how to create a new assignment in canvas

University Center for Teaching and Learning

How to create assignments for your canvas course.

• Quick Start
• Instructor Help
• Student Help

How to Create Assignments

Using assignments in Canvas provides a streamlined process for assigning homework and creating quizzes for students.  Canvas considers an ‘assignment’ to be anything that is graded, whether that be a quiz or homework assignment, and whether it’s delivered entirely online, paper-and-pencil, or is a participatory assignment with no actual deliverable.

This Quick Start guide will cover the creation of assignments where the student submits a file electronically, on paper, using an external tool such as Turnitin or Panopto , or where no submission is expected (e.g. class participation). See How to Create Tests and Quizzes for Your Canvas Course and Create and Manage Discussions for more information about using those tools as assignments.

1. In the Course Navigation menu, click the Assignments link.

2. Click “ +Assignment ” at the top right.

3. Write the assignment title and directions for students.

4. Assign the number of points available for the assignment.

5. Choose an “ Assignment Group” . Assignment groups are, in essence, a category of assignment. For more information about using Assignment Groups, see the Canvas guides regarding Assignments.

6. There are four submission types :

• No Submission: an activity where nothing will be collected from students (e.g. a participation grade)
• For the full details about the online assignment subtypes, (text entry, annotation, file upload, etc.), please see the official documentation .
• We have a recorded mini-webinar on annotation assignments, including assignment ideas, available on the Training Webinars page.
• On Paper: assignments/quizzes/activities that were written on paper and collected by the instructor
• External Tool: assignments submitted through a 3rd party tool that is integrated with Canvas, such as a textbook publisher’s website or Turnitin

7. Submission Attempts: You may allow unlimited submission attempts for Online assignments, or restrict attempts to one or more. When a student submits to an assignment they have already submitted to, the previous submission is retained as well, and the instructor may view both.

8. Group Assignments and Peer Reviews:  Assignments can be created as either a group assignment or peer review assignment.

9. Assign options- You can assign an assignment to your entire class, a specific student, and/or a section of your class. You can also set the due date and the availability dates (when your students can submit their assignment). Each section can have different due dates and availability dates.

10. If you are finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save & Publish “. If you are not finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save ” and you may come back and work on it more later without students having access to it.

Instructor Help for Assignments

Creating assignments.

• How do I create an assignment?
• How do I add a moderated assignment to be graded by multiple reviewers?
• How do I create an online assignment?
• How do I add or edit details in an assignment?
• How do I add or edit points for an assignment?
• What assignment types can I create in a course?
• How do I limit submission attempts for an assignment?
• How do I add an assignment that includes anonymous grading?
• How do I enable anonymous instructor annotations in student submissions?
• How do I import SCORM files as an assignment?
• How do I publish or unpublish an assignment as an instructor?

Managing Assignments

• How do I use the Assignments Index Page?
• Can a student resubmit Canvas assignments?
• How do I assign an assignment to everyone in a course?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course group?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course section?
• How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?
• How do I view differentiated assignments with different due dates in a course?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I delete an assignment?
• How do I duplicate an assignment?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy an assignment to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to send an assignment to another instructor?

Creating and Managing Peer Review Assignments

• How do I create a peer review assignment?
• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

Creating External Tool Assignments

• How do I add an assignment using an external app?
• How do I create a cloud assignment with a Microsoft Office 365 file?

Using Assignment Groups

• How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• How do I create an assignment shell in an assignment group?
• How do I create rules for an assignment group?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?

Grading Considerations

• How do I add a grading scheme to an assignment?
• How do I download all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I upload all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I exclude an assignment from the course’s final grades?
• How do I give extra credit in a course?

Student Help for Assignments

• How do I view Assignments as a student?
• How do I filter assignments by type as a student?
• How do I submit an online assignment?
• How do I submit a text entry assignment?
• How do I enter a URL as an assignment submission?
• How do I submit a media file as an assignment submission?
• How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I upload a file from Microsoft Office 365 as an assignment submission?
• How do I know when my assignment has been submitted?
• How do I manage celebration animations in Canvas as a student?
• How do I submit a cloud assignment with Microsoft Office 365?
• How do I download assignment submissions from all my courses?
• How do I annotate a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I use DocViewer in Canvas assignments as a student?
• How do I submit a PDF assignment with annotations in the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I add annotations to a submission in the Student app on my iOS device?

Groups and Peer

• How do I submit an assignment on behalf of a group?
• How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?
• How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?
• Where can I find my peers’ feedback for peer reviewed assignments?
• How do I view the rubric for my assignment?
• How do I view the rubric for my external tool assignment?
• How do I view rubric results for my assignment?
• How do I know when my instructor has graded my assignment?
• How do I view assignment comments from my instructor?
• How do I view annotation feedback comments from my instructor directly in my assignment submission?
• How do I view my Roll Call Attendance report as a student?
• Provost’s Diversity Institute for Faculty Development
• Generative AI Resources for Faculty
• Student Communication & Engagement Resource Hub
• Important dates for the summer term  
• Summer Term Finals Assessment Strategies
• Importing your summer term grades to PeopleSoft
• Enter your summer term grades in Canvas
• Alternative Final Assessment Ideas
• Not sure what you need?
• Accessibility Resource Hub
• Assessment Resource Hub
• Canvas and Ed Tech Support
• Center for Mentoring
• Creating and Using Video
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• General Pedagogy Resource Hub
• Graduate Student/TA Resources
• Remote Learning Resource Hub
• Syllabus Checklist
• Student Communication and Engagement
• Technology and Equipment
• Classroom & Event Services
• Assessment of Teaching
• Classroom Technology
• Custom Workshops
• Open Lab Makerspace
• Pedagogy, Practice, & Assessment
• Need something else? Contact Us
• Educational Software Consulting
• Learning Communities
• Makerspaces and Emerging Technology
• Mentoring Support
• Online Programs
• Teaching Surveys
• Testing Services
• Classroom Recordings and Lecture Capture
• Creating DIY Introduction Videos
• Media Creation Lab
• Studio & On-Location Recordings
• Video Resources for Teaching
• Assessment and Teaching Conference
• Diversity Institute
• New Faculty Orientation
• New TA Orientation
• Teaching Center Newsletter
• Meet Our Team
• About the Executive Director
• Award Nomination Form
• Award Recipients
• About the Teaching Center
• Annual Report
• Join Our Team

Create Assignments in Canvas

A variety of assignment types are available in Canvas and to link from external resources. View how-to guides of these resources to help build your assignment.

• Canvas assignments
• Weighted assignments
• Peer review assignments
• OLI assignments

Add a new Canvas assignment:

Assignments created in Canvas are automatically created using simple steps and include available and due dates, assignment types, student or group assignment selections and more. Follow the steps below to begin building an assignment.

Note: All assignments are tied to columns in the Canvas Gradebook. So, when you create a new assignment you also create a new column automatically in the Grading area. 

• “No Submission” and “On Paper” create a grade column but  do not  allow students to upload any materials to the assignment in Canvas.

Create a weighted assignment:

Weighting assignments as a percentage of the final grade can be done easily through the assignments area of your course. To set up weighting, you will need to:

• Set up assignment groups
• Organize assignments into the assignment groups
• Set assignment group weights
• View assignment groups

Step 1: Set up and organize assignments into assignment groups

• Once you have groups set up, you can organize assignments into the groups by drag-and-drop

Step 2: Set assignment group weights

Step 3: Weight an individual assignment

Step 4: View assignment groups in the Grades area

When assignment groups are set up in your course, you will notice columns corresponding to each assignment group appear in the gradebook. These columns will keep track of student performance in each assignment group.

NOTE: You can weight final grades based on assignment groups . See the Canvas website for more information on weighting final assignments here.

Set Up a Peer Review Assignment

Peer review assignments provide students with the opportunity to give feedback on each others’ work. With a Canvas peer review assignment, student names may be displayed to each other or you may opt to make the peer review process anonymous. You can also opt to provide students with a rubric they can use to grade and provide feedback on each others’ work.

• You start the process of creating a peer review assignment by creating an assignment in your Canvas course. You can create an assignment either in the Modules area or Assignments area of your Canvas site.

• You will be presented with the option to Manually Assign Peer Reviews or Automatically Assign Peer Reviews
• Manually Assign Peer Reviews - requires you to manually assign students to review other students’ work
• Automatically Assign Peer Reviews - Canvas will randomly assign students to review as many peers as you specify

Currently, a peer review assignment does not carry separate points or due dates for the peer review portion of the assignment. The points for the assignment encompasses both the assignment submission and the peer review process. If you would like separate points for the assignment submission, you may choose to create a separate assignment that students submit their work to in addition to submitting it to the peer review assignment. Another benefit of creating a separate assignment is that you could then attach a separate rubric to this assignment in the instance when a different rubric is used for Instructor and TA grading than is used by students for peer review.

  If a rubric is attached to a peer review assignment, students  must  complete the rubric in order for their review to be considered complete.

Contact Us for Canvas and Ed Tech Support:

About Us Faculty Support Graduate Student Support

Search Utah State University:

Create an assignment in canvas.

In Canvas, any activity with an associated point value is considered an Assignment and will appear on the Assignments page, as well as in the gradebook. Assignment formats include quizzes, discussions, online document submission, and no submission, and external tool assignments. You can give an assignment to everyone in the course or target it to a specific section or user.

Types of Graded Activities in Canvas

The following table lists the types of graded activities in Canvas and their strengths and weaknesses.

To Create an Assignment

On the Course Navigation menu, click Assignments

On the Assignments list page, click Add Assignment

On the Assignment edit page, create the assignment by adding a name, instructions, and specifying the assignment options

(See the Assignment Options table for details)

Assignment Options

The following table describes the options for creating assignments.

Canvas - Get Started

The following list of pages will guide you through getting started with this tool. The current page is listed in bold.

• Log into Canvas
• Notification Preferences
• Access your Course
• Create an Assignment
• Create a Quiz in Canvas
• Add a Syllabus to Canvas
• Early Course Access for Students
• Communication
• Five Keys to Grading
• Prepare Final Grading

Getting Started with Canvas Assignments

• Last modification date Updated On June 8, 2023
• 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

Subscribe By Email

Get a weekly email of all new posts.

Your Email Leave this field blank

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

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.

March 19: New Look for Duo Two-Step Authentication Prompt. More Info.  

New to OIT Service Center? Register for an account

Create & customize canvas assignments - knowledgebase / teaching learning and research / canvas / assessments and grading / assignments - oit service center.

• Download PDF

Copy to Clipboard

Create & customize canvas assignments.

• cb christine brown
• ej edwin jeng
• mv maggie vecchione
• MK Melissa Kane
• rt rebecca taub
• Last updated: Jul 3, 2023 by Claire Streckenbach

Canvas allows you to create assignments for your students and customize the settings to meet your grading approach for your course.  Within the grading settings of a Canvas Assignment,  you can select the grading settings for each assignment based on the assignment’s type, objectives, and expectations.  You may also choose to use points, percentages, or complete/incomplete to track progress and provide feedback to students about their work. 

Create Canvas Assignments

To create an assignment:

• Log in to Canvas at canvas.brown.edu  and select your course from the Global Navigation menu on the left.

• Enter the name of the assignment in the Assignment Name  box.
• Enter a description of the assignment in the box below if relevant.

Your new assignment will appear on the Assignments page under the assignment group you selected.  Any Assignments you create automatically show up in the Calendar, Syllabus page and Gradebook.  

For more information on how to create and manage assignments, please see the following links:

• How do I add a rubric to an assignment
• How do I manage rubrics in a course
• How do I set notifications

88 of 178 people found this page helpful

Send us a note about this article

Related Content

• Enable TurnItIn for Student Assignment Submissions
• Enter Grades into Canvas Grades
• Set Varied Due Dates by Section for Canvas Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes
• Create Weighted Assignment Groups in Canvas for Grading
• Canvas Speedgrader
• Annotate Student Submissions using Speedgrader
• Create Weighted Assignment Groups for Grading
• Canvas Quizzes

Contact the OIT Service Center

Phone: 401-863-4357

Email: [email protected]

Location: Page Robinson Hall - 69 Brown St., Room 510

See our availability

https://it.brown.edu/get-help

Walk-ins Welcome! Appointments recommended.

For reserved service for a technical consult or a loaner check-out, you can schedule an appointment here .

Reporting an IT Outage?

Report an Outage

 Service Status & Alerts     Phishing Warnings

Creating an assignment

• Log into Canvas as a teacher.

If the course is not displayed in the My courses list, select All courses , and use the checkboxes to add the course to the list.

• Select the + Assignment button.

• Group assignment • Peer reviews • Moderated grading • Points • Assignment group • Display grade as

Students can now submit group work to the Canvas Plagiarism Framework; each student in a group will receive an individual similarity score.

• Under Online entry options , select the File Uploads or Text entry check box.

The integration name is chosen by your administrator when first configuring Turnitin with Canvas . In the illustration above the chosen name is 'Turnitin Beta'. If you are unsure on what option to choose, contact your Canvas administrator.

• Submission indexing options
• Similarity Report exclusion options
• Changing Similarity Report availability options
• Choose a Similarity Report generation option that best suits your needs. Immediately - A Similarity Report will be generated at the time of submission. Immediately and on due date - A Similarity Report will be generated at the time of submission and on the assignments due date. We recommend this option as it allows for a collusion check within your class.

• (optional) Select the course you would like to assign the assignment to. This ensures that your assignment will only be available to students in this particular course.
• Amend the assignment's dates.

As Canvas may not immediately notify Turnitin that an assignment has been created, we advise waiting 90 seconds between creating the assignment and making the first submission. This will allow Canvas to notify us that the assignment has been created.

If you continue to encounter an issue with the Similarity Report failing to generate, you can select Resubmit to Turnitin from SpeedGrader, which forces the Similarity Report to generate.

Was this page helpful?

We're sorry to hear that., need to contact a human.

• Turnitin.com
• Release Notes
• Known Issues
• Privacy and Security
• System Status

Educational Technologies for Spring 2024

Posted in News

Welcome back! As we start a new semester, we invite you to take a look at new developments in educational technologies at Georgetown.

On this page you will find following topics:

Technology Updates

Classroom technology contacts, consultations on teaching, technology, and teaching with technology, join the pilot to use gradescope.

If you are teaching large courses you can leverage  Gradescope (new window)  to help sort through large numbers of handwritten exams. Gradescope uses AI to read graphs, diagrams, math proofs, econ equations, and lab summaries. The tool, integrated into Canvas, has features that allow a team of teaching assistants and professors to divide up work, practice  horizontal grading (new window) , and help develop grading rubrics and policies while you are grading, automatically and instantly regrading all previously graded exams.

Canvas courses can now be set to display letter grades only

It is now possible for instructors to set their course(s) to  restrict the view of quantitative data (new window)  (numeric) data for students to view. When enabled, students can no longer see traditional points and percentages associated with their grades. Learn more about using  Letter Grades in Canvas (new window) .

Canvas Collaborations

When instructors create “Collaborations” in their course(s) it is now recommended to use the new  Google Assignments LTI 1.3 (new window)  option. Learn more about  Collaborations (new window)  in Canvas.

Archived Zoom Cloud recordings in Panopto

Archived Zoom Cloud recordings in Panopto older than two years will be deleted monthly starting January 2024. As we shared in a  previous message (new window)  over the summer, Zoom Cloud recordings that were automatically copied into your Panopto account and have not been viewed in over 1 year have moved (and will continue to be moved) into your Panopto archive. If you wish to prevent recordings in your Panopto archive from being deleted, then you (or other viewers) will need to restore them and watch them in Panopto annually. The process to restore recordings in Panopto can take up to 48 hours, so don’t wait until the last day to restore them!

Third-party tools installed in Canvas 

Do you want to use a tool that’s not on the list or in the Canvas App Center? Check out  the list of tools installed in Canvas (new window) or submit  this Google form (new window)  and we’ll work with you to make it available.

Update your system and software 

The start of the semester is a good time for a fresh start. When’s the last time you restarted your computer and  updated your operating system and software (new window)  so that it’s protected with the latest security updates?

Georgetown schools and campuses have the following separate  points of contact for classroom technology needs (new window) :

• Main Campus: Classroom Education Technology Services (CETS) can meet with you for one-on-one instruction in your classroom, ideally before the first day of class. Contact [email protected] (new window) or call 202-687-7491. Check this list to find out which CETS technician to contact (new window) for the building where you will be teaching.
• Law Center: [email protected] (new window) . The Law Center is issuing its own communications to faculty and students available on their website (new window) .
• McDonough School of Business (MSB) : [email protected] (new window) . 
• McCourt School of Public Policy: [email protected] (new window)
• School of Medicine and Biomedical Graduate Education at the Medical Center: [email protected] (new window) .For urgent issues requiring immediate classroom assistance call: 202-687-4949, Option 6
• School of Continuing Studies (SCS): [email protected] (new window) .
• School of Health and School of Nursing: [email protected] (new window)

Faculty and staff can reach out to CNDLS for help witheffective and practical teaching techniques ranging from pedagogical choices to implementing technology tools. For quick help, “ Ring our Doorbell” by filling out this form (new window) , and a CNDLS staff member will reach out to schedule a consultation within the hour. More information is available at  cndls.georgetown.edu (new window) .  If you have questions or require support:

• For  technical support (new window)  with Canvas, please email  [email protected] (new window) ,
• For general tech questions, including issues with MyAccess, Zoom, NetID, or classroom technology at the Medical Center please email  [email protected] (new window) ,
• And if you need help with classroom technology on campus, please email  [email protected] (new window) .

Best wishes for the upcoming semester! The Canvas Support Team

Ken Mayer Director of Educational Technologies, University Information Services (UIS)

Molly Chehak Director of Digital Learning Pedagogy, The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS)

You're signed out

Sign in to ask questions, follow content, and engage with the Community

• Canvas Question Forum
• Re: How can I set up an assignment in Canvas for t...
• Subscribe to RSS Feed
• Mark Topic as New
• Mark Topic as Read
• Float this Topic for Current User
• Printer Friendly Page

How can I set up an assignment in Canvas for two professors to grade using a rubric?

• Mark as New
• Report Inappropriate Content

Solved! Go to Solution.

View solution in original post

• All forum topics
• Previous Topic

Submission Checklists

Quiz grade not based on points, batch editing courses, has anyone used sage campus, quizzes for visually impaired students, when create a quiz in a format where i need to rep..., creating modules in the summer, community help, view our top guides and resources:.

To participate in the Instructurer Community, you need to sign up or log in: