Guide overview
This article will explain how to:
- submit an assignment to a Blackboard submission point
- check an assignment has successfully submitted * essential second step
- manage files for submission (file format, name, and size)
It is the student’s responsibility to check that documents have uploaded properly onto Blackboard, otherwise penalties for late submission will apply. We strongly advise that you familiarise yourself with this Blackboard submission guide well in advance of your assignment deadlines. We strongly advise that you also familiarize yourself with the Blackboard Marks guide. Please access the guide at the following link; Blackboard Marks area guidance.
Submit an assignment to a Blackboard submission point
- Give yourself enough time to submit – allow time for any unforeseen circumstances.
- Ensure a file is not still open on your device when you choose to upload it. If it is open this can result in issues with uploading correctly.
- Where possible, submit using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox – do not submit work using Internet Explorer. This browser is no longer supported by Blackboard.
- Submit your assignment via the online system – do not use the Blackboard mobile app for assignment submission.
- Click on the following link to access HYMS Blackboard Learn Ultra: https://blackboard.hyms.ac.uk
- Authentication is via HYMS Office365 account details. Please access the following link to further guidance: log in to HYMS Blackboard.
- Upon successfully logging in, you will then be redirected back to the new HYMS Blackboard Learn Ultra homepage. Navigate to the relevant course / organisation area on the new left-hand ultra base navigation menu.
- Search and select the relevant course / organisation from the listed content / by using the search engine.
From the course / organisation, select from the left-hand menu the content area where the submission point is located (often a content area called assessment or similar). The submission point link may be immediately visible on the content area, or located in a clearly marked subfolder.- Click on the submission point link.
- Click on ‘browse local files’ and navigate to where your document is on your computer. Select the document and attach.*You can also now drag and drop documents to attach them. Select your document and drag and drop it within the dotted lines in the attach files field.
Additional reminderAs stated previously, ensure the file is not still open on your device when you upload. This can result in issues with uploading correctly.
- Your document will be listed as an attached file.
Click the submit button at the bottom of the page to complete the process.- A ‘success’ message will appear at the top of the page to indicate successful upload.
- Please now proceed to read the second step of this guide –check an assignment has successfully submitted * essential second step.
Check an assignment has successfully submitted * essential second step
As previously stated, it is the student’s responsibility to check that documents have uploaded properly onto Blackboard, otherwise penalties for late submission will apply.
As mentioned in the previous step, at the end of the submission process, a ‘success’ message will appear at the top of the submission page after you click on the submit button. This indicates successful upload.
However, there are additional checks you now need to complete.
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- Ensure that any uploaded content appears as expected on the grading page after clicking submit. Please see the below screenshot of an example standard Word document upload. Click on the image to enlarge it.
- Check any content downloads as expected. Please see the link to any uploaded content under attempt, to the right of the page. From here you can click to download content.
- Check your submission receipt. Upon successful submission, a receipt is generated and will be sent to your HYMS email account
- Ensure that any uploaded content appears as expected on the grading page after clicking submit. Please see the below screenshot of an example standard Word document upload. Click on the image to enlarge it.
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Emails will be queued by Blackboard and could take several minutes before they are received. Please view the below example screenshot and click on the image to enlarge it.
If you have uploaded content, please ensure you check details such as the file name and the file size of the upload in the receipt- that this is as expected. In particular, that there has been no error during upload resulting in an issue such as an empty document upload (the file size would say ‘0 bytes’ if this had occurred). *This is not to be confused with ‘size of written submission’ which refers to content written directly in the text box on the upload page (writing in the text box on the upload page is not standard practice at HYMS). Please see the below example screenshot of where to find the relevant information on the receipt.
It is also additionally possible to access receipts from the Blackboard Marks area. Navigate to the new Marks area on the new left-hand ultra base navigation menu.
Once you have clicked on Marks from the navigation menu, you will be directed to a list of all of your courses. Scroll down to the relevant course. Content will not fully display on the initial summary view. Click on view all work to see content in full.
You will then be redirected to detailed content in that particular course. Click on the submitted tab. Click on submission receipts at the bottom to view the receipts for submitted assignment work. You will see a list of receipts for submitted assignments.
As with an email receipt, ensure you check the size of the submitted work is not zero, as this would indicate an issue with submission.
As stated previously, we strongly advise that you also familiarize yourself with the Blackboard Marks guide. Please access the guide at the following link; Blackboard Marks area guidance.
Manage files for submission (file format, name, and size)
File format
The Blackboard assignment submission tool accepts most file types, but only Word (.doc and .docx) and Acrobat (.pdf) file formats should be used for text based assignments.
If you are not using Microsoft Word to create your document then you may need to ‘save as’ and select either the .doc, .docx or .pdf file format as the file type for your document to be saved as.
File name
It is good practice to use a concise naming convention for your documents.
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- Keep file names as concise as possible while still being meaningful (there is a maximum limit to file names in Blackboard).
- Only use dashes (-) or underscores (_) for punctuation. Characters such as ampersands (&) or + signs will cause problems when uploaded, usually resulting in an error. Instead of punctuation, you could capitalise the first letter of each individual word in the file name, this makes file names without spaces easy to read e.g., ThisIsMyFile.doc.
- Examples of good file names: EssayTitle_draft.doc, myFileNameFINAL.docx, essay-title_final.pdf.
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File size
You can check and reduce the size of your work. This may be necessary when submitting files to Blackboard.
Check file size
You can check on the size of your existing files by:
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- PC – hover your mouse pointer over a file to see the current file size, or right click on the file and choose properties.
- Mac – click on a file to select it and use ⌘ + i
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Resize content
You can resize images before embedding them into your work. Please access the following links to some quick guides on how to do this with several common applications.
You can also reduce PDF file size. Please access the following link for further guidance; reduce PDF file size.
File size compression may result in some loss of quality so be careful about compressing too much. It may require a bit of trial and error to get the right balance between file size and quality.