How to submit your work to a Blackboard Assignment
Check FAQs: Submitting to a Blackboard Assignment
Assignments can be set up in any part of a Blackboard course. But typically they will be found in an area labelled ‘Assignments’ or ‘Assessments’ or ‘Online Submission’ on the main course menu.
Your lecturer will have provided instructions, and may have attached the assignment brief to the Blackboard Assignment.
By clicking on the assignment title, you are taken to a screen where you can submit your completed work.
Click on Browse My Computer to locate and select the file you need to submit. Alternatively, simply drag and drop files onto the area within the dotted line.
You can select multiple files to upload, as long as they are all in the same location on your computer. Alternatively, keep clicking Browse My Computer until you have selected all of the files which you need to upload e.g. you could upload a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation and an image or audio file.
If you are using Microsoft Edge, please do not open the file you are submitting on your computer while you are on this screen. Doing so will result in an empty file submission. This is a known issue, more details on the Knows Issues tab of this site.
If you have uploaded a file in error, click on Do not attach to remove the file.
When finished, make sure that you click Submit.
For larger files it can take some time for the file to upload. Blackboard does not show a progress bar on these occasions but the submit button will just stay on screen with a blue boarder until the upload has completed.
Do NOT navigate away from the page at this time or the upload will be interrupted.
For video files it may take five minutes or more to upload.
Optionally, you can click Save Draft to upload the selected files, with the ability to return later to upload additional files and complete the submission.
Please note that when you Save as Draft this does not count as a submission. You MUST return and press Submit before the deadline – until you Submit the attempt, your lecturer will not be able to view or mark your work.
Your lecturer may have chosen to allow students to submit more than once to the assignment – you would need to check this with your lecturer. Normally, however, you should not press Submit until you have uploaded all of your files.
Will I receive a receipt for my work?
Once you have submitted your work, you will see a Success message at the top of the screen.
You can go back into the Assignment at any time and you will be able to see the files you have submitted.
In addition, you will receive an email receipt, This will be sent to your University email account, and will contain the following information:
- a unique submission ID
- date and time of submission
- the file size and name of the files you submitted
- the assignment title
- the title and ID of the Blackboard course
The receipt also includes “Size of text entered in ‘Write Submission’ area”, which will normally be 0. This refers to the unusual situation where students type their work directly into Blackboard rather than uploading a file.
Where you are required to submit work to a Group Assignment, when one member of a group submits to the assignment, all members of the group will receive an email receipt.
Please note:
- Do not delete the email receipt – you should retain it as proof of submission.
- This receipt only indicates that a submission has been made by you on the date and time shown, and received by Blackboard.
- It is not confirmation that a file you have submitted is correct or has uploaded properly.
Always check the files you have submitted to make sure that they can be viewed or downloaded.
If you had pressed Save Draft instead of Submit, you would see a different message – “The assignment has been saved”. The blue 'In Progress' icon
indicates that the submission attempt is still “in progress” and is not yet visible to your lecturer. Press Continue to make any changes and submit the work.
You will not receive an email receipt when you Save as Draft – only when you Submit.
As a precaution, you should always keep a backup copy (on your laptop, or USB stick, or even better in a cloud storage space such as Dropbox or One Drive) of all the files you submit to an assignment.
Accessing your receipts in Blackboard
You can retrieve your receipts at any time via My Grades: click on the number at the bottom of the page. Any group member can access the receipt for the submitted work from My Marks and Feedback > Submission Receipts.
and you will see details of all the submissions you made on this Blackboard course.
You will find further guidance on the Blackboard Help site: Submit Assignments