Assessing Discussion Messages

1.  Click the [pencil icon] to edit the properties of the D2L discussion topic you wish to assess.

2.  Click to select the [Assessment] tab

3.  Enter the maximum points a student can earn for this discussion topic.

     (Optional: select an existing grade item or create a new one.)
     (Optional: select an existing rubric or create a new one.)
     (Optional: check box to assess each posting individually.)

4.  [SAVE] changes to the Assessments tab.

5.  Click to return to the [Forum & Topics List], then click [Assess Topic for ...] (yellow ruler icon) beside the topic to be assessed.

6.  Click the [Assessments] tab

7.  Click any student's name to see and assess all messages that person authored in the current topic

8.  In the popup, you can read messages, enter the student's score, and leave feedback as desired.  Then click [Save].

D2L 9.2.1 SP3 - September 2011

Discussion Assessment

When you add a new topic to the Discussions, three tabs will appear on the screen - Properties, Restrictions, and Assessment. The Assessment tab will allow you to provide a score and feedback to students without leaving the discussion.

If you have already set up the discussion topic:

1. Click on the pencil to the right of that topic to view the Properties, Restrictions, and Assessment tabs.
2. Select the Assessment tab.
3. On the Assessment screen, choose a grade item (if one exists) and note the points value (called "Score Out of").
4. Click Save.

After you save this topic, you should see an Assess icon for each discussion post. Clicking on this icon will allow you to enter the score and provide feedback.

Group Discussion Assessment work-around

Authored by: Tanya Joosten
Authored on: Aug 28, 2008 3:26 PM
Subject: Group Discussion Assessment

I put my students into 4 groups for discussion topics, so there are 4 topics generated under each discussion assignment forum. I would like each group topic to link to ONE assessment item since each group is completing the same assignment. However, when I link the group 1 topic to the grade item, I can't link the group 2 topic to the grade item.

Is this a known issue? It makes it impossible to use the discussion assessment feature for group projects.

Also, I can only add a number. It seems that we cannot leave comments for the students. Help??

Re: Group Discussion Assessment

Jeannette Brewer Aug 29, 2008 1:19 PM

Hi Tanya,

It's not exactly a known issue, but I do know that that is not a current feature of the Discussion Tool. Your best bet is to create separate grade items, one for each group discussion, and then use the Formula Grade item to calculate their grade for that particular assignment. If you hide the four grade items from the class and only show the formula grade item, then they'll never know. It is a more complex workaround for you, but I have seen it before for a variety of group assignments, especially before we had group dropboxes.

It's true that there is no comments area when grading messages in the Discussion Board. That feature request has been submitted and hopefully we'll see something soon. An alternative is to leave comments to them in the Grades tool.

Thanks for the suggestions! I hope to see some new features for Discussion grading sometime in the future.

Jeannette Brewer
trainer, Desire2Learn