Southern New Hampshire University

Grading Assignments in Brightspace

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Brightspace is a powerful, user-friendly learning management system (LMS) designed to enhance educational experiences for students, educators, and institutions. Developed by D2L, it offers robust tools for creating and managing courses, engaging learners, and tracking progress. With features like multimedia content integration, mobile accessibility, and advanced analytics, Brightspace supports personalized learning and fosters collaboration in both traditional and online education environments.

Accessing the Assignment to be Graded

1. From your course homepage, select COURSE MENU and then ASSIGNMENTS.

Screenshot of course homepage in BrightSpace, with the course menu highlighted. Assignments is also highlighted.

2. Select the NAME of the assignment you would like to grade.

Screenshot of assignments page on Brightspace with an assignment highlighted.
  1. From here, you will see all the submissions from your students. This is where you can see the student's name, comments, and the date and time they submitted the assignment.
  2. To access a specific students assignment to grade it, select the FILE SUBMISSION which will open the grading window for you.
Screenshot of a specific assignment page where the student name, comments, and date submitted sections are highlighted. The file submission is also highlighted.

Grading the Assignment

  1. Once you have the student assignment pulled up, you can start reading the assignment. There are a couple of tools that might help you with this part of the process if you would like to utilize them.
  2. You can use any of the tools displayed at the top of the document such as ZOOM IN, ZOOM OUT, PRINT, or DRAG.
Screenshot of grading page with tools above the file submission highlighted.

3. Another tool you can utilize is the highlighting and note-taking tool. Select the button that looks like a pen drawing a circle. From here, you can draw freely on the page, highlight, and add text boxes, arrows, or sticky notes. These notes and highlights will not show up for the student once it is graded and returned.

Screenshot of tool bar above a file submission within the grading page. The pen tool is highlighted.
Screenshot of the different features the pen tool has available.
  1. To the right of the screen, you should be able to input the number of points for the assignment in the overall grade box.
  2. The ribbon button shows you a screen that gives you the assignment name and another place to put in the number of points you would like to give each student. The bar graph button lets you see class and user statistics once the whole class is graded.
  3. The box, overall feedback, allows you to give comments to your students.
  4. You can also choose to upload another file, a link, a recorded video, or audio as another way to give feedback to your students.
  5. Once you are done grading the assignment and put in the overall points, select PUBLISH.
Screenshot of editing options for grading page showing the overall grade, the tools available within this section, the overall feedback, and the publish button highlighted.
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