Submitting an Assignment via Blackboard
This help sheet assumes that your instructor is using the Assignment Manager feature in Blackboard, in which you both view and submit your assignment via Blackboard. Since that is actually an advanced feature of Blackboard, we thought you should begin by giving your instructor a round of applause.
Viewing and completing an assignment via Blackboard involves four general steps:
- Viewing the Assignment (along with any attached files)
- Doing the Assignment as Specified
- Submitting the Assignment
- Viewing Instructor Feedback
Viewing the Assignment
- Log in to Blackboard
(opens in new window), and click on your course among the list of "Courses in which you are participating" in the My Courses section of the opening page.
- Your instructor will most likely have told you where to find the assignment. In this help sheet, we'll assume that the assignment has been posted in the "Assignments" section of the course, so click on the
 button - or on the area where your instructor has told you to find the assignment.
- You should see an entry marked by the
 icon, which indicates that it is an assignment, to be read and submitted via Blackboard. You should also see a brief description of the assignment, along with a link to View/Complete the assignment. Click on that link to find out more details about the assignment:
- You will be taken to an Upload Assignment page. In the first section - Assignment Information, you will see the same instructions you saw on the previous page, telling you about the assignment. In some instances (as in the example below), your instructor may have uploaded a file related to the assignment:
The image above shows how the page will look in Internet Explorer. If you are using a browser other than Internet Explorer, you can (left-)click on the link for the attached assignment file(s), and the appropriate application will launch so that you can view the file(s) in that application. You'll most likely want to click on the File menu for the application that just launched, choose "Save As,", and save the file to your hard drive for viewing offline. (If you are using a Macintosh, clicking on the link will download the file to your computer.) If you are using Internet Explorer on a PC, then we recommend that you right-click on the link, choose "Save Target As," and save the file to your hard drive (as depicted above). You can then find the file that you just downloaded and double-click on it to open the file within the appropriate application.
- If you have saved or viewed the attached Assignment File(s), or if there were no files attached and you have read the instructions for your assignment, you are ready to move on to the next step of the process. (You can log out of Blackboard at this point and exit out of your browser as well.)
Doing the Assignment as Specified
- In most instances, you will do the assignment in a program other than Blackboard (for example, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.), and you will save that file to the hard drive of your computer (or to some storage medium). Once you've finished the assignment and have saved the file, you are ready to submit the file to your instructor, which is the next step of the process.
Submitting the Assignment
- Log in to Blackboard once again
(page opens in new window), and click on your course among the list of "Courses in which you are participating" in the My Courses section of the opening page.
- Return to the section of the course where your instructor posted the assignment, and click on the View/Complete Assignment link once again:
- You will see once again the Upload Assignment page. Scroll down to Section 2 on the page: Assignment Materials. Type a brief comment in the Comments box, giving your instructor details about the file you are submitting:
Please note that Blackboard requires that you enter a comment along with submitting your file. If you haven't added any text to the comment field, Blackboard will respond with an error message when you try to submit your assignment, asking you to enter a comment with your file.
- In the Attach local file area, click on the Browse button:
A "Choose file" dialog box will appear. Navigate to where you've saved the file that you want to submit to your instructor. When you find the file, double-click on the file name to select it.
- The path to your file will now be entered in the "Attach local file" window. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the
 button to send your file (along with your comments) to your instructor.
Please note that the "Save" button will upload a copy of your file to the Blackboard server (so you can retrieve it later), but it will not send the file to your instructor. You need to click on the Submit button if you truly want to submit your assignment to your instructor.
- Blackboard will confirm that the "assignment has been updated." Click on the
 button to return to the area of your course where the assignment was posted, or use the "bread-crumb trail" to return to the opening page for your course:
Viewing Instructor Feedback
How you will view instructor comments on your assignment - and the grade for the assignment - will depend on many factors:
- Is your instructor providing comments electronically, and uploading a new version of your submitted file with those comments?
- Is your instructor handing back a printed and hand-commented version of your essay, and just recording grades in Blackboard?
- Is your instructor using the Gradebook feature of Blackboard at all?
- Has your instructor set up the assignment so that it will "disappear" from view after the deadline has passed?
To find your instructor's feedback on your submitted assignment:
- Log in to Blackboard once again
(page opens in new window), and click on your course among the list of "Courses in which you are participating" in the My Courses section of the opening page.
- Return to the section of the course where your instructor posted the assignment. If you can still see the assignment on that page, click on the View/Complete Assignment link once again:
- Blackboard will respond with "This assignment is complete. Click OK to review the result." Click on the button to be taken to a Review Assignments page that will group together on one page all the information about your submitted assignment.
If you can't see the assignment in the section of the course where it was originally posted, that means that your instructor has used Blackboard to set a time limit for when the assignment is available to you. To get to the "Review Assignments" page to see your instructor's feedback, you'll need to follow these
alternative instructions (page opens in new window).
- On that Review Assignments page, you will see the original instructions for the assignment, with a link to the attached file(s), if any; your comments when submitting the assignment, along with a link to the file you submitted; and a section with feedback from your instructor. Scroll down to that Feedback From Instructor section of the page to see your grade on the assignment, any instructor summary comments, and any attached file containing additional comments (if your instructor provides electronic, inline comments):
- If there is a file (or if there are files) listed in the Files From Instructor section, click on the link for the file(s) to view additional instructor comments. (See the figure just above.) If you are using Internet Explorer on a PC, you can also right-click on the link for the file, choose "Save Target As" from the drop-down menu, and save the commented file to your hard drive. You can find that saved file again and double-click on it to launch the file in the appropriate application.
- Once you've reviewed the feedback from your instructor, use the "bread-crumb trail" within Blackboard to return to the main page for your course:
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