Introducing Classes & Assignments

Matt_Shields

Hello instructor community!  As usual, the latest Onshape update is full of awesome improvements and new features.  But today’s update is particularly exciting for educators.  As of today, all Education Enterprise subscribers will see a big new feature called Classes & Assignments.

As a former STEM and CAD teacher, this is the feature I always dreamed of.  The goal is to make distributing and collecting student CAD assignments easier than ever before.  With Classes & Assignments, you can assign work to an entire class of students through Onshape with the push of a button.  And all of their work, as well as helpful analytics, is organized in a slick new interface.  Definitely go check it out!

If you have any questions, feedback, or ideas please reply to this post.  We can’t wait to hear from you.

emagdalenaC2i

I assume this is a feature of the educational version only, or is it also included in Onshape Enterprise?

I would love to see a video on this new features.

Matt_Shields

Yes, this feature is for Education Enterprise only.  And for a full video description of the features, please check out this course in our Learning Center:
https://learn.onshape.com/courses/classes-assignments

ed__charlwood

This looks great Matt, it's like Google Classroom has come to Onshape. I am excited to try it once term resumes. 

matthew_mueller537

@ed__charlwood we're excited to hear what you think about Classes & Assignments! Please come back here if you have any questions or feedback on what can be improved.

I just wanted to mention here that this feature is not meant to be a full Learning Management System like Google Classroom, but only to help administer assignments and access student documents in Onshape. You will still need an LMS to keep track of grades and due dates, but you can use C&A in Onshape to provide instructions in a starter document for all of your students.

ian_d_gardiner

Many thanks to Onshape for offering these new features. These will be so helpful to teachers and students. We all want students to have the best possible experience of learning CAD without the distractions of data management, software updates, and lacking a suitable workstations. I've watched many students struggling with crashing computers, upgrading their software, and file management. It is wonderful to focus on CAD and get students excited and confident in their ability to design.

sean_rastsmith154

Trying to use this to let students start with a general file and make a copy of it. However, the Publish Assignment button is greyed out when I select a file. What settings do I need on the starter document for this?

Nevermind, I realized I needed to hit Apply, then Publish...   Long morning already...

Domenico_DiMare

@sean_rastsmith154 Is the class published? The class has to be published before an assignment can be.

Also, if you haven't already I recommend taking a look at this short self-paced course on Classes and Assignments.

Matt_Shields

As Domenico said, the Publish assignment button will be grayed out until the class is published.  Also, if you make any changes to the assignment, the Publish assignment button will be grayed out until you press the Apply button.  (that one got me).

steven_smitka

I'm looking into moving my school from Teams to Classes and was wondering if there's an option of after the part is correct, there's a way to mark is as complete. I see the submitted portion, but it would be great to add completed or something similar, unless I'm missing this step! 

matthew_mueller537

@steven_smitka great question. Unfortunately there is no way in Classes & Assignments to mark off that a submission has been graded or is complete. We decided to not include any sort of grading system in Onshape because most educators would use a Learning Management System for that, and we don't want you to keep track of grades in multiple places. That being said, I understand that it could be useful to keep track of which submission documents you've already checked within Onshape. We've heard similar requests from other educators, so will explore options for providing this kind of functionality.

steven_smitka

That's totally understandable with not having LMS capabilities with grades and such, but having a status change to completed would be a HUGE upgrade in this. 

marc_nelson875

I really appreciate the Classes and assignments feature in Onshape Education Enterprise, which I have been using for a year now.  Several enhancements would benefit teachers specifically.

1. Ability to copy assignments to other classes 
2. Ability to mark as completed/assessed/evaluated.
3. Integrating "Submitted" with "Action Items" for teachers
4. ***Dream Feature*** Integration with Google Classroom Assignments  (one can wish, right?)

Matt_Shields

Hi @marc_nelson875.  Feedback from our educators in invaluable, so thank you!  A couple of these are in the works.  Stay tuned.

lesa_blanchard

This is WONDERFUL! I only noticed this option when I started again with my 3rd trimester classes, and it is a true game changer. Is there a way to give students a link to join my class instead having to invite them all/upload a csv? 

lesa_blanchard

Another thing that would be really great would be the option to hide public documents from students. It's hard to assess a student's ability when they "collaborate" with someone who uploaded a public document. They also (I teach middle school) find very inappropriate designs.

jesus_hernandez787

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/95095#Comment_95095

About assignment grading can the status of an assignment be changed inside a student assignment file?

Matt_Shields

From the assignment submission list, submissions can now be set as "Graded" or "Needs revision."

Ste_Wilson

Thats going to make life a bit easier. Thanks.

michal_jordan

This looks fantastic, Matt! It’s as if Google Classroom has been seamlessly integrated into Onshape. I’m really looking forward to experimenting with it once the new term starts.

hibisca_kimura

Thank you for adding the "Graded" / "Needs revision" feature! Is there a way to "grade" from the document view itself, or can it only be accessed from the assignment submission list?

Matt_Shields

Currently, that option is only available as a manual check from the assignment submission list.

BTackett

I have assigned multiple parts to students in two different assignments that I now want them to use to create an assembly with those parts. However, my students are unable to insert parts they made in "Assignment 1" and "Assignment 2" into "Assignment 3" where they will complete the Assembly of those parts. Is there a way to make this work? Currently, any parts that were made in a different assignment are grayed out to other assignments and not selectable.

Matt_Shields

@BTackett, in the future I think the way to do this would be to use submission option 3 (students can choose what to submit) for Assignment 2 and Assignment 3. That way, students could create new parts in the same document as Assignment 1 and then attach that document to assignments 2 and 3 when they begin the assignment. Probably better to have everything in one document.

But in the meantime, I think the way to go would be to have students go to the Assembly, click Insert, and then choose "Other documents." From there, they should be able to insert the parts they made in other assignments.

BTackett

@Matt_Shields I'll try this approach tomorrow when I see my students, but I seem to recall that we tried that approach and it didn't allow them to choose the grayed out part from "Submission 1" as shown in your example screen shot. Going forward I'll do it the way you suggest.

sean_roberts061

I have just started using the classes and assignments to teach CAD to 9th grader in my Intro to Engineering classes. For some reason, many of them, when they made copies of the workspace in "1.1 - Jumping Into Onshape", they don't show me the progress. I have several who have finished tagging items in the scavenger hunt, but I see "no progress". I not sure how that happened, what or if the fix is, or how to prevent it. Thanks for any feedback or suggestions.

Matt_Shields

Hi, @sean_roberts061. Where do you see "no progress?"

Thanks,
Matt

sean_roberts061

Within the classes under the assignments tab, within the activity where it shows the "in-progress", "submitted", etc. Several of these showing not started (see image) have, in fact, finished. But instead of "submit", their option is to "share".

sean_roberts061

Looks like the students were making copies early rather than "starting the assignment" and following the prompts. Problem solved. Thank you.

Matt_Shields

Glad you resolved the problem! We are working on processes to make it more obvious to students that they need to start the assignment, rather than making their own copies to work in.

jason_orlando

I just learned of Classes and have been using it. I have a suggestion: From the educator side, I would love to be able to click on an individual student name and get their assignment list view and all of their statuses instead of having to go in and out of each assignment looking for one specific student. So far so good though, this has been a nice addition to managing students submission and checking their work off.