As a general rule, once marks and feedback have been released to students, no extra steps need to be taken to ensure that students can see them. This means
- when you Post Marks
- or for Turnitin assignments, when the Feedback Release Date has been reached.
This is true even if you have applied Conditional Release rules which mean that students can no longer access the submission point itself,
The only way to prevent students from seeing marks and feedback, once released, is to Hide the assessment – see below.
Assessments with Release Conditions
Date-based Release Conditions
Example: Assessment submission point where the ‘Hide After’ date is in the past.
Students can see the submission point in the Assessment content area, but not access it.
Students can still see their mark, and access their feedback, via the Gradebook.
This enables you to set a ‘Hide After’ date to prevent new submissions after a certain date, but without removing students’ ability to see their marks and feedback.
Membership-based Release Conditions
Example: Assessment submission point visible only to specific students or Groups.
Students not specified in the Release Conditions cannot see the submission point, nor does it show up in their view of the Gradebook.
This ensures that students’ views of Blackboard course content and the Gradebook are not cluttered up with assessments which are not aimed at them, and which they do not need to complete.
Note: If the Release Conditions were applied after a student had submitted, they would be able to see their marks and feedback in the Gradebook.
Performance-based Release Conditions
Example: the submission point is only visible to students who met or exceeded a specific score on another assessment.
The submission point is visible, but cannot be accessed by students who do not meet the Release Conditions.
The assessment is also visible in the Gradebook, but as the student cannot submit, there will be no mark or feedback in this situation.
Assessment Hidden
The above rules work well for coursework, where you would only want to hide marks and feedback in exceptional circumstances. However they do not work so well for Exams, where individual students do not receive feedback, and only ever see their mark in RISIS, not in Blackboard.
If you need to ensure that students cannot see their marks or feedback, the only way to do this is to Hide the assessment.
This ensures that the submission point cannot be seen in the Assessment area, nor is it visible to students in the Gradebook.
Important: To ensure that an Assessment is not visible to students, the Assessment itself has to be set as Hidden.
It is not sufficient to hide the learning module or folder that the assessment sits in.
The simplest way to hide an assessment is from the Assessment content area – simply change the visibility settings.
You can also do this from the Gradebook. Click on the three dots on the far right of the screen and choose Edit.
Then change the visibility settings, top right.
Guide last updated on May 1, 2024
