Active quiz - main entryWhether you are starting from scratch or working with an active quiz already created, using the active quiz activity in a topic ideally consists of 5 stages, in a looped process. 1. Plan | 2. Build | 3. Test | 4. Administer | 5. Review || Support
The teacher creates the quiz in advance – adding questions from the topic's question bank. During the lecture/tutorial, the teacher starts the quiz. Students can now connect to this quiz. Once the teacher is satisfied that all students have connected to the active quiz, they can click on 'Start Quiz'. The teacher can review student responses in real time and re-poll the same question, go to the next question, or jump to any question set up in the activity. Good practice guides and tip sheets
Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to quiz-related resources are provided below. Browse all tip sheets and good practice guides 1. PlanThe better your planning/preparation, the less likely you are to run into a problem once students start doing the quiz. Therefore, it is advised that you have a process for creating your quiz. Why do you want to set up an active quiz (ie what is the quiz's purpose)? Active quiz could be used for:
2. BuildSet up a category and question bankA question bank is used to categorise quiz questions. Sorting questions into categories is especially important when random questions are used or a topic contains many quizzes. If you add a category before you add questions to the question bank, all questions created can be added to this category and they will then belong to the topic, rather than the quiz. This approach will make management easier when you are creating new quizzes (eg in the following semester) using questions from previous quizzes.
Categories in the question bank can be exported from one topic into another, enabling the questions within to be multiple use. Please contact your eLearning support team to discuss importing question bank categories.
|
Training and support |
Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Training Quiz workshop (whilst this is not Active quiz, it will help you understand the features of the quiz activity) Support |
There are no identified issues with Active quiz. |
Assignment - add a group or user alternative due date (override)
Overrides are used to create multiple due dates for different students (eg different due dates for different tutorial groups, or individual due dates for each student). Overrides are not an alternative to granting an extension
using the Assignment Extension tool or the Assignment grading screen.
If you want to create a group override, you may need to also set up groups in your topic. Steps – group alternative due date (override)
Steps – user alternative due date (override)
|
Assignment - allow students to resubmit an assignment
When you set up an assignment dropbox, you are able to set an assignment up to either automatically give students the chance to resubmit until they receive a pass mark (as specified by you) or manually control when resubmissions are given. The resubmission feature allows both staff and students to review the full submission history (a resubmission will not overwrite a previous submission). Thus the student can review all submissions and feedback, and see any improvements in their submission.
Enable resubmission settings
Manually reopen a submission
|
Assignment - annotate (mark) student assignments in FLO (online)
The online annotation feedback method allows you to open PDF assignments in your browser (eg Chrome, Firefox, Safari), provide comments and annotations, and save without needing to download and upload submissions into FLO. Students can submit in either Word, Open Office(.odt) or PDF file format. If they submit in Word, FLO will generate a PDF file, as you will use PDF annotation tools to mark it up online. If the assignment has been set up with an online marking guide, see also Mark assignments in FLO using a rubric, marking guide or checklist.Good practice guides and tip sheets
Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to assignment-related resources are provided below. Browse all tip sheets and good practice guides Annotate online – stepsWhen marking online, you can annotate student assignments, provide a grade and feedback all in the one screen. In the 'individual marking form' for each student, you will see the student's 'Submission status' (eg Submitted for grading – once you have graded the assignment this will change to Graded). Depending on how the assignment activity is set up, you will also see a Grade box, a Feedback comments box (if enabled), and a Feedback files box (if enabled).
Add a comment to a quicklist (save time)Using the comment quicklist can save time when providing comments to submissions using online annotation. To save a regularly used comment to your comments quicklist, complete the following steps.
|
Assignment - build and edit a checklist for online marking (advanced grading)![]() This entry relates to the Assignment activity.
You can design and use checklists to mark assignments online.
|
Assignment - build and edit a marking guide for online marking (advanced grading)![]() This entry relates to the Assignment activity.
You can design and use marking guides to mark assignments online.
|
Assignment - build and edit a rubric for online marking (advanced grading)![]() This entry relates to the Assignment activity.
You can design and use rubrics to mark assignments online.
|
Assignment - create a blind-marked assignment
Blind marking hides the identity of students from markers. When marking, instead of student names, markers will see a randomly generated participant number. It is important to be aware of the following when using blind marking:
Consult your eLearning support team before using blind marking.
|
Assignment - create a group assignment
Group assignments are used when students work on an assignment in teams and upload one submission per team. Note: Before creating your group assignment, you will need to organise your students into groups and add these groups to a grouping. Good practice guides and tip sheets
Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to group-related resources are provided below. Browse all tip sheets and good practice guides
|
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Students submit in groups | Set to Yes to create a group assignment (this will activate the next three settings)
![]() |
Require group to make submission |
If enabled (Yes), students who are not members of a group will be unable to make submissions
![]() |
Require all group members submit |
This setting is enabled if Require students to click the submit button is Yes in the Submission settings. This setting controls whether every member of the group must click the submit button, or whether one member can 'submit' on behalf of the group:
![]() |
Grouping for student groups |
Choose the grouping you wish to use for the group assignment. Select the grouping that you created when you organised your students into groups.
|
Assignment - create an assignment
The Assignment activity has the following default settings that allow individual students to submit files for marking, and offer various options for providing feedback (these and other assignment settings are explained in more detail
below:
Create an assignment (for file submissions)Add an assignment activity
General settings![]()
Availability settings![]()
Submission types settings![]()
Add a word count field to an assignment submissionUnder the Submission types section, enable Word count declaration by clicking the check box:
|
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Feedback types | All Feedback types are enabled by default: Feedback comments (see below), Annotate PDF,
Feedback files(rubric, marking guide) and Offline grading worksheet.
You can leave all options ticked (you don’t have to use all of them).
|
Comment inline
|
If enabled, this setting allows the submission text (see Submission types > Online text above) to be copied into the Feedback comments field during grading, making it easier to comment inline (using a different colour). |
Feedback template
|
You can upload a Feedback template to be used as the basis for feedback files generated for each student. |
Feedback comments
The Feedback comments box enables 'rich' constructive feedback (links, video etc) using the HTML editor, and is great for overall feedback on an assessment item:
Submission settings

Setting | Description |
---|---|
Require students to click the submit button |
If Yes (default setting), students must click the Submit button to finalise their assignment. An assignment will remain in draft (allowing the student to make changes to text or upload new files) until they click the Submit button. Once submitted, they will be unable to modify their assignment without topic coordinator intervention (eg revert an assignment to draft; allow students to resubmit). If No, students can make changes to their submission at any time. |
Require that students accept the submission statement |
The default setting is Yes. The submission statement is a declaration that the work the student is submitting is their own unless otherwise acknowledged. |
Attempts reopened
|
This setting determines how student submission attempts are reopened:
|
Maximum attempts | You can set the maximum number of attempts for the assignment if Manually or Automatically until pass has been selected for Attempts reopened. |
Notifications settings

Setting | Description |
---|---|
Notify graders about submissions |
If set to Yes, all members of the teaching team will receive an email notification when an assignment is submitted or updated. The next setting will not be available if this is set to Yes. If the class is small, or you plan to return assignments as quickly as possible, it may be a good idea to choose Yes. However, for large classes this can result in a high volume of notification emails. |
Notify graders about late submissions |
This option is available if Notify graders about submissions is set to No. If set to Yes, an email notification will only be provided for assignments submitted after the due date. You may choose to enable this setting to avoid having to constantly check FLO for late submissions. |
Default setting for "Notify students"
|
This field controls when to notify students of changes to their grade or feedback and sets the default value for the Notify students checkbox on the online grading form. The default is No. The Notify students checkbox is available when grading individual submissions. Choose Yes to notify the student immediately or No to grade without notifying the student. Students will not receive grade notifications if you have hidden the grades. |
Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings
Turnitin is integrated with the Assignment activity. It produces Originality reports that provide a summary of matching or similar text found between submitted work and other materials, such as online sources (eg webpages, journal articles and other electronic information).
Most of the Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings cannot be changed, however, you have the option of excluding the following elements of a paper from an Originality report:
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Exclude Bibliography | The default setting is No. If Yes, text appearing in the bibliography, works cited, and references sections are excluded. |
Exclude Quoted Material | The default setting is No. If Yes, text appearing in the quotes of student papers can be excluded. |
Exclude Small Matches | The default setting is No. If Yes, matches that are not of sufficient length can be excluded (the options available are Words or Percent – either the number of words or percentage of text to be excluded can be entered into the box that will appear underneath this field). |
Note: For Turnitin to generate an Originality report, the student’s submitted file must:
- be less than 40MB
- include a minimum of 20 words
- be less than 400 pages.
Grade settings

Setting | Description |
---|---|
Grade |
Select the type of grading you want to use. The options are:
|
Grading method |
If Scale or Point for the Grade setting is chosen, the following options are available:
|
Grade category | Controls the category in which the assignment’s grades are placed in the gradebook. |
Grade to pass | This setting determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity and topic completion, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red. |
Blind marking | Hides the identity of students from markers. Blind marking settings will be locked once a submission or grade has been made in the assignment. Note: students will need to be instructed to exclude personal information (eg name, ID number) in their submission. |
Use marking workflow | If enabled, marks will go through a series of workflow stages before being released to students. This allows for multiple rounds of marking and allows marks to be released to all students at the same time. |
Use marking allocation | If Use marking workflow is enabled, markers must be allocated to each student before marking can commence. |
Hide assignment grades until ready for release
After creating an assignment, we strongly recommend you hide the grades. This will prevent students from seeing their grades until you are ready to release them (both in the assignment activity and in gradebook). As soon as you have created an assignment (and clicked Save and display), you will see the Grading summary screen:
You can hide the assignment grades at this point, by clicking on the eye in the Grade visibility row. Once hidden, the Grade visibility row will change:
Students can still see the assignment and details of their submission, but they won't be able to see their grades until you unhide them (see Hide and release marks/feedback to students).
Assignment - create an assignment as a take-home exam
The assignment tool in FLO can be used to deliver take-home exams. In this format, students get access to the exam question/topic at a particular time, then need to submit (either by uploading a file or by typing text directly into FLO) by the due date.
|
Assignment - create an iterative assignment
In some cases, assignments are iterative – students are asked to provide work for formative feedback rather than summative feedback and a mark, or students are providing drafts. In these cases, it may be appropriate to disable the Submit button.
|
Assignment - create an offline assignment
An offline assignment can be used when students do not need to upload any work into FLO – for example, when doing presentations, posters or lab books. The assignment tool can be used to manage and return marks and feedback. The benefits of creating an offline assignment:
|
Assignment - create an online text assignment
Online text assignments allow students to type their assignment directly into a text box in FLO. Online text assignments are good for assignments with small word counts or for short-answer responses. It should be noted that the text entered by students is stored in FLO and cannot be downloaded.
|
Assignment - create a video assignment
Setting up a video assignment is very similar to setting up an assignment for file submissions. These instructions outline the settings that make video assignments as student-friendly as possible. Depending on students' familiarity with submitting video
assignments, a practice upload of a video to a forum etc can be useful for checking their upload and embed process. Direct students to FLO Student Support for help submitting video assignments.
The best experience for students doing video assignments is for you to design the assignment submission so that students submit their video using My Media, which is part of Kaltura (the online video platform in FLO). Unlike the standard file upload option in FLO, My Media doesn't have a file size upload limit, so students won't need to compress their video files before submitting. Having to compress their video can affect the graphics and sound quality, which may make it difficult for you when watching and marking their video. Using My Media means that students will be able to provide a higher quality video file, and won't need to go through the additional stress of using a compression software prior to submission. Uploading to My Media can still take a little while if students have produced full-HD or very high resolution videos (which they tend to do when filming on mobile devices and/or using modern video editing software), so please encourage students to allow plenty of time for uploading and submitting. For example, testing on a high-speed home internet network and on the University network showed that uploading a 2GB video took around 20–30 minutes. Upload times depend on the speed of the internet connection students are using. Create a video assignmentCreate an assignment (for file submissions) and make the following adjustments to the settings.
|
Training and support |
Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Support Contact your eLearning support team |
Note: Students do not have access to/use of the Media Vault
|
Assignment - download assignment submissions/feedback files and grading worksheet (offline marking)
If you are marking offline (having set this up when you created the Assignment activity), there is a 3-step process: download (internet access required), mark (no internet access required – this is the 'offline' part), upload (internet access required). Your options in the drop-down menu for 'Grading action' will depend on how you have set up the assignment.
Download assignment submissions for marking offlineTo download student submissions (for marking):
2. Click ![]() 3. Select Download all submissions from the Grading action menu (at the top of the screen) ![]() If a filter is selected, only the students in that group will be visible and be downloaded. There are two types of filters: Group filters are at the top of the screen
![]() Status filters are at the bottom of the screen under Options
![]()
4. To download specific submissions, select them by ticking the checkbox beside the relevant student's name – filters may still be used, but each required item must be checked. Then, use the With selected... drop
down menu to select Download selected submissions
To download a single submission, first open the required document by clicking on it. Choose Save as to save a copy to your preferred location. This file will not be zipped, so extraction will not be necessary.
5. The zip file will download. To display the contents of the zip file:
On Windows computers You will need to extract the files out of the zip by clicking 'Extract all files' in the top left. (Instructions may vary depending on what version of Window you are using)
By leaving Show extracted files when complete ticked a window will open containing the files you extracted, ready for use. On Mac computers Go to Downloads and double-click on the zip file. The file will automatically be decompressed by Archive Utility into the same folder the zip file is in
Tip – once you have extracted (saved) the contents of the zip, ensure you mark student work in the selected folder. This will make it easier for you to zip up the files once you have finished marking. Download feedback filesIf you include a feedback file (eg marking guide, rubric) when you create the assignment, FLO will attach a file to every student (by putting their FAN at the front of the file name). The download process is the same as for submissions (above) except that you choose Download feedback files in a zip from the drop-down menu:
Download the grading worksheet1. Click on the assignment2. Click on ![]() 3. Select Download grading worksheet from the Grading action menu (at the top of the screen)
4. To open the grading worksheet:
5. The grading worksheet is not a zip file and therefore you will not need to extract anything. Save the grading worksheet in a location you will be able to remember Note: If you are saving files anywhere outside of the University network (eg USB Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive), please make sure you take regular backups of your work.
Next stepOnce you have finished marking, you will need to upload the marked files and grading worksheet.
|
Assignment - exclude sources in a Turnitin originality report
Removing a source from an originality report will 'recalculate' the similarity index without consideration to the removed source in question. This feature is useful when a paper has been submitted to Turnitin multiple times, and the originality report is reporting a high match (eg 100%) to the previous submission. Removing a source from an originality report provides a clearer similarity index (percentage). Steps
Your originality report will then recalculate (excluding the sources you selected). |
Assignment - grant extensions for assignments (Assignment extension request tool)This entry relates to the Assignment activity.
Note: When setting the due date for a resubmission, it is better to use the assignment grading screen. To change the initial
due date for an individual student or a subsection of students, apply user/group overrides.
Accessing the extension toolThe tool is available in every FLO topic and generally found either with the assessment information or in the top module. When you open the tool, you will be asked to log in again with your FAN and password. This is normal behaviour for the tool. If the tool has been deleted, you can add it back:
Adding assessments other than assignmentsThe Assignment extension tool is automatically populated with the Assignment activities in the topic, but you can add other activities to allow students to submit extension requests in a consistent manner. When you add other activities to the tool, you
will need to manually manage the extension inside the activity (eg for a quiz, you would create an override for the student).
Note: Manually added assignments do not roll over, they will need to be recreated the next time the topic runs.
Processing requestsWhen you open the tool, you will see the list of requests for the topic you are in, split into pending, approved and declined requests. You can also click on the View requests menu at the top of the page to either return to this page from elsewhere in the tool or view the requests from all the topics you coordinate. To process a request, click on the pending link in the Status column.
This will open a page with the full details of the request, including any uploaded documentation. Scrolling towards the bottom of the page allows you to:
Important: If you are granting an extension after the assignment cut-off date/time, you should warn students that late submissions will not be possible.
When you click Save and send, the extension date (new due date) will be set in FLO, and the student will be emailed with your decision. Alternatively, you can press Email Preview to review what is sent to the student or Save without email to approve the request without emailing the student.
Notification settingsBy default, topic coordinators will receive a daily email with a list of requests that need attention. However, you can change the notification frequency or allow other teaching staff to review requests for a topic. Change your email frequency
Note: FLO will stop sending notification emails two weeks after the topic’s end date, to prevent emails from unprocessed requests being sent indefinitely.
Nominate a new approverIf you are not going to be actively teaching in the topic, or if you have large student numbers, you can nominate other members of the teaching team to be notified of/process requests:
Note: These settings do not roll over. You will need to add approvers each time the topic runs.
Send emails to a shared accountYou can also send emails for pending requests to a shared email account (note that this only changes who is notified about requests, not who can access them).
Note: These settings do not roll over. You will need to set the shared email account each time the topic runs.
Limitations of the tool
The Assignment extension tool supports managing requests for extensions for the majority of topics, but this lightweight tool does not cater for all assignments:
If you have any queries around the suitability of the Assignment extension tool in your topic, please contact your local eLearning support team.
College settingsCollege support staff see a third menu option with additional settings, which are currently not functional. Click the button below for further information about these settings.
Set policy messages allows College staff to change the messages sent to students. This change will then be applied to all topics in the college. Students who create a new request will see messages that explain when and why they need to upload evidence when they submit their request. These messages are in the system is to discourage students from asking for an extension without a good reason,
and to make sure they understand that requesting an extension doesn't automatically result in it being approved. The default texts are consistent with University policy, but if the college wants to provide more details or other changes, they can do so as long as these instructions are still compliant with University policy. When students create a new request for an extension, they can choose different reasons for requesting the extension (Illness, Injury, DAP, Family tragedy and Other).
The table below shows where and when which message is shown. If the college has different policies about requiring evidence, it is possible to convey these policies through these messages. The Message content column shows the default text. These default texts can be deleted and replaced with other text. Clicking the Save button changes the text for all topics in that college.
The Download request option allows college staff to download a selection of requests in the college; for example, to report about numbers of requested and approved extensions for one semester. For privacy reasons the download will not include
any uploaded evidence, but be aware that the spreadsheet may still contain confidential data.
If you need any help, please contact your local eLearning support team. |
Assignment - grant extensions for assignments (Assignment grading screen)
Topic coordinators and teachers can grant students an extension beyond an assignment’s due date and cut-off date. This is usually done through the Assignment extension tool (which
partially automates the process) but in certain situations can be done in the Assignment grading screen, eg:
If you are wanting to change the initial due date for a selection of students, use a group or user override. To change
the date for all students, edit the assignment’s settings instead.
Steps
Where do students see their extension date?In their assignment:
On My FLO:
|
Assignment - hide and release marks/feedback to students
When you mark the assignments, you will likely want to hide the grades before you start marking, so that some students do not see their feedback before others. When you have finished marking you will likely want to show the grades so that marks and feedback can be released to students. Hiding and showing marks from inside the assignment
Hiding and showing marks from inside the gradebook
Assignments that are hidden will appear greyed out. Compare the two assignments below - assignment 1 is hidden from students, while assignment 2 is visible. |