Assignment upgrade tool

The Assignment upgrade tool is an administrator tool for upgrading assignments in Moodle 2.2 and older to the new assignment module in Moodle 2.3 onwards.

It is recommended that admins upgrade all existing assignments to use the new assignment module as soon as possible after upgrading.

(Note: the old assignment module, used in Moodle 2.2 and earlier, is no longer part of standard Moodle. If you really, really want to use it,see below for how to reinstall it to your site.)

Upgrading assignments

To upgrade existing assignments to use the new assignment module

1. Go to Administration > Site Administration > Assignment Upgrade Helper.
2. Click List assignments that have not been upgraded to display a list of assignments created in a previous version of Moodle. This page lists the assignments created with an older version of Moodle that have not been upgraded to the new assignment module in Moodle 2.3. Not all assignments can be upgraded - if they were created with a custom assignment subtype, then that subtype will need to be upgraded to the new assignment plugin format in order to complete the upgrade.
3. Select the assignment(s) you wish to upgrade and click the Upgrade selected assignments button in the Batch operations box at the bottom of the screen. Or click the Upgrade all assignments button in the Batch operations box.
4. Confirm by clicking Continue.

A confirmation screen will appear. From here you can view the courses with the converted assignments.

List of assignments not yet upgraded

List of successfully upgraded assignments

Settings Mapping

The following table maps the settings in the old assignment module to the settings in the new assignment module.

New setting	Old setting	Comments
Assignment name	No change
Description	No change
Display description on course page	No change	This was a new setting in Moodle 2.2. The upgrade tool will set this to off if the assignment version being upgraded doesn't contain it
Allow submissions from	Available from	Nomenclature change*
Due date	No change
Always show description	Hide description before available date	Nomenclature change*
Prevent late submissions	No change
Require students click submit button	Enable "Send for marking" button	Nomenclature change*
Notify graders about submissions	Email alerts to teachers	Nomenclature change*
Notify graders about late submissions	New setting	Will upgrade to the value from Email alerts to teachers
Online text	New setting	Replaces old subtype. For an Online Text assignment this setting will upgrade to Yes. For all other subtypes it will upgrade to No
File submission	New setting	Replaces old subtype. For a Single File Upload or Advanced Uploading of Files assignment type this setting will upgrade to Yes. For all other subtypes it will upgrade to No
Max number of uploaded files	No change	For an Online Text or Offline Assignment this setting will be disabled
Max submission size	Max size	Nomenclature change*
Submission comments	Allow notes	Nomenclature change*
Feedback comments	New setting	Will upgrade to Yes for single file and advanced file and No for the others
Feedback files	New setting	Will upgrade to Yes for single file and advanced file and No for the others

'*'Implies no change in functionality, ie. the equivalent setting will be maintained.

New grading options

Versions of Moodle older than 2.2 did not contain Advanced grading methods. Likewise all versions of Moodle older than 2.3 did not contain the Marking guide grading method included in Advanced grading methods. Owners of any upgraded assignments may wish to investigate the use of the Advanced grading methods feature.

Reinstalling the old assignment module

If you absolutely must use the old assignment 2.2 module, then each time you upgrade Moodle to a version later than (or equal to) Moodle 2.7, you must:

1. upgrade your code to the latest version of Moodle;
2. replace the 'mod/assignment' folder with the one from https://github.com/moodlehq/moodle-mod_assignment/releases
3. run the upgrade.

Restoring course backups from Moodle 2.2 and older

To restore a course backup containing an assignment from Moodle 2.2 and older (e.g. from Moodle 1.9), the following procedure should be followed:

1. Ensure that both the old and the new assignment activity modules (called 'Assignment 2.2' and 'Assignment' respectively) are enabled in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Manage activities
2. Restore the course backup
3. Run the Assignment upgrade tool to convert all old assignments into new ones
4. Once all course backups are restored, disable 'Assignment 2.2' in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Manage activities