Overview
The Assignment tab is dependent on an expansion of the LMS integration to import detailed assignment data from the LMS system into SS&E.
- Student Success & Engagement currently only supports syncing detailed assignment data from Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard REST.
- If your Institution does not integrate with Canvas, Moodle or Blackboard REST, the Assignment tab will not appear in the student's Courses tab.
- Course Sections ending before the Fall 2021 term will not include LMS assignment data.
- Terms previous to the assignment data job being enabled will also not include LMS assignment data.
- Past terms will only have assignment data if you were syncing assignment data at the time.
If LMS Assignment data is incorrect or missing from the student Courses tab, please review this article for instructions on how to verify that the assignment data sync is working.
Prerequisites for syncing assignment data with Moodle LMS
In order for Moodle to sync assignment data with SS&E, you will first need to install an updated Moodle Plugin within the Moodle LMS system.
For OpenLMS systems, if you are an existing system that is already syncing LMS data with SS&E, the Moodle Plugin will update automatically.
Non-OpenLMS Moodle systems will need to manually update the Moodle Plugin.
- For instruction on new SSE Implementations, click here.
- To update an existing system, click here.
- Once updated to the newer Moodle Plugin version, the Assignment level data will appear for any role that already has access to view a student's courses tab. If needed, access to the Courses tab should be adjusted from the full/limited profile tab role-based permission settings.
For assistance with updating the Moodle Plugin, please reach out to your Moodle/LMS support staff.
Assignment Data Permissions
Assignment data is available for anyone that can access the student's Courses tab, as defined by their security role(s) settings in Roles Administration.
- Before enabling assignment data synchronization, check the Full Profile View and Limited Profile View access to the Courses tab.
- If assignment data access needs to be removed from a certain user, all roles assigned to this user must not be able to view the Courses tab.
In addition, as a reminder, SS&E Reporting does not use the Role permission settings and anyone allowed access to reporting can view all data available on the reports/report sources they have access to.
Prerequisites for all LMS Systems
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In order to sync LMS assignments with SS&E, the LMS Assignment Import setting enableLmsAssignmentsImportJob must be enabled in Application Configuration (eg. set to "true").
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For help enabling the LMS Assignments Import Job, please open a support ticket requesting to enable assignments synchronization.
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- We do not recommend enabling the LMS Assignment Grade or LMS Assignment Submission jobs since they may cause performance related issues.
- SS&E Administrators can always view the job status, check job status history, and monitor the LMS Assignments Import Jobs in order to verify that the job is completing from Advanced Administration -> Batch Processing.
- To view how LMS Assignment Grades and Submissions are synced with SS&E, click here.
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For help enabling the LMS Assignments Import Job, please open a support ticket requesting to enable assignments synchronization.
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Once enabled, assignment level data will appear for any role that already has access to view a student's courses tab.
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- There is no secondary permission for assignment data.
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If needed, you should make adjustments to hide or display the Courses tab based on full/limited profile tab role-based permission settings.
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For a Course Section to be eligible for Assignment synchronization, the Course Section "Has Gradable Assignment" field must be set to true.
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- For more information on how the "Has Gradable Assignment" field is set, click here.
- If the Course Section field for "LMS Has Gradable Assignment" is not set properly, assignment data will not import.
- For example, if a Course Section syncs with "LMS Has Gradable Assignment" set to True and later changes to False, the synced assignments will only refresh by manually clicking "refresh" in the UI. The reason is that when "Has gradable assignment" is set to false, the course will not be included in the Assignments Sync job that runs throughout the day. If this happens it's an anomaly because "Has gradable assignment" should not be changing between True and False.
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In order for the Assignments tab to display, the Course Section must have an LMS ID.
- For more information on how the LMS ID is set on a Course Section, click here.
Student LMS Assignments Data
On the Student Courses tab, each Course will have an Assignments tab that provides up-to-date Assignment Data received from the LMS.
The following screenshot displays how the student LMS assignments data is presented in SS&E:
- Assignment data is shown in red
- Submission data is shown in green
- Grade data is shown in blue
LMS Assignments Data Categories
The Assignments tab displays data from the following three data categories:
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Assignments data
- Name, Due Date, and Points Possible are imported from Assignments.
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Submissions data
- Submitted Date and Status are imported from Submissions.
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Grades data
- Points Scored are imported from Grades.
Assignments Data Synchronization Schedule
Student Success & Engagement runs a scheduled job every 6 hours that syncs the Assignments data category items with the LMS for each Course Section in the Current Term.
- SS&E displays all assignment data pushed through from the LMS system via the API.
- SS&E does not delete or disable incorrect assignment data that was synced from the LMS system for a specific course section. Therefore, when syncing assignment data with SS&E, instructors should verify that Assignment data syncing from the LMS is accurate.
LMS Assignment Grades and Submissions Data Synchronization
How does the LMS Assignment Submission/Grade Data Sync with SS&E?
The LMS Assignment Submissions and Assignments Grades are synced from the Course Assignments tab.
After the LMS Submission and Grade data is refreshed manually one time, then the Submission and Grade data displayed on the Assignments Tab will sync automatically and display data at the oldest from 24 hours ago. This data and can also be synced on-demand by clicking the refresh button in the top right.
- In order for the LMS Assignment Grades and Submissions data to auto-sync and refresh data automatically at the most after 24 hours, this data needs to manually sync first at least once on the student-course section record.
- This will set the sync date that is used to determine when to auto-sync Grades and Submissions data. If there is no last sync date set for submissions and grades then the "oldest" sync date will be set as the last sync datetime from the assignments data, and since that syncs every 6 hours by a scheduled job, the LMS grades and assignments will not reach 24 hours to refresh automatically.
- Once the initial sync date is set, when Submissions or Grades are older than 24 hours, the Assignment Tab will automatically sync with the LMS to ensure that the LMS Assignment Submissions and Grades data is not out of date for longer than 24 hours.
The last sync date for LMS Assignment Grades and/or Submissions is displayed in the top right of the Assignments tab, next to the refresh button.
Sync Example
When an instructor creates an assignment in the LMS for a course section, it will display in SS&E on the Assignments tab after the next scheduled job is complete (i.e. within the next 6 hours).
Since the Submission and Grade data is synced either manually or automatically from SS&E, the time it takes to complete the sync is dependent on the status of the LMS and the current network conditions.
- If the Submission and Grade data sync takes more than a few seconds to complete, help text will appear noting why there is most likely a delay.
- The help text will disappear shortly after the sync completes.
Troubleshooting Missing Assignment Data in SS&E
- Does the missing assignment data display in the LMS?
- If yes, verify that the Course Section ID in the LMS System matches the LMS ID associated with the course section in SS&E found here.
- If the LMS ID in SS&E is incorrect, edit the Course Section record to update the LMS ID.
- Note: The Course Section LMS ID is usually assigned by the LMS Course Resolver. If you manually change the LMS Course ID within SS&E Course Section Administration, check "Override LMS" to prevent the LMS Course Resolver from updating this value in the future.
- On Moodle systems, has the Moodle Plugin been manually updated on your system (if Non-OpenLMS)?
- Is the LMS Assignment Import Job "enableLmsAssignmentsImportJob" enabled in SS&E Application Administration?
- Is the Course Section field for "LMS Has Gradable Assignment" set to "True"?