Set an assignment’s question, marks and dates in Lena for Teachers, then publish it so students can hand in work.
An assignment is work students hand in, online or in person. A practice assignment has nothing to hand in. Every
assignment starts as a draft. Owners, teachers and assistants on a course can draft one; only owners and teachers can
publish it.
In the sidebar, open the menu beside New course and choose New assignment. You can also go to
Assignment and choose New.
2
Choose the course and name it
Choose the Course, then enter an Assignment name, such as “Essay: how we remember”.
3
Write the question
Type the question or instructions in Assignment question / description, and attach any files students need.
You can also add or change the question later, from the assignment’s Question tab.
4
Choose how students hand it in
Under Submission method, choose Online, In-person or Practice (see the table below). For an online
assignment, choose the Submission type: Text and file, Text only or File only.
5
Set the marks and dates
Enter the Assignment marks, such as 20. Under Availability, set the Start (when students can open it)
and the Due date.
A new online assignment, worth 20 marks, with late work accepted.
6
Choose the rules
Turn on Add to assessment to count the assignment toward the course’s final grade. Turn on Accept late
submissions to take work after the due date, and set the Late deadline (it starts a week after the due date).
7
Create it
Choose Create Assignment. It opens as a draft, ready for a rubric if you want one.
The new assignment, still a draft. Students can’t see it yet.
Submission method
What students do
Marks and dates
Online
Type their work or upload files in Lena for Students.
Marks, a start and a due date.
In-person
Hand in physical work in class. You grade every student.
Marks, a start and a due date.
Practice
Nothing to hand in. Nothing is graded.
No marks and no due date. The start date is optional.
Open the assignment and look over the Details, Question and Rubric tabs. Choose Edit to change
the details.
2
Choose Publish
Lena checks the assignment first. It needs a question, and if it has a rubric, the rubric must add up to the marks.
If there’s a problem with the dates, a dialog says what it is (see the table below).
3
Confirm
In Publish assignment?, choose Publish. Students on the course see it in their list straight away, and can
open it from its start date.
Publishing is final: the assignment can’t go back to drafts.
Dialog
Why
What you can do
Due soon
Students will have less than 24 hours to submit.
Edit, or Publish anyway
Add a deadline
There’s no due date.
Edit the dates
Due before it opens
The due date is before the start.
Edit the dates
The deadline has passed
The due date is in the past, so nobody could submit.
On a published online assignment, choose Extend deadline, pick the New late deadline and choose Extend.
Students can hand in until then, and work after the due date is marked Late. Extending turns on late submissions if
they were off.
Only drafts can be edited. Once you publish an assignment, the only thing you can change is its deadline. You
can’t move an assignment to another course, even as a draft.
Keep a copy of the question. On a published assignment, the Question tab has Save assignment, which
downloads the question as a PDF, or a zip with its attachments.
Duplicate (from ⋮) makes a new draft copy without submissions. Delete removes the assignment with its
instructions, submissions and grades, for good. Assistants can do neither.
Your assignments are in four tabs on the Assignment page, grouped by course:
Published: open for students.
Grading: the dates have passed and the grades aren’t released. A row reads “Ready to release” when everyone is
graded.
Drafts
Past: grades released, or the course has ended, and every practice assignment.
The assignment has no question. Open the Question tab, choose Add question, then publish again.
“The rubric doesn’t match the marks”
The rubric’s points don’t add up to the assignment’s marks. The message says how far short or over it is. Edit the
rubric on the Rubric tab; see rubrics.
Accept late submissions is greyed out
It says “Set the due date first.” Set a Due date, then turn the switch on.
Lena won’t accept my dates
Lena’s message says which date to fix. The rules are:
The Due date must be after the Start.
The Late deadline must be after the due date, and in the future.
A new deadline when you extend must be later than the one students already have.
