Homework Tasks#

A Homework Task is an individual item of homework that you assign to one or more students within a class.

Tip

The supervisor of a class group will be able to view the details of all tasks assigned to the class group.


Creating a Task#

To create a new homework task click the Create option from the Homework Tasks section of the side menu or click the Create a New Task tag on the dashboard.

You must first provide a title for the task, this is required to crete a new draft homework. Once entered simply click off of the title field and a new draft homework task will be created for you. You’ll see a green popup message confirming the task was created and the remaining fields will become active.

Tip

None of the other fields will be enabled until a title has been entered.

Tip

You can also use the tab key to trigger draft homework task creation.

Tip

Any changes you make are saved automatically.

Once the title has been entered, you’ll need to complete the remaining required fields before you can publish the task. The required fields are:

  • Deadline Date

  • Submission Type

  • Task

  • Title

  • Visible Date

Depending on your user permissions and schools configuration you may also be required to enter the following:

  • Allow Late Submissions

  • Learning Activities

  • Learning Outcomes

  • Staff Member

You will also be required to select the class that this task is being assigned to along with the individual students that should be assigned the task.

Tip

Details of each of the fields is included below;

Once you’ve entered all of the required fields and are happy with the content you’ll need to click the publish button to make the task available to the selected students.

Tip

Once published you cannot “un-publish” the task so make sure it’s correct before publishing it. You’ll still be able to edit any of the details within the task so you can correct any spelling mistakes, add more detail or additional attachments as required.

Tip

Students and Parents/Contacts will be informed of new homework tasks daily via Notifications. But will be able to immediately see the task if they log in and check.

Caution

Until published a task remains in a draft state. Homework tasks in the draft state are automatically removed 14 days after their creation to avoid unnecessary clutter.


Copying a Task#

You can easily create a new homework task using an existing one as a starting point. To do simply click the copy homework button from the homework tasks action bar on the My Classes screen.

Clicking the copy homework button will automatically copy the content of the homework task into a new draft task for you to complete. It only copies relevant data including:

  • Allow Late Submissions

  • Graded Task

  • Record Submissions

  • Learning Activities

  • Learning Outcomes

  • Submission Format

  • Submission Type

  • Task

  • Title

The deadline date and visible date are copied only if they are in the future, otherwise they are left blank for you to select.

The class group is not copied as this is likely the main reason to copy a homework task (When you want to assign the same task to another class).

Once copied you’ll be taken to the edit page for the new task.


Editing an Existing Task#

To view your existing homework tasks use the My Classes page to find the class and then the task that you want to edit. Click the corresponding edit button to open the edit screen.

Here you can change any of the details of the task as per homework task creation. All changes are saved automatically.

Details of each of the fields can be found below.

Tip

Once a student has been selected you wont be able to change the class for this task.


Draft Homework Tasks#

You can view your draft homework tasks by clicking the Drafts menu option under the Homework Tasks section of the side bar. This will show the details of the tasks in the same format as the My Classes screen.

Caution

When creating a new homework task it’s saved as a draft until you publish it. Draft homework tasks are retained for 14 days after the date they were created. If you don’t publish a task during that 14 days it will be automatically deleted. This helps us reduce clutter in your schools system, making everything work better for everyone. Don’t use draft homework tasks to “save” a homework for later because it will be automatically removed


Field Information#

Allow Late Submissions#

This option specifies whether you’d like to accept submissions after the deadline date.

Tip

Your school will decide how long of a window to allow late submissions for. (The default value is 5 days after the deadline)

Tip

Your school can decide to disable late submissions altogether so you may not see this option.

Attachments#

You can attach some reference files to the task for the students to use when completing the homework task. This could be a sheet with more details or a worksheet that students must download, complete and submit.

Important

The system automatically removes your homework attachments after a given period. This means that they won’t be stored forever, you should ensure you that you save a copy of your them somewhere in case you want to review them at a later date and they are no longer available.

Class#

The class group that you’re assigning the task to. Once selected you’ll be able to choose which students within the class should be assigned the task.

Deadline Date#

The date by which the task must be submitted. When electronic submissions are being accepted any submissions made by students after the deadline date and time will automatically be marked as late. When accepting submissions in class the time isn’t visible to students as they must submit the work during your lesson on that day.

Graded Task#

Will you be grading this task and uploading grades, providing feedback to students?

Learning Activities#

The learning activities associated with this task. These help you to assess if you’re setting a range of work for students to complete throughout the year.

Tip

If your school has decided these must be provided you’ll be required to select at least one learning activity.

Learning Outcomes#

The learning outcomes associated with this task. These help you to assess if you’re setting a range of work for students to complete throughout the year.

Tip

If your school has decided these must be provided you’ll be required to select at least one learning outcome.

Record Submissions#

Will you be recording which students are submitting their work?

Staff Member#

The staff member that owns this homework task.

Tip

You’ll only see this option if you have permission to set on behalf of other people.

Students#

Once you’ve selected the class code you’ll be able to choose the students you’d like to assign the task to. You can use the “select all” options to quickly assign the task to all students.

You can easily select all or none of the students by clicking the select all/none buttons retrospectively.

Tip

Once you select a student you won’t be able to change the class code of this task.

Tip

Once a student submits their work you won’t be able to remove them from the task.

Submission Format#

The format of submissions you’d like to accept for this task. These only apply if you select Electronic as the submission type.

  • File - Students will each submit a single file to their homework task.

  • Online - Students will construct their submission within the Homework editor.

Submission Type#

The type of submissions you’d like to accept for this task.

  • Electronic - Students will be required to submit their work electronically.

  • In Class - Students will be required to submit their work in class on the selected deadline date. You will choose whether to record who has and who hasn’t submitted their work.

  • None - Students will not submit any work and grades will not be recorded. For example, revision based homework tasks where there is no direct submission or grade associated.

Tip

If you selected Electronic as the submission type and a student submits some work you won’t be able to change the submission type.

Task#

The details of the task students need to complete. The task field is an interactive editor that will allow you to specify and format your task in detail. You can include:

  • Blockquoted text.

  • Bulleted and numbered lists.

  • Code Samples.

  • Links to web pages.

  • Text with styling such as Bold, Italic and Underline.

The editor includes options for:

  • Clearing any formatting from text you’ve pasted in.

  • Undo and Redo actions.

Visible Date#

The date on which this task should become visible to students. This option allows you to schedule homework tasks for the future helping you to manage your time more efficiently.

Tip

When the visible date for a task passes (and you’ve published the task) you won’t be able to update the date to a date in the future again. This stops students/parents/contacts from becoming confused by seeing tasks appear, receiving notifications and then have them disappear again.


Archival of Old Tasks#

Homework tasks automatically go through an archival process after their deadline date. This helps the school to maintain the system and removes unnecessary clutter from the system. Tasks are archived 30 days after their deadline date (or 30 days after the late submission window, if late submission is allowed). The archival process performs the following actions:

  1. Removes all attachments from the homework task. (This specifically refers to only the attachments of the task. All other details of the task are retained)

  2. Removes all submitted files from the homework task. (This specifically refers to only the file that is submitted by the student and the graded file uploaded by staff. All other details of the submission including the grade are retained)

  3. Updates the status of the homework task to “Archived”.

Performing the archival of old tasks removes the tasks from the standard flows allowing them to operate on only current data and reduce the amount of data you have to work with on a daily basis.


Downloading a Submissions Archive File#

The system allows you to download an archive file containing the work associated with a homework task. This has been designed to make it easy for you to download a copy of a homework tasks submissions before it’s automatically removed, allowing you to keep a record of particularly important homework tasks for a longer period of time.

There are 2 types of archive file available for download:

  • Student Submissions Archive - This contains all of the students original work that was submitted by each student.

  • Graded Submissions Archive - This contains all of the graded submissions file uploaded by the staff members when grading the homework task.

Tip

Submissions archives are only available for homework tasks that have the Electronic File submission type selected.

Tip

Submissions archived are only available for homework tasks that have not yet been archived. See Archival of Old Tasks for more details of automatic archival.


Permissions#

  • Delete All Homework

  • Delete Homework

  • Manage All Homework

  • Manage Homework