Assignment upgrade tool

The Assignment upgrade tool is an administrator tool for upgrading old assignment types to the new assignment module in Moodle 2.3 onwards.

Note: It is recommended that admins upgrade all existing assignments to use the new assignment module as soon as possible, then disable the old assignment module, to avoid the confusion of having two assignment modules.

Upgrading assignments

To upgrade existing assignments to use the new assignment module

1. Go to Settings > 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 type of grading method included in Advanced Grading Methods. Owners of any upgraded assignments may wish to investigate the use of the Advanced Grading Methods feature.

Disabling the old assignment module

Once all existing assignments have been upgraded, the old assignment module can be disabled.

1. Go to Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Manage activities
2. Hide the Assignments 2.2 module by clicking on the eye in the hide/show column

Teachers will then have only the new assignment module available for selection in the activity chooser.

Restoring Assignments (2.2) into a 2.3 site

Currently, if a course with an old (2.2) type assignment is restored into a 2.4 site which has the old assignment module disabled, it will appear in the restore process but not then appear for the users, causing potential confusion. See the tracker issue here MDL-33952.

One temporary workaround if you are going to be restoring courses with old-type assignments is to NOT disable the old assignment module but instead to revoke the capability mod/assignment:addinstance from all users. In this way, the assignment will appear in its original form and may be used, but teachers will not be able to create any new Assignment 2.2 instances.