create assignment in canvas lms

Getting Started with Canvas Assignments

• Last modification date Updated On July 26, 2024
• Categories: Assignments , Canvas , Uncategorized
• Categories: assessment , Getting Started , Grading

Canvas  Assignments  are a way for instructors to provide students opportunities to practice using the knowledge and skills they have gained or to assess student performance related to such knowledge and skills. (Creating an Assignment is the  only  way to create a new column in the Gradebook.)

In Canvas there are four basic  Submission Types  for assignments. The submission types include:

• No Submission : For assignments for which you are not collecting any content from the students.
• Text Entry : For students to enter text directly into a text box on Canvas.
• Website URL : For students to enter a URL (usually to a blog, video, podcast, etc.).
• Media Recordings : For students to upload or record media for submission.
• File Uploads : For students to upload files for submission ( Restrict Upload File Types  will allow you to limit which types of files may be submitted).
• On Paper : For assignments students will submit in person.
• External Tool : For assignments which students will submit through a third-party tool (such as Turnitin, Panopto Video Quiz, and PlayPosit).

Managing an Assignment

Managing assignment groups.

When getting started with Assignments, learn to

• Create an assignment shell with the Canvas guide  How do I create an assignment? 

If you select  Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously , annotation tools in  SpeedGrader  will become unavailable.

If you change the  Assign To  area from  Everyone  to select students after submissions have already begun, and do not have a second set of Assign To dates, submissions from unassigned students will disappear.

• Published assignments are visible as existing outside of availability dates, but students cannot see the details.
• If looking to update the due and/or availability dates on multiple assignments, see   How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• If choosing the option to make an assignment a  Group Assignment : If only assigning to specific groups, make sure to click the  X  on the  Everyone Else  choice under  Assign to .

Media Recording  Assignments are not recommended due to technical reasons. Instead, have students submit media by embedding it in a  Text Entry  assignment through Panopto .

Clearly express expectations and criteria for grading by using a  Rubric .

Be cautious limiting submission attempts, as students often make mistakes loading documents and need multiple attempts to ensure you have the correct submission.

• Delete an assignment with the Canvas guide  How do I delete an assignment?
• This duplication process will not work for Quizzes.
• Attach a rubric to an assignment for grading or to communicate expectations to students with the Canvas guide  How do I add a rubric to an assignment?

Accessibility Tips

• Use descriptive text for links, instead of long URLs or ‘click here’. 
• Make instructions brief and to-the-point. Avoid long paragraphs and sentences.
• Consider allowing multiple submission types to accommodate technical limitations students may face.

Assignment Groups  are a way to categorize different graded items in Canvas. For example, you may have journals, blogs, and essays which your students create in your course. Assignment Groups allow you to label and group different types of assignments separately in order to better organize and for ease when applying weighting (see  How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups? ). When getting started with Assignment Groups, learn to

• Add and delete assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• Move or reorder an assignment group with the Canvas guide  How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• Make rules governing grading expectations within assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I create rules for an assignment group?

Additional Resources

• CTI Resource: What is the Assignments Index Page?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
• Canvas Student Guide

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About assignments in Canvas

Watch a video overview of Canvas assignments

Why do I have to re-create my assignments in Canvas?

If you already have assignments created in Word or Google docs, Catalyst tools, or posted online, you might wonder, “What’s the point is of recreating them in Canvas?” Not only does Canvas make it easy to create assignments with lots of options (selective release, group assignments, peer review, submission type) it also adds convenience for you and your students.

What are Assignment Groups?

Like Catalyst Gradebook, Canvas prefers for you to create assignment groups for organization. The groups you create control how the gradebook is structured and you can choose to weight final grades based on those groups. By default you begin with a group called Assignments. You can choose to keep all of your assignments in this one group, or create as many new ones as you like.

Where do I create assignments?

You can create assignments in the Assignments area of Canvas or in the Calendar. Your Assignments page will show the work you have assigned. In student view, the Assignments page will show all assigned work and the point value of each (if you set point values when setting up an assignment). Any graded activity (such as a discussion, quiz, essay or project) can be an assignment.

When you create an assignment in your Canvas course it is automatically added to the assignment list on the Syllabus page, the course calendar, and your gradebook. If you change the due date for an assignment, Canvas updates it course-wide. If you alter the assignment you can have Canvas notify your students.

What can I do with assignments?

Assignments can be used to:

• Set up online submissions that can be quickly graded in the SpeedGrader™
• Grade online submissions work submitted on paper
• Set up peer review
• Grade Discussions, either among the whole class or student groups
• Open Quizzes for a limited amount of time
• Create ungraded activities that align with course outcomes

Assignments and Grading

Having your assignments in Canvas and automatically linked to the gradebook means you can take advantage of SpeedGrader and rubrics to make the grading process faster and more efficient. Canvas communication tools allow you to provide your students with text or multimedia feedback on all assignments.

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Canvas LMS - REST API and Extensions Documentation

Assignments api.

API for accessing assignment information.

An ExternalToolTagAttributes object looks like:

A lockinfo object looks like:, a rubricrating object looks like:, a rubriccriteria object looks like:, an assignmentdate object looks like:, a turnitinsettings object looks like:, a needsgradingcount object looks like:, a scorestatistic object looks like:, an assignment object looks like:, an assignmentoverride object looks like:, delete an assignment assignmentscontroller#destroy, delete /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:id.

Delete the given assignment.

Example Request:

List assignments assignmentsapicontroller#index, get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments, get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignment_groups/:assignment_group_id/assignments.

Returns the paginated list of assignments for the current course or assignment group.

Request Parameters:

List assignments for user AssignmentsApiController#user_index

Get /api/v1/users/:user_id/courses/:course_id/assignments.

Returns the paginated list of assignments for the specified user if the current user has rights to view. See List assignments for valid arguments.

Duplicate assignment AssignmentsApiController#duplicate

Post /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/duplicate.

Duplicate an assignment and return a json based on result_type argument.

Get a single assignment AssignmentsApiController#show

Get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:id.

Returns the assignment with the given id.

Create an assignment AssignmentsApiController#create

Post /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments.

Create a new assignment for this course. The assignment is created in the active state.

Edit an assignment AssignmentsApiController#update

Put /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:id.

Modify an existing assignment.

Bulk update assignment dates AssignmentsApiController#bulk_update

Put /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/bulk_update.

Update due dates and availability dates for multiple assignments in a course.

Accepts a JSON array of objects containing two keys each: id , the assignment id, and all_dates , an array of AssignmentDate structures containing the base and/or override dates for the assignment, as returned from the List assignments endpoint with include[]=all_dates .

This endpoint cannot create or destroy assignment overrides; any existing assignment overrides that are not referenced in the arguments will be left alone. If an override is given, any dates that are not supplied with it will be defaulted. To clear a date, specify null explicitly.

All referenced assignments will be validated before any are saved. A list of errors will be returned if any provided dates are invalid, and no changes will be saved.

The bulk update is performed in a background job, use the Progress API to check its status.

List assignment overrides AssignmentOverridesController#index

Get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/overrides.

Returns the paginated list of overrides for this assignment that target sections/groups/students visible to the current user.

Get a single assignment override AssignmentOverridesController#show

Get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/overrides/:id.

Returns details of the the override with the given id.

Redirect to the assignment override for a group AssignmentOverridesController#group_alias

Get /api/v1/groups/:group_id/assignments/:assignment_id/override.

Responds with a redirect to the override for the given group, if any (404 otherwise).

Redirect to the assignment override for a section AssignmentOverridesController#section_alias

Get /api/v1/sections/:course_section_id/assignments/:assignment_id/override.

Responds with a redirect to the override for the given section, if any (404 otherwise).

Create an assignment override AssignmentOverridesController#create

Post /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/overrides.

One of student_ids, group_id, or course_section_id must be present. At most one should be present; if multiple are present only the most specific (student_ids first, then group_id, then course_section_id) is used and any others are ignored.

Update an assignment override AssignmentOverridesController#update

Put /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/overrides/:id.

All current overridden values must be supplied if they are to be retained; e.g. if due_at was overridden, but this PUT omits a value for due_at, due_at will no longer be overridden. If the override is adhoc and student_ids is not supplied, the target override set is unchanged. Target override sets cannot be changed for group or section overrides.

Delete an assignment override AssignmentOverridesController#destroy

Delete /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/overrides/:id.

Deletes an override and returns its former details.

Batch retrieve overrides in a course AssignmentOverridesController#batch_retrieve

Get /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/overrides.

Returns a list of specified overrides in this course, providing they target sections/groups/students visible to the current user. Returns null elements in the list for requests that were not found.

Batch create overrides in a course AssignmentOverridesController#batch_create

Post /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/overrides.

Creates the specified overrides for each assignment. Handles creation in a transaction, so all records are created or none are.

Errors are reported in an errors attribute, an array of errors corresponding to inputs. Global errors will be reported as a single element errors array

Batch update overrides in a course AssignmentOverridesController#batch_update

Put /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/overrides.

Updates a list of specified overrides for each assignment. Handles overrides in a transaction, so either all updates are applied or none. See Update an assignment override for available attributes.

Appendix: Group assignments

The following diagram provides an example to describe the structure of group assignments. It also shows the correspondence between the fields of an assignment override API request and the resources they map to.

The components in yellow are group sets . When creating or updating an assignment override, you will refer to the group set by the group_category_id field.

The components in green are groups . An assignment can become a group assignment iff it has a group_category_id that maps to an active group set, as well as a group_id that maps to an active, valid group. In the API, you will be specifying the group by the group_id field of the assignment_override construct.

Important : an assignment must be assigned to a group set (the group_category_id field) on creation for an override with a group_id to be effective.

• Creating an assignment override
• Creating an assignment

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• Using Hypothesis in the LMS

Using the Hypothesis LMS App With Assignments in Canvas

Using the Hypothesis app within Assignments allows some additional functionality over  creating Module Items . Instructors can assess student work in SpeedGrader , assign the reading/annotating to a particular Canvas Group and also set due dates or dates of availability for the Assignment. 

1. Select “Assignments” from your course Navigation sidebar

2. On the Assignments page click the “ + Assignment” button

2. Scroll down to the Submission Type field

Note: some users may have to click a  More Options  button to see this field.

From the drop-down menu, choose  External Tool  and click  Find

Then click Hypothesis from list of tools

3. Select the content source to use for your reading

You will have the option to enter a publicly-viewable URL, select a file from your Canvas file repository, select a PDF from Google Drive, or select a PDF from OneDrive.

Expand the sections below for instructions to use each option:

Enter URL of web page or PDF

Click the button that says Enter URL of web page or PDF . On the  Enter URL  dialog, enter a link to a public web page or PDF. Please note that the content at the link must be publicly viewable (i.e., not behind a login or paywall).

Click the Submit button.

Select PDF from Canvas

You must upload PDFs to your Canvas file repository before completing the steps below. The Canvas File Picker does not allow for uploading new documents.

Click the button that says Select PDF from Canvas . You will see a list of PDFs that have been uploaded to your Canvas file repository.

Note: The Canvas File picker does not show any folder structure in your course’s file repository; instead you are shown a combined list of all PDFs available in your course. It could be difficult, therefore, to tell the difference between PDFs if they share the same file name, even if they are saved to different folders. We recommend changing the filename of the document you plan on using with Hypothesis so it will be obvious which PDF to choose from the list.

Highlight the file you wish to use and click the Select button.

Select Canvas Page

The Canvas Page you use in Hypothesis must be published and visible to students.

Click the button that says Canvas Page . You will see a list of Published pages from your course.

Select the file you wish to use and then click the “Select” button.

Select PDF from Google Drive

Using a PDF stored in Google Drive within the Hypothesis LMS app will change the sharing settings of the selected file to allow the PDF to be shown to anyone viewing the assignment. The exact setting on the file will be “Anyone with a link can view”. For more information please see our articles on Google Drive sharing settings and using Hypothesis with Google Drive .

Click the button that says  Select PDF from Google Drive . You will be asked to select a Google account and/or authorize the Hypothesis LMS App to access Google Drive. To use an institutional Google Drive account you need to already have the ability to share documents with users outside your organization.

Search or browse to select a PDF to use in your reading. You may also click the Upload tab to upload a new PDF to use.

Only files for which you have e dit permission are able to be used by Hypothesis.

Click on the file you want to use and then click the Select button.

Note: This process will change the sharing permission of the selected Google Drive file to allow the PDF to be shown to anyone viewing the assignment. For more information please see our document about using Hypothesis with Google Drive .

Select PDF from OneDrive

Click the button that says  Select PDF from OneDrive . You will be asked to select a Microsoft account and/or authorize the Hypothesis LMS App to access OneDrive. To use an institutional OneDrive account you need to already have the ability to share documents with users outside your organization.

Once logged on, browse to select a PDF to use in your reading. You may also select the Upload option to upload a new PDF to use.

Only files available in “My files” are able to be used by Hypothesis. You will be unable to use PDFs that belong in any Shared Libraries.

Click to select the file you want to use and then click the Open button.

Note: This process will change the sharing permission of the selected OneDrive file to allow the PDF to be shown to anyone viewing the assignment. For more information please see our document about using Hypothesis with OneDrive .

Select PDF from JSTOR

When selecting a text from JSTOR it must be one that your school has license to access, and you must use the JSTOR stable URL. Complete instructions here .

Find and copy the Stable URL of the article you will be assigning from JSTOR.org. The stable URL is listed as part of the content metadata section of the page, usually under the title, author, and journal information.

Select the JSTOR article option in the Hypothesis picker during the assignment creation process and paste the stable URL into the text field. Click the right arrow and then accept JSTOR’s terms of use.

Select texts and ebooks from VitalSource

When selecting a text from VitalSource it must be one that your and your students have access to independent of Hypothesis. Complete instructions here .

Open your VitalSource bookshelf, and then find and copy either the text’s VBID or the text’s URL.

Select the VitalSource article option in the Hypothesis picker during the assignment creation process and paste the VBID or URL into the text field. Click the right arrow and then the “Select Book” button.

In the next screen select the starting point of the assignment (for example, you may have a specific assignment start on the book’s 2nd chapter instead of starting at the beginning of the book for every assignment).

With the starting point selected, click the Select button.

Enter URL of a Youtube Video

Choosing the YouTube option enables an instructor to create an assignment where users can watch the selected YouTube video and annotate its transcript simultaneously. Here’s what a YouTube assignment in Hypothesis looks like:

Click here to view the detailed steps on how to set up a Youtube video assignment in Hypothesis .

Select Content from Canvas Studio

Choosing the Canvas Studio option enables an instructor to create an assignment where users can play the selected Canvas Studio content and annotate its transcript simultaneously. Here’s what a Canvas Studio assignment in Hypothesis looks like:

Click here to view the detailed steps on how to set up a Canvas Studio assignment in Hypothesis.

You have the option to allow the creation of reading groups based on a pre-existing group set. To enable this, check the box to indicate This is a group assignment , then select the appropriate existing group set from the drop-down list.

If you do not want to designate the reading as a groups assignment, leave the  Group assignment  box unchecked.

Click the  Continue  button.

5. You will be returned to the Configure External Tool window

Notice that the URL text box is now populated.

Tip: We recommend checking the “Load In A New Tab” option. This will allow for a better reading experience for students, especially those who magnify the contents of their screen for accessibility purposes. 

Click the Select button.

6. Edit the Assignment name, instructions, due dates, and any other settings you wish to change

Scroll down and click Save  or  Save & Publish

7. Preview your Hypothesis-enabled reading

The reading should now open with the Hypothesis sidebar loaded.

You and your students will now be able to select text and annotate.

Related Articles

• Using the Hypothesis integration with Canvas Sections
• Finding the Hypothesis LMS app in your course
• Hypothesis Student License Integration – Student article
• Enabling the Canvas Studio Integration in the Hypothesis LMS app
• Troubleshooting LMS App Error Messages in Moodle
• Using Hypothesis With Moodle Course Content Files

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Use Assignments LTI™ with Canvas

Google Assignments and Canvas expanded Google Docs Editors and Google Drive to be compatible with Canvas for file submissions. With Assignments, you can distribute and grade student work, analyze student submissions for plagiarism detection, and use Google Docs and Drive with Canvas. 

Features and benefits of Assignments

When admins enable Google Assignments in Canvas settings, you can use its features and benefits.

• Grade in Google’s grading interface or in SpeedGrader™.
• File attachments to an assignment so each student gets their own copy to edit and submit.
• Detect missed citation checks and possible plagiarism with the originality reports feature.
• Students can submit Drive files to Canvas assignments, which instructors can grade in SpeedGrader™.
• Embed Drive files with the Canvas rich text editor.
• Add Drive files to Canvas Modules.

Assignments also provides improvements from Google Apps LTI:

• Officially supported by Google and covered by the Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service.
• Provides an option for admins to require students to use their school-issued Google accounts.
• Uses Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) 1.3 for stronger security.
• Create a new Canvas assignment.

Students can submit Drive files that you can grade with SpeedGrader™.

For teachers

Allow students to submit drive files with canvas assignments.

• After you create a new Canvas assignment, next to "Submission Type", select Online .
• Under "Online Entry Options", select File Uploads.

Important: You must select File Uploads or the submission will fail.

For students

Turn in assignments.

• Ensure you're signed into your school account. 
• Next to "File Upload", click  Google Drive.
• To open a Google Drive window, click Select file.
• Select the Drive file.

• Sign in to Canvas.
• Open the course.

• Sign in to your Google Account.
• Click Allow .
• Select the Google Drive file.
• Click Submit.

Open all   |   Close all

From October 2023, Instructure will no longer support the Google Apps LTI. This means:

• No new installs will be allowed.
• No further development will be made on it.
• No customer support will be available.

Google and Instructure makes sure that Google Assignments LTI 1.3 has the Google Apps LTI functions, and includes:

• Improved security
• Flexibility
• Integrations 

Current Google Apps LTI users won’t lose access but should transition over to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

To use the latest Assignments features, you can install and migrate to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

No. Currently, you can’t embed a form or select one as a file type for quizzes. To use Forms for quizzes, create a form and share the link with your students. Learn how to create a Google Form.

• Any submitted work for the Google Apps LTI Cloud assignment that you want to migrate will reset. 
• If you want to keep your previous submissions, make a copy of the Canvas assignment .
• Find the Canvas assignment you want to migrate to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

• Click Find .
• If you can’t find this option, request your Canvas administrator to turn on Google Assignments LTI 1.3 .
• Link your Google Workspace for Education account.
• Click Continue .
• Attach the Drive worksheet files.
• Choose your grading tool, then make sure the due date and points are updated.
• Click Create .

Related topics

• Set up Assignments in Canvas
• Set up Assignments in Schoology or another LMS
• Set up Assignments in Blackboard
• Set up Assignments in D2L/Brightspace
• Set up Assignments in Moodle
• Set up Assignments in Sakai

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Using MATLAB Grader for Assignments in the Canvas LMS

From the series: Online Teaching with MATLAB and Simulink

MATLAB ® Grader™ allows faculty, instructors, and instructional designers to create interactive MATLAB course problems, automatically grade student work, provide feedback, and integrate these tasks into learning management systems (LMS). One common LMS platform educators use with MATLAB Grader to assess student learning is Canvas.In this webinar, you will learn how to add a MATLAB Grader assignment to an existing course within the Canvas LMS, how to reuse content that was previously created on the hosted version of MATLAB Grader, how to inspect the Canvas Gradebook to ensure student submissions are being recorded, and how to make modifications to active assignments and rescore student solutions.

Adding MATLAB Grader assignments to your Canvas-based courses requires your school to have either a Campus-Wide Suite or Community and Technical College License, and it is available for academic users only. Your LMS administrator must complete the LMS integration between MATLAB Grader and the Canvas LMS prior to performing the tasks seen in this video. If you are interested in integrating MATLAB Grader into your Canvas LMS, please have your LMS administrator request access through Customer Support or your assigned Customer Success Specialist or Account Representative.

Published: 15 Apr 2021

In this demonstration, I will show you how you can add MATLAB coding exercises, to your existing course in Canvas using MATLAB Grader. Once the LMS administrator at the University, has integrated MATLAB Grader within Canvas, you can add MATLAB coding problems to any of your courses. The instructions for the LMS administrator are available at mathworks.com/he lp/mathlabgrader.

To get started, login to Canvas and navigate to a course. I'm already logged into Canvas, so I will choose a course from my list. In the course navigation, click on Assignments. Know that Canvas groups multiple assignments, into assignment groups. For this demo, I'm going to add an assignment to an existing assignment group. Create a new assignment, click on Add Assignment, next to the group name.

As with creating any other assignment, enter the name, description, maximum point. The point here, are the total possible points for this assignment. This will be automatically multiplied by the person correctness for this exercise. And that is the score, that will be entered in the grade book when students submit their assignment. Now, click on More Options.

The important step here, is to select the external tool option in the submission type dropdown. Find MATLAB Grader in the list of available external tools. This was set up for you, by your LMS administrator, and it may have a different name. The remaining fields are the same as any of your other assignments in Canvas. You can choose to meet the assignment available during a specified frame, or visible only to a group of students.

Now, if you want to save this assignment, click on Save. We will publish this assignment to students after we have set up the MATLAB assessments. Upon saving the assignment, MATLAB launches the MATLAB Grader instructor interface, for creating assessments. You can choose to start from scratch by ordering a new problem, or you can choose a problem from a problem collections, to get started quickly.

These problems were altered by other faculty and encompass a wide range of topics, such as digital signal processing and numerical methods. They illustrate good practices for writing problems, and creating assessments. Please check a related resources or documentation, for a listing of all problem collections. If you have ever used the hosted version of MATLAB Grader at grader.matlabs.com.

And have some assessments that you would like to reuse, you can access these problems by linking your math books account, when prompted. For this example however, let's choose my first SCRIPT problem located in getting started with MATLAB Grader problem collection. The problem I selected, is automatically copied over and is ready to publish as is to your students.

If you want to modify this problem or change its difficulty, you can do so by setting it to draft and then modifying. At this point, students won't see this assignment until you choose to publish it. So I go back to my list of assignments, and click on the icon to publish and make it available to students. You can preview this assignment, the scene where your students will see it, using the student review feature of Canvas.

This is also a quick check to ensure that your student's grades are being propagated to the grade book, when students solve the MATLAB problem. Now, let's navigate to the assignment. Here, I see the title,

description, and the script section that MATLAB code can be entered. I will attempt this problem, by entering the volume of the code. Then I can check the answer before submitting my solution.

Also I get instant feedback that my solution, passed the assessment. Now, as a test student, I can navigate to grades and check my score for this assignment. Returning to the instructor view, I can confirm that the test student's score, has propagated to the grade book, and that the student has received the right number of points for their solution.

If I want to see the history of submission attempts, I can look at the grade book history, locate the student, and the corresponding assignment. This process can be repeated for as many assignments as you need. And you can now sequence your assignments in Canvas within modules. If for any reason you need to modify the assessment, you have the option of rescoring all of the student's submissions.

Please be aware, that this may take up to five minutes for the process to start. And depending on how many students and solutions you have, it may take up to an hour to finish. You will see a message, when the rescoring is completed. For more information about using MATLAB Grader, please look at our teaching with MATLAB, self-paced training. The MATLAB Grader documentation, or how two videos, for more examples of using MATLAB Grader for your programming assignments.

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