Assignments

The Assignments page holds the work students complete in a course. An assignment has its own instructions, a schedule (availability window and deadline), and one or more problems from the course problem bank. Every assignment is either individual or group, can be assigned to everyone or to specific students or groups, and can give individual targets their own dates.

Create an assignment

Select Create Assignment to open the wizard. It has four steps.

1. Details - enter a title and optional description.
2. Type - choose Individual (each student submits and is graded on their own) or Group (students submit and are graded together as a group). For a group assignment, pick the group set it runs in.
3. Assign To - choose who it is for and set the default schedule (see below).
4. Review - check the summary, then select Create Assignment.

All dates are interpreted in the course timezone. New assignments are created unpublished so you can add and check problems first, then publish with the Published switch when you are ready.

Type: individual or group

An assignment is one or the other, not a mix:

• Individual - assigned to students; each submits on their own.
• Group - tied to one group set; students submit and are graded together as their group. A student who is not in any group of that set is not assigned the work.

You set the type when you create the assignment, and you can change it later on the assignment's Type tab. Switching between individual and group resets who the assignment is for (back to everyone) and removes any date overrides, so you rebuild those afterward on Assign To. The app asks you to confirm before applying the change.

Assign To and the schedule

Assign To - by default the assignment goes to All students (individual) or All groups in the set (group). Use Edit students / Edit groups to pick a specific subset instead; anyone not selected does not see the assignment at all. Group targets always come from the assignment's single group set.

The default schedule applies to everyone assigned unless a target has an override:

• Available from (optional) - before this time the assignment is locked. Students see that it exists and when it opens, but not its description or problems. Leave it blank to make the assignment available immediately.
• Due - the on-time deadline.
• Allow late submissions - accept work after the due date.
• Accept until (optional) - when late submissions are on, the last moment late work is accepted. Leave it blank to accept late work with no deadline; when set, it must be on or after the due date.

The assignment page

Open an assignment (select its title, or Manage → View Assignment). It has these tabs: Details, Type, Assign To, Problems, Submissions, Statistics, and Similarity.

Details

Edit the assignment's title and description. See Details.

Type

Switch the assignment between individual and group. See Type.

Assign To

Choose the audience, set the default schedule, and add per-target date overrides. See Assign To.

Problems

Add problems to the assignment and set their per-assignment points, submission caps, and autograding. See Problems.

Submissions

Once students begin working, use the Submissions tab to review files, rerun the autograder, discuss a problem, and enter grades. See Submissions.

Statistics

Staff-only charts summarizing how the class is doing on the assignment: score distribution, submission status, attempts to solve, and more. See Statistics.

Similarity

A staff-only tab (in progress) for reviewing submissions for possible plagiarism. See Similarity.

Group assignments

When an assignment is a group assignment:

• Each group shares one submission set per problem. Any member can submit, and every member sees the group's submissions.
• Autograding grades the whole group: each member receives the group's grade, which you can override for an individual student on the Submissions tab.
• Only students who belong to a group in the set are assigned the work.

Once a group in the set has submitted work, the group set is locked: you can still rename or duplicate it, but you cannot change its groups or memberships, and you cannot delete a group set that an assignment uses. Plan the groups before students begin submitting.

The assignment list

The table shows each assignment's due date, Type (Individual or Group), total points, number of problems, late-work settings, submission and comment counts, and publication status. You can filter by type.

When an assignment has date overrides, the Due Date cell shows a Multiple badge next to the base date; select it to see each target's effective dates in a popover.

Use the Published switch to show or hide an assignment. AFCT asks for confirmation before applying the change.

Duplicate an assignment

Manage → Duplicate Assignment opens a short wizard to copy an assignment within the same course:

1. Details - the title and description start as the original's; edit them or leave them as is.
2. Problems - choose what happens to the original's problems:
   • Don't include problems - the copy starts empty.
   • Link the same problems - both assignments point at the same problems, so editing a problem (including its solution file) changes it in both.
   • Duplicate the problems - independent copies are made in this course, each with its own solution file, so editing one does not affect the other.
3. Review - a summary before you create it.

The assignment type and all of the Assign To settings (audience, dates, and any date exceptions) are copied from the original and can be changed afterward. The copy is always created unpublished, regardless of the original. Submissions and grades are never copied.

Import an assignment from another course

Import Assignment (next to Create Assignment) copies an assignment out of a different course you teach or assist into this one. It is a short wizard:

1. Source - pick a course, then an assignment. The course list shows every course where you are faculty or a TA (administrators see all courses), including archived courses. Unpublished draft assignments in the source course can be imported too.
2. Details - the title and description start as the source assignment's; edit them or leave them as is.
3. Problems - choose whether to copy the problems into this course (each problem is copied here with its own solution file, leaving the originals untouched) or import without problems.
4. Review - a summary before you import.

Because audiences, groups, and problems belong to a specific course, an import cannot carry them across. The imported assignment is always created unpublished, assigned to all students, and as an individual assignment; change the audience and type afterward.

Importing a group assignment converts it to individual (the wizard flags this), because group sets are specific to each course. Recreate it as a group assignment in the new course once its groups exist.

Its schedule (due date, available-from, and late settings) is copied from the source as a starting point and may be from another term, so review the dates before publishing.

Submissions and grades are never imported. To copy an assignment within the same course, use Duplicate instead.

Keep these safeguards in mind:

• You cannot unpublish an assignment after it has submissions or grades.
• You cannot delete an assignment after it has submissions or discussion comments.
• Removing a student from the course also removes any assignee row and date overrides they had.
• An archived course is read-only.