New assignment center!!

Ann Rodriguez

Hi team, We (students+faculty) are struggling to adjust to the new format of the assignment center. I'm trying to have a growth mindset, and encourage kids to as well. That said, we have students who have already broken the code and figured out a way to revert to the old interface and it has reminded me how user friendly it was. All of this considered, here is my main issue of the day…

The old assignment center had a red box on the assignment page that when pressed listed a given student's missing assignments.

The new assignment center combines overdue/missing into the list view. However, once a teacher has entered a grade (missing + 0), it's marked as graded in the last. However, in the grade detail, it's marked as missing too. Overdue is also confusing to students. Overdue seems to be controlled by the student (marking an assignment as completed or in progress), where missing is controlled by the teacher…yet they're in the same list?

I have now encountered the issue with at least 5 new students, who are new to Blackbaud LMS, where once they see it graded they don't also realize it's still marked as missing.

Please help. What am I missing? Is anyone else struggling with the new assignment center?

Thank you!!

Crockett Rodriguez

Michael Morrissette

Hello @Ann Rodriguez -

Thank you for taking the time to relay this feedback, it's incredibly helpful for us to understand the problems users are facing as they begin to adapt to the new assignment experience.

When it comes to assignments marked as ‘Missing’ and assignments in an ‘Overdue’ status, the goal with putting both under the same header in the List view was to give students a consolidated location to find actionable assignments. Because the status of ‘Graded’ is awarded when a numeric or letter value is logged on the assignment by the teacher, it is possible for an assignment to be marked as ‘Missing’ but still have a status of ‘Graded’. It sounds like this is still causing some confusion for your students, so that is a good problem for us to investigate further.

In the meantime, the button that you described in the old version is actually available, but only in the calendar view. If you click on the toggle on the right-hand corner of the assignment center, your students can swap to a calendar/planner view of the assignment center. From there, they can access a Missing assignment modal on the top left. I'm curious what their thoughts are on this feature, or if this isn't quite hitting the mark for them either.

We also have some work planned so that teachers can prevent an assignment from ever going into an Overdue status. When an assignment does not accept online submissions, the teacher will have the option for the assignment to automatically move to the ‘Complete’ status for students once the Due date/time have passed. This should help students save a few clicks and prevent that Overdue and Missing header from getting overwhelming in the list view.

If you or anyone else has any feedback on the new experience, please feel free to forward that directly to me at michael.morrissette@blackbaud.com Our team is very interested in hearing about student experiences and how we can help best meet their needs. Likewise, we do offer student-led discovery sessions, where students at your schools can relay their feedback about the LMS directly to us. If you're interested in setting up such a session, feel free to reach out to me via the email above and we can discuss the logistics of setting up a discovery session.

Mike Morrissette
Product Manager, Education Management

Christa Lakey

@Michael Morrissette this is feedback that I got from one of my teachers today:

I'm wondering if there’s any way for students to restore the old list view of the assignment center. The new calendar view isn’t as intuitive and highlights things (like time stamps) that aren’t important.

Thanks!

Christa Lakey

@Ann Rodriguez

Do you know how your students reverted to the old view? Mine are begging for that.

Thanks!

Christa

Michael Moulton

@Christa Lakey students at my school are using a URL that loads the old view. It is a ‘hack’ in that the user interface controls will always bring you back to the new view. The basic needs (checking to see what upcoming is due and having a bigger, easier to view link to the assignment status is replaced (eliminated) by things they don't need. I'll email Michael Morrissette this feedback, too. The new interface is something that should be a choice while the serious negative parts of its use for students is worked out. Feedback from students is really key.

Ann Rodriguez

@Michael Moulton

I completely agree! The new assignment center is actually making it very difficult to proactively support kids. Thanks for your feedback.