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Instructors have the option to create assignments in their class zyBook. If a zyBook has assignments, you will see a tab labeled "Assignments" on the right-hand panel. Note that if you do not see the assignments tab, your instructor may have chosen not to use the feature.
Clicking on the assignment will reveal which activities are part of the assignment.
Completing assignments
Clicking on a section in the assignment list will navigate the student to that section where they can begin working on activities in the assignment.
As students complete activities within an assignment, their assignment score will increase until the due date.
Note that students can continue to work on activities after the due date and their work will be recorded but it will not be counted in the assignment. Also, note that if the due date changes or the student is granted an exception then they will get credit for any work they completed by the new due date even if they were working between the initial due date and the time at which the due date was changed or the extension was granted.
Point break down:
Multiple choice and Short answer questions are equal to the number of questions in the question set. For example, the following short answer question set has 3 questions so it is worth 3 points.
Animations are worth one point regardless of how many steps are in the animation. All steps of an animation must be viewed in completion in order to receive the point.
Drag and Drop activities are worth 1 point regardless of how many terms appear.
Manually submitting assignments
Some assignments have a submit button at the bottom. This button sends the student's assignment score to the grade book.
If a submit button is present, that means the assignment has been linked to the class grade book. The submit button will contain the name of the Learning Management System (LMS) your instructor is using (Canvas/Moodle/Blackboard/Brightspace/desire2learn).
If a submit button is not present, the instructor likely has chosen to manually download grades and upload them to the grade book directly.
Many zyBooks have auto-submit enabled. An easy way for a student to check if auto-submit is enabled is to scroll to the bottom of any of the sections in an assignment. If there is a submit button on the "Activity summary" card, auto-submit is not enabled. This means the student is responsible for clicking "Submit to (lms)" any time they want their score to be updated.
Note that a submit button is always present in the "Assignments" tab on the zyBook home page regardless of auto-submit being enabled.
- Students can submit their score as often as they like, there is no submission limit.
- Students can submit after the assignment due date. The score that is sent will only reflect work that was completed before the due date.
How auto-submit works
Some zyBooks have auto-submit enabled. Assignment scores are sent to the grade book anytime a student earns a new point in an assignment.
Assignment scores can be submitted until a student has activated their assignment. Each assignment in a zyBook has a corresponding link in the LMS. Students must activate each assignment individually by clicking each of the assignment links in their LMS.
If a student completes an assignment before they activate it, that student will need to manually submit their score on the "Assignments" tab by clicking the orange submit button.
Common errors:
1. Not activating the assignment
The most common error related to submitting assignments is clicking on the wrong link in the LMS. Here is an example of assignment links in Canvas.
If a student clicks the first link, they are only activating the assignment "Week 1 PA's". If the student begins work on assignment "Week 1 CA's" in the zyBook and they do not click the "Week 1 CA's" link in Canvas first, they will not be able to submit their score manually or via auto-submit and will see a warning message like the one below on each section included in the assignment.
Some students run into issues because they go to zybooks.com directly rather than clicking on a link to an assignment and activating their assignment. Then, later, when they do click on a link to an assignment, a second account might be created for them and they might be asked to purchase their subscription again. We would never expect a student to pay twice. If a student ends up in this situation they should review the help article, I already paid, so why am I being asked to subscribe again?
2. Being in the wrong section.
If a zyBook has multiple sections, the student must make sure that their LMS section matches their section in the zyBook. Students can view and update their section on the "My subscription" tab in their zyBook.
