When creating a Blackboard assignment, on the Settings panel you have the option to ‘Hide student names’.
What are the implications of enabling anonymous marking?
Submissions are totally anonymous
When you tick the ‘Hide student names’ box, Blackboard does exactly that.
- All student submissions become anonymous, both to staff enrolled on the course and to Blackboard system administrators.
- Student submissions are assigned an Anonymous Student ID which shows instead of their name in the Gradebook. (Only for the time the assignment is anonymous.)
Names are only revealed after Post Marks is clicked.
Some assignment features are not available
It is not currently possible to use anonymous marking with:
- Group assignments.
- Peer Review.
When anonymous marking is enabled on an assignment:
- Final marks cannot be overridden (this is the ability to manually assign a mark that is different to the one entered during marking, for example, applied by a rubric).
- you cannot send customised non-submitter reminders – you can only send the default Blackboard reminder (see ‘Sending non-submission reminders’ below).
- You cannot search by student name or submission receipt number.
- Progress Tracking is disabled on the assignment.
- It is not possible to enable Class conversations on the assignment.
Limitation when marking using Rubrics
Be aware: If you attach a rubric to the assignment this is used to calculate the mark for the submission and you cannot manually adjust the mark (use Override Mark) until anonymity is lifted after marks are posted.
Currently, there is not an option to use a non-marking rubric (to give only qualitative feedback). If you are using a ‘Points’ rubric and entered zeros for all criteria as a workaround to this, a mark of zero is entered for the submission and you cannot change this until the marks are posted to lift anonymity. This makes it impractical for marking.
The recommendation is only attach a rubric to an anonymous assignment if you do want it to calculate the final mark.
Marking with anonymity switched on
You can access submissions via the Gradebook – click on the ‘[n] to mark’ message in the ‘Marking Status’ column:
You can also access student submissions directly from the ‘Submissions’ tab of the assignment – click on any submission to begin marking:
This opens the submission and, apart from the fact that can’t see the student’s name, everything is exactly the same as when marking without anonymity enabled, except the ability to override the final mark.
IMPORTANT: Anonymous Student ID numbers disappear when you Post Marks for the assignment and students’ names are revealed.
If you need to make a note of a specific submission in order that you or a colleague can refer to it later – including once anonymity has been lifted – you should use the Submission Receipt ID, not the Anonymous Student ID.
Note: You cannot use the Search feature to find specific submissions using the Submission Receipt IDs when an assignment or test is still anonymous.
Sending non-submission reminders
When anonymity is enabled, you are not able to see which students have submitted to an assignment, but are still able to send a non-submisison reminder. Blackboard will send the default non-submission reminder as a Message; you cannot email out a customised message for anonymous assignments.
You can send a reminder from the Gradebook – click on the 3 dots on the far right and choose Send Reminder
And also when inside the assignment – click on Send Reminder
In either case you will see a confirmation message – press Send.
The message contains the following text: [Assignment name] has not been received. Due date: [dd/mm/yyyy]
What do students see when submitting?
Students are alerted when submitting that their work will be marked anonymously.
In all other respects, students’ view of an anonymous assignment and how they submit is the same as any other assignment.
Guide last updated on October 21, 2024
