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Assignment Scoring Settings

Set how assignment questions and question parts are submitted and scored and select the gradebook category for the assignment. Optionally, configure bonus or penalty points, allow students to show their work, or override the recommended tolerance or significant figures behaviors.

Note This information describes how to use the new Assignment Editor.

If needed, click Try the New Assignment Editor in the original Assignment Editor to enable this improved experience now.

Best Practice Do not change assignments that your students are already working on. You are likely to cost your students points, submissions, or both. Instead, consider creating a copy of the scheduled assignment and making your changes to the copy.

If you must change a scheduled assignment, notify your students of the change and rescore the assignment. See Rescore Assignments.

  1. In the Assignment Editor, expand the Settings section.
  2. Under Template Name, select an assignment settings template to use.
  3. Click Scoring.
  4. Review or change the following settings.
    Setting Description
    Number of submissions How many times can students submit answers.
    Submit answer by

    When a student submits work, which of their new or changed answers are submitted to be graded and how are their submissions counted.

    • Question Parts—only changed question parts are submitted. No submissions used for unchanged question parts.
    • Question—all parts of changed questions are submitted. No submissions used for unchanged questions.
    • Assignment—all questions are submitted and a submission is used.
    Score using

    Base score either on the most recent submission or on the highest score for any submission for each:

    • Last submission
    • Best answer for each question part
    • Best question score
    • Best assignment score

    The available scoring methods depend on how you choose for your students to submit answers.
    WebAssign gradebook category

    Used for WebAssign gradebook reporting and calculations. Use the default categories or create your own.
  5. Optional: Adjust points to penalize guessing or discourage procrastination.
    To penalize guessing:
    1. For Points adjustment, select Deduct based on number of submissions.
    2. Set Start deducting on submission number.
    3. Set the Amount to deduct for each additional submission.
    To discourage procrastination:
    1. For Points adjustment, select Add based on early submission.
    2. Set the Number of hours before due date before which to grant the bonus.
    3. Set the Amount to add as a bonus.
  6. Optional: Allow students to show their work on assignment questions if they want (no points awarded or deducted).

    Select Allow students to show their work.

    A collapsed Show My Work box is shown at the end of each question on the assignment. Show My Work question parts are optional and worth 0 points.

    If needed, you can make Show My Work required for specific questions to earn points.

  7. Optional: If needed, review or change the following behaviors under Advanced Settings:
    • numerical tolerance (not recommended)
    • significant figures (not recommended)
    • SALT availability for statistics questions
  8. Save customized settings as a template to reuse on other assignments.
    1. Under Settings, click Save as New Template.
      This is only shown if you have changed settings from the default.
    2. Enter your template name.
    3. Click Save Template.
  9. Click Save at the top of the assignment.

Changing individual assignment settings does not update the assignment settings template. If you have settings that you want to use again, consider creating an assignment settings template to quickly apply your custom settings.