Introduction

In this article we'll walk you through how to set up an Assignment Review from the perspective of a teacher.

If you'd like more information on how this tool works, check out these articles:

• Assignment Review: For Teachers (Active Assignment)

• Assignment Review: Overview

• Assignment Review: For Students

   

Tool In Action

How this article is structured

Setting up an activity now follows three stages, shown in the bar at the top of the activity whenever you're in edit mode:

1. Build activity — get an overview of your activity and add or remove steps.

2. Edit steps — configure each step one at a time (instructions, feedback criteria, how students evaluate each other, anonymity, and visibility).

3. Setup activity — set what applies to the whole activity: deadlines, grade weighting, and group settings.

This article follows that same order. Everything below describes what you can configure before the activity is published — students cannot access the activity at this stage. You can still edit some settings after publishing; however, once students start making progress, certain options lock to protect their work and data. Wherever that applies, we'll note it.

Note: When you open a published activity, you'll land on the Active Assignment view by default. To return to setup, click Edit in the upper-left corner. See the Active Assignment article.

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners. To read more, see Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

Stage 1 — Build activity

This is your starting point. Here you see every step in the activity in order and can shape the activity before configuring the details.

A default Assignment Review activity contains:

1. Instructions

2. Hand in

3. Feedback by teacher

4. Read received feedback

Adding steps. Use the learning-steps panel to add optional steps such as Automated Feedback on Writing, Reflections, or a Non-FeedbackFruits Step. Click a step to add it, or drag it into the activity.

When your steps are in place, move to Edit steps to configure each one.

Stage 2 — Edit steps

Here you set up the activity step by step. Each step shows its own settings, and a Student preview so you can see what learners will see. Collaboration settings live on hand in step they affect, so it's clear what each choice applies to.

Step 1: Instructions

Write the instructions students see when they open the activity. Type directly into the instructions field; the student preview updates alongside. You can also add items — for example attaching a file or recording audio/video — if needed.

Step 2: Hand in

Configure how and what students submit.

• Students hand in as — choose An individual or A group. This is the hand-in half of student collaboration (see the Collaboration options reference for how it combines with how the teacher reviews).

• Required files — set how many files students must hand in: Minimum, Between, or Exactly a chosen number. 

• Allowed file formats — enable the file types students may upload: Document, Video, Website, Audio, Image, Other. Students can't upload types you disable. See which file types are supported. Note: embedded audio/video inside documents and slideshows can't be played in FeedbackFruits.

• Submitter anonymity — when on, student contributions are anonymous to each other; teachers can always see who is who.

Advanced settings (Hand in):

• Plagiarism check — if your institution has opted into the Turnitin integration, toggle the check here. See the Turnitin FAQ.

• Visibility of hand ins — control who can see submissions, e.g. Only the allocated reviewer(s).

• Optional instructions for this step — add specific hand-in guidance (e.g. desired font, line spacing, or file naming: "Please include your student number in the file name.").

About the hand-in deadline. The deadline itself is set later, in Setup activity → Deadlines. 
A couple of behaviours are still worth knowing here: after the hand-in end date passes, students can no longer submit; if no end date is set, students can submit at their convenience. You can also allow late hand-ins — students can then hand in after the deadline, and this doesn't affect analytics (you'll still see who submitted on time).

Step 3: Feedback by teacher

In Assignment Review the teacher provides the feedback on student work. Set the criteria that guide your review and when students can see it.

• Criteria — the criteria that guide feedback on student work. Click Edit to add, edit, or delete criteria. See How to set up feedback criteria.

• When do students see their feedback — set visibility to Immediately, After a certain date, or Never (release manually).

• Teacher review — how you review students: individually, as a group, or individually, shown as groups. Which options are available depends on the hand-in choice on Step 2 (see the Collaboration options reference).

Advanced settings (Feedback by teacher):

• AI coach — students receive AI-powered, real-time feedback to improve their reviews.

• Explanation cards — create reusable explanation cards to save time when giving feedback. Click Edit to manage them.

Step 4: Read received feedback

Toggle Feedback on feedback so students rate the feedback they received on a usefulness scale of 1 to 10 (with optional written clarification). The deadline for reading received feedback is set in Setup activity → Deadlines.

Step 5: Reflection (optional)

If you added a Reflection step in Build activity, configure it here: set the required reflection length (1-5,000 words) and enable the Reflection Coach (AI-powered, real-time guidance) under the step's settings. To remove the step, delete it from Build activity.

Stage 3 — Setup activity

The final stage gathers the settings that apply to the whole activity — the ones you'll most often revisit. On the left you keep the step overview; on the right you set activity-wide options: Deadlines, Grade weighting, and Advanced settings.

Deadlines

Enable Steps have start and end dates, then set start/end dates per step in one place  — the hand-in end date, the read-received-feedback end date, and any reflection end date all live here. The date picker offers quick options (e.g. previous step ends, 1 day after, 1 week after) as well as a calendar. Leaving a deadline blank keeps that step open indefinitely.

Grade weighting

Assign a grade weight to each step. Weights must total 100% — the page shows a running Total grade weighting so you can confirm it. 

Advanced Settings (grading):

In Advanced settings you can set:

• Grade type — Percentage or Pass/fail.

• Require participation to receive a grade — if enabled, only students who open the learning activity receive a grade.

• Schedule grade publish — automatically publish grades at a selected date.

• Auto-publish after completing graded steps — automatically publishes an individual student's overall grade once they complete all graded learning steps.

For more on how the grading module works, see this article.

Groups

Select the group set for this activity and choose which groups/sections participate. Where your LMS supports it, sync sections and groups directly. For configuring groups inside Blackboard, Brightspace, or Canvas, see this article; to create groups on the platform, see this article.

Reminder: collaboration options (how students hand in, and how the teacher reviews) must be set before students participate. Once a student makes progress, those configurations can't be changed.

When everything looks right, you can Save and publish the activity.

Collaboration options reference

Student collaboration is set in two places:

• Step 2: Hand in – Choose whether students submit individually or as a group.

• Step 3: Feedback by teacher - Choose how the teacher reviews students: individually, as a group, or individually, shown as groups.

These two settings determine how students collaborate and show up throughout the activity. Configure them before students begin participating, as these settings cannot be changed once a student has made progress.

Please note that some options disable others:

• If hand-in is As a group, teacher review can only be As a group ("individually" and "individually, shown as groups" are disabled).

• If hand-in is Individually, teacher review can be Individually or Individually, shown as groups ("as a group" is disabled).