The Administer Assignments page allows you to enter course assignments for your active courses, including extra credit assignments. You can also copy the assignments to other courses.
This page allows you to administer assignments for both category-based (i.e., regular) courses and skills-referenced courses; different fields are displayed according to the type of course.
Notes:
Categories must be established for the course before you can enter assignments.
For percentage-based weighting, assignments cannot be added unless category weights are set up and total 100. Otherwise, an error message is displayed.
For each assignment you create, you must specify an assignment category (unless the course is skills-referenced) and enter an assignment description and the total number of possible points for the assignment. You can also enter the assignment date and due date, which are helpful when sorting grades on the Assignment Grades page.
You can only enter assignments for active courses.
Assignment names must be unique within each category.
You cannot make changes to assignments once the cycle is closed.
From the Settings menu, select Administer Assignments.
The Administer Assignments page is displayed allowing you to enter course assignments for a specified semester, cycle, and course section.
In the Semester
field, click 
to select the semester for which you want to enter assignments.
In the Cycle
field, click
to select the cycle for which you want to enter assignments.
In the Course
Section field, click to select
the course section for which you want to enter assignments.
All assignments that have previously been entered for the semester/cycle/course section are displayed. If no assignments have been entered, a blank row is displayed allowing you to add an assignment.
To add a new assignment if a blank row is not available, click Add New Assignment. You can also press TAB from the last field on the previous row. A new row is displayed at the bottom of the assignments list.
In the Assignment Name field, type a name for the assignment (e.g., Pop Quiz 1). The field can be up to 50 characters.
Note: It is helpful to keep the assignment name as brief as possible; however, the name should be descriptive enough to distinguish it from other assignments. Longer assignment names require more space on the Assignment Grades page, which may result in a more cumbersome page.
Assignment names can be changed at any time, as needed.
You cannot add duplicate assignment names within a category. If you attempt to enter an assignment name that already exists for the category, a message is displayed indicating that there is an assignment with the same name.
In the Category
field, click
to select a category for the assignment.
The categories are established on the Administer Categories page.
If a color has been assigned to the category on the Administer Categories page, the drop down displays the assigned color.
Note: The Category field is not displayed for skills-referenced courses; the Edit Skills column is displayed instead. This applies to iTCCS districts only.
For skills-referenced courses, in the Edit Skills field, the number of skills currently associated for the assignment is displayed. To view or edit the skills, click the # Skills link. The Editing skills for Assignment: Assignment Name dialog box is displayed.
This applies to iTCCS districts only.
Under Available Skills, all available skillsets and associated skills are displayed. Select the skills you want to associate with the assignment. An assignment cannot be saved unless it has at least one skill associated with it.
Click a skill once to select it.
To select multiple consecutive skills, click the first skill, and then press and hold SHIFT while clicking the last skill in the range.
To select multiple nonconsecutive skills, click a skill, and then press and hold CTRL while clicking the other skills.
Click Add >> to associate the selected skills with the assignment. The skills are displayed under Selected Skills under the appropriate skillset name.
To remove a skill for an assignment, select the skill under Selected Skills, and then click << Del. The skill is displayed under Available Skills and is no longer associated with the assignment.
Note: You cannot delete a skill if there are any assignment grades for the skill.
Click OK to close the dialog box and retain the changes. Otherwise, click Cancel to close the dialog box without retaining the changes.
The Edit Skills field is updated to reflect the number of skills associated with the assignment.
Note: The Edit Skills field is only displayed for skills-referenced courses; the Category field is displayed for category-based (i.e., regular) courses.
In the Date
Assigned field, type the date the assignment is due, or click
to open the calendar
and select a valid date. To close the calendar, you must click a valid
date on the calendar or click the calendar icon.
In the Date
Due field, type the date the assignment is due, or click to open the calendar and select
a valid date. To close the calendar, you must click a valid date on
the calendar or click the calendar icon.
You can set a default date for this field on the Update Profile page in the Default Assignment Due Date field. Valid options are no default date, the current date, or up to five days in the future. You can override the default date as needed.
In the Total Points field, type the total number of possible points for the assignment. The Total Points field cannot be zero, unless it is an extra credit assignment. This field is set to 100 by default.
Notes:
This field is not displayed for skills-referenced courses.
If you are using
percentage-based weighting, if the field is not set to 100, a message
is displayed indicating that the total points do not equal 100, and
is displayed next to the Total
Points field. When you click , the Total
Point Warning dialog box is displayed indicating that you should review
the Help for Calculating Averages
to understand how the grades are calculated in this situation.
The Total Point Warning dialog box is also displayed when you click Save if the points are not set to 100. Select Do not show this message again if you do not want to receive this reminder every time you click Save.
Warning: If all assignments in a category do not have the same total points value, then the calculations for dropping a specified number of assignments for the category (as indicated in the # Drop field on the Administer Categories page) may result in an average that is different than expected. If the total points value varies, the grade with the lowest number of points may not necessarily be the lowest grade.
In the Extra Credit field, indicate if the assignment is an extra credit assignment. If the assignment is for extra credit, the Total Points field must be set to zero. This field is not displayed for skills-referenced courses.
Extra credit assignments add points to the average for the category selected.
If a student has no grade or a zero for the extra credit assignment, it does not count against him when his average is calculated.
See the Extra Credit section on the Calculate Averages page for an explanation of calculating averages with extra credit for each weighting type.
In the Notes
field, click 
to add or
update optional notes for the assignment. If entered, these notes
are viewable in the parent access Web site, txConnect.
Add or update
the note in the Note dialog box, and then click Ok.
The Note dialog box closes, and the note icon is yellow 
to indicate that a note was entered.
To clear the note
for the assignment, click Clear.
The Note dialog box closes, and the note icon is gray
to indicate that there are no notes entered.
To modify data for an assignment, type over the existing data with the new information.
To delete an assignment,
click 
under Delete
for that assignment in the Delete
column.
Note:
You cannot delete
an assignment if grades have been posted for the assignment. The is not displayed for those assignments.
If you delete grades on the Assignment Grades page in order to delete an assignment, you must be sure to delete the grade for any withdrawn student.
Before you leave the page, you must save your changes.
In the PIN field, type your four-digit PIN. The field is disabled for inquiry-only users.
Click Save.
If your changes were saved successfully, the page reloads, and a message is displayed indicating that the assignments were saved successfully.
If you typed your PIN incorrectly, the system notifies you that you provided an invalid PIN. You must provide the correct PIN to continue.
If the cycle is closed, you cannot save any changes. The button is disabled; the button says Cycle Closed. If you attempt to make changes, a warning message notifies you that the changes will not be saved.
If you change any data on the page, and then attempt to leave the page without saving the changes, a warning message is displayed. This includes attempting to change the Semester, Cycle, or Course Section fields before you save changes.
Click Continue to leave this page without saving your changes.
Click Cancel to return to the page and save your changes.
Once you have saved assignments for a course, you can copy the assignments to another course section.
Use the Semester, Cycle, and Course Section fields to select the course section from which you want to copy assignments.
Click Copy assignments to another course section/cycle. The Copy Assignments page is displayed. Review the Help for the Copy Assignments page for additional instructions on copying assignments.