Assess student work in Discussion topics in D2L Brightspace

Configuring a topic for assessment

You can link a topic’s score to a numeric item in your grade book so that students’ scores transfer to grades. This enables you to factor the topic score in to the students’ final grades for the course.  You can choose assign (1) an overall score for each student, or (2) evaluate students' individual posts and have the system automatically calculate a topic score for each student.

1. Navigate to the Discussion tool.
2. On the Discussions List page, click on Edit Topic from the topic’s menu.
3. Do one of the following:
   • To create a new grade item in the grade book, enter a numeric value in the Grade Out of field. A new grade item is created in the grade book with the name of the topic.
   • To link the topic score to a grade item, enter a numeric value in the Grade Out of field. Then, click In Grade Book > Edit or Link to Existing > Link to an existing grade item > select the grade item > click OK.
4. To associate a rubric, expand the Evaluation & Feedback section, and click Add Rubric > Add Existing.
5. Optional: If you want to assess individual posts (rather than an overall score for each student), expand the Evaluation & Feedback section and select the Allow assessment of individual posts checkbox. Select the Calculation method to determine the student’s overall topic scores based on post scores, and decide whether to select the Include unassessed posts in the calculated score as zero checkbox.
6. Click Save and Close.

Assess student work in Discussions

Assess individual students within a topic ('assess student' option)

You can assess students from inside the topic while reading posts. Assessing students from within the topic lets you read students' posts in context and evaluate them as you perform other reading-related tasks (marking posts as read, replying, etc.).

1. Navigate to the Discussion tool.
2. Click Assess Topic from the topic’s menu.  
3. Click the Topic Score link beneath the name of the student you want to assess.
4. Enter a score in the Score or Overall Grade column. You can enter comments in the Overall Feedback field.
5. Click Save Draft to continue grading or click Published to make the feedback accessible to your student.

Assess students who have not participated from the Assess Topic page

The Assess Topic page brings you to a list of all students in the class, even if they have not participated in the discussion. When assessing students from the Assess Topic page, you can review a student's participation in the topic.

1. Navigate to the Discussion tool.
2. Click Assess Topic from the topic’s menu. 
3. Click Topic Score beneath the name of the student you want to assess.
4. Enter a score in the Score or Overall Grade column. You can enter comments in the Overall Feedback field.
5. Click Save Draft to continue grading or click Published to make the feedback accessible to your student.

Add starter feedback to multiple students at one time

1. Navigate to the Discussion tool.
2. Click Assess Topic from the topic’s menu. 
3. Do one of the following: 
   • Select individual students and click Add Feedback. 
   • Click Add Feedback to All to add feedback to all students. 
     
4. In the Add Feedback window, enter the same feedback that you want these students to receive.
   • Note: This feedback Insert Stuff does not support uploads from My Computer
   • Note: This feedback Insert Image stores file uploads from My Computer in the course Manage Files area
     
5. When ready, click Save. 
6. If applicable, decide whether to clear existing feedback.
   • Click Cancel to keep your existing feedback and cancel adding this new feedback. 
   • Click Clear to add your new feedback to the assessments and clear any previous feedback. The previous feedback is overwritten!
7. The feedback is stored in the Overall Feedback field when assessing the student's work. Assess this by clicking on the student’s name to navigate to the evaluation screen.