.
If a folder contains both student assets and assets marked as instructor only, you can assign the student assets in the folder, but the assets marked as instructor only are not assigned or visible to students.
If all assets in the folder are marked as instructor only, you can assign the folder, but it appears empty to students, because assets marked as instructor only are never visible to students.