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Quick Start

This guide will walk you through the process of creating your first assignment in Author Workbench.

What is an Assignment?​

Assignments are AI-graded assessment resources available in courses. They allow you to create a wide variety of questions with AI assistance and grade student responses at mass scales thanks to AI. With assignments, you can efficiently assess large numbers of learners while maintaining consistent and accurate grading standards.

You're encouraged to use assignments in your courses to streamline your assessment workflow. Assignments leverage AI to automatically grade student submissions, providing immediate feedback and enabling you to focus on higher-level instruction rather than manual grading tasks.

Our assignments are powered by an open-source tool called Mark.

Creating your first assignment​

It's easy to create an assignment in Author Workbench. If you're doing this for the first time, we recommend you first create a course so that you have a place to use your assignment. Once you have a course, you can navigate to Content > Assignments and then click Create Assignment. Here, you'll only need to enter a name for your assignment and click create.

That's it!

Working with your assignment​

Once you have created your assignment, you will see three key buttons that mirror the workflow you're familiar with from labs:

  • Edit: Modify your assignment content and configuration
  • Test: Try out your assignment from a learner's perspective
  • Embed: Add your assignment to your course outline

Editing your assignment​

Click the Edit button on your assignment to modify its content and settings. This opens the assignment editor where you can configure your AI-graded assignment questions and grading criteria.

The assignment editor allows you to create various types of questions with AI assistance and set up the assessment parameters that will guide the AI in automatically grading student responses.

Testing your assignment​

Before adding your assignment to your course outline, it's a great idea to test it from a learner's perspective. Simply click the Test button on your assignment.

This will let you experience the assignment exactly as your learners will, allowing you to verify that the AI grading system is working as expected and providing accurate assessment of responses.

Adding your assignment to your course​

Your final step should be to add the assignment to your course outline. Like any other course resource, an assignment must be inserted into the course outline for learners to access it. Click Embed on your assignment and you'll see detailed instructions on how to add the assignment to your course outline.

That's it! You've successfully created and deployed your first AI-graded assignment. Your learners can now complete assignments that will be automatically graded at scale, providing immediate feedback while saving you time on manual assessment tasks.