ANU Wattle Learning Management System: Advanced Tips for Customising Your Dashboard and Submitting Assignments

18 April 2026 3 min read

The Australian National University (ANU) has run the Wattle learning management system (built on the Moodle platform) campus-wide since 2013. By 2024, it was carrying the day-to-day teaching load for more than 26,000 enrolled students and around 3,800 courses (ANU IT Services, 2024, Wattle Annual Usage Report). The system is more than a repository of course materials — it is the central digital hub for assignment submission, marking and feedback, collaborative discussion and grade tracking. With Semester 1 2025 approaching, getting to know Wattle’s advanced customisation features and its assignment submission workflow can keep you clear of avoidable technical slip-ups: ANU Student Central data shows that about 12% of assignment-related enquiries each semester come down to two issues — ‘attaching the wrong file’ or ‘missing the deadline’ (ANU Student Central, 2024, Service Desk Analytics Q3). This article takes an objective, practical view of Wattle dashboard customisation, assignment submission strategy, notification management and common troubleshooting, for the benefit of current students.

Customising Your Dashboard and Optimising Course Layout

Wattle’s default dashboard shows recent activity from all of your enrolled courses in a timeline format, but a few personal tweaks can make a noticeable difference to how quickly you can find what you need. Every user can enter the customisation state via the ‘Turn editing on’ switch in the top-right corner of the page.

Core workflow: on the dashboard, click the ‘Customise this page’ button and drag blocks around to reorganise them. A layout worth recommending is to put the ‘Timeline’ block at the top centre and set its filter to ‘Due within the next 7 days’, so upcoming assignments and quizzes appear first. Keep the ‘Calendar’ block pinned in the right-hand column, and place the ‘Latest Announcements’ block in the left-hand column.

Filtering and hiding courses: for courses that have finished or are no longer active, you can ‘hide’ them from the dashboard. The path is: click the gear icon on the top-right of the course card → select ‘Hide this course’. This does not unenrol you or remove your access — it simply takes the course out of the homepage view. ANU’s Centre for Learning and Teaching (2024) recommends in the Wattle Student Guide that you tidy up your dashboard at the start of each semester, keeping no more than 8 active courses visible to reduce cognitive load.

Adding, Removing and Configuring Blocks

Besides the default blocks, you can manually add an ‘HTML block’ to embed personal notes or frequently used links. To add one: with editing mode on, open the ‘Add a block’ drawer and pick the type you want. Some colleges (such as the College of Engineering and Computer Science) push specific blocks to students — for example, a ‘Turnitin similarity preview’ block that lets you quickly check originality before you submit.

Fine-Grained Filtering in the Timeline View

The timeline block supports filtering by four preset ranges: ‘Overdue’, ‘Next 1 day’, ‘Next 7 days’ and ‘All’. More advanced users can click the ‘Sort’ option to order tasks by ‘due date (ascending)’ and tick ‘show only unfinished tasks’, so completed items don’t clutter the view.

Key Pre-Submission Checklist

Wattle’s assignment activity usually ships with a set of preset rules, and not reading the instructions carefully before submitting is the most common cause of avoidable mark deductions. The ANU Education Quality Office (2024) notes in its Digital Submission Standards that about 7% of assignment submissions are rejected by the system because of incorrect file formats or corrupted files.

File format and size limits: most courses require PDF (.pdf), while some science courses accept Excel (.xlsx) or image files (.png/.jpg). Wattle’s default single-file upload limit is 50 MB; files larger than this will trigger an upload failure message. If a file exceeds 50 MB, compress the image resolution or split the submission (if your tutor allows it). Turnitin plagiarism detection only works on text-based files (such as .docx and .pdf); image files cannot go through the similarity scan.

File naming conventions: some tutors set up auto-grading or batch-download rules that require filenames to include your student ID or the course code — for example ‘u1234567_COMP1100_A1.pdf’. Not following the naming convention can lead to your file being mistaken for a non-submission. Check the ‘File naming requirements’ field in the assignment brief before you submit.

Drafts vs. Final Submission

Wattle’s ‘Save changes’ button only saves a draft, and tutors cannot see draft content. Your submission is only complete once you click the ‘Submit assignment’ button and see the green ‘Submitted’ confirmation banner. ANU IT Service Desk (2024) records show that each semester around 40 cases involve students mistaking a saved draft for a completed submission, which then leaves the assignment overdue.

Verifying Your Submission

After submitting, return to the assignment page, confirm the status reads ‘Submitted for grading’, and download the uploaded copy to test that it opens. If the file won’t open or content is missing, re-upload immediately, before the deadline.

Managing Notification Preferences and Avoiding Information Overload

By default, Wattle fires off a large volume of notification emails for every course — new forum posts, grade releases, assignment deadline reminders and more. If left unconfigured, your inbox can receive 30-50 system emails a day, and genuinely important notices get buried.

Global notification settings: the path is your profile picture → ‘Preferences’ → ‘Notifications’. On this page you can switch ‘Forum posts’ and ‘Assignment reminders’ from ‘instant email’ to a ‘daily digest’, or turn off non-essential notifications altogether. The ANU Student Experience Office (2024) suggests in its Digital Learning Tools Guide that you keep ‘Assignment deadline changes’ and ‘Grade releases’ as instant notifications and set everything else to digest mode.

Course-level muting: for highly active course forums (such as discussion tutorials that require weekly posts), you can mute that course’s notifications on its own. The path is: open the course page → click the ‘More’ menu in the top-right → ‘Notifications’ → switch the ‘Forum posts’ slider off. This does not affect notification settings for your other courses.

Optimising Mobile Push Notifications

The official Wattle mobile app (Moodle App) supports push notifications. In the app settings you can switch off ‘grade notifications’ individually to avoid constant interruptions while keeping ‘assignment deadline reminders’ on. App and web notification settings are independent, so configure both.

Spotting Urgent Notifications

Wattle has a ‘Site Notifications’ area at the top of the dashboard for urgent messages such as system maintenance or exam platform changes. Check this area at least once a week so a system upgrade never leaves you unable to reach an assignment portal.

Multi-File Submissions and Version Management

Some courses require you to submit several separate files (for example, code files, a report PDF and a data spreadsheet). Wattle lets you upload multiple files in one go, or in batches.

Batch upload: on the submission page, click ‘Add file’ and hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac) to select several files and upload them at once. Uploaded files are listed in alphabetical order; if you need to reorder them, drag the arrangement icon next to the filename. Version overwriting: if you upload the wrong file before the deadline, simply click ‘Add file’ again and upload the new version — the old file is replaced automatically. The system keeps a timestamped record of every submission, and tutors can see the full version history.

Deleting files and resubmitting: before the deadline you can delete an individual uploaded file (click the trash icon next to it) and upload a replacement. This does not trigger the ‘resubmission’ workflow. If your tutor has enabled ‘allow resubmissions’, you can update files a limited number of times after the deadline, but each resubmission is marked as ‘updated’ on the tutor’s side.

When to Use ZIP Archives

For assignments made up of many small files (such as multiple .py files in a programming task), pack them into a ZIP archive before uploading. Wattle automatically extracts ZIP files for tutors to preview, but it will not run the files inside. Some courses explicitly require ZIP format, so confirm the brief before submitting.

Detecting Corrupted Files

After upload, Wattle displays a preview thumbnail (for PDFs/images) or the file size for each file. If a file shows as ‘0 bytes’ or the preview fails, delete it and re-upload. Common causes of corruption include incomplete uploads after a network drop, and filenames containing special characters (such as ’#’ or ’%’).

Group Assignments: Submission and Member Management

Wattle supports group assignments, and whether the group leader or any member can submit depends on the tutor’s settings.

Submission permissions: on a group assignment page, if the tutor has enabled ‘all members can submit’, an upload by any member counts as the whole group submitting. If it is set to ‘only group leader can submit’, non-leader members who click the submit button will see the message ‘This assignment can only be submitted by the group leader’. The ANU Centre for Learning and Teaching (2024) advises in its Guide to Group Collaboration that the group leader submit at least 48 hours before the deadline and notify the group to verify the status.

Viewing group members: in the ‘Group’ block on the right side of the assignment page, click ‘Participants’ to see the current member list. If a member is missing or wrong, contact the Course Convener straight away — Wattle group lists are usually imported manually by teaching staff and cannot be edited by students.

Version Management After Group Submission

Once the group leader has submitted, other members cannot modify the uploaded files. To update, the leader must resubmit a new version; the system overwrites the old files and keeps the version history. Agree on who owns the final version within the group in advance, so multiple people don’t edit at once and create version chaos.

Peer Assessment After Group Work

Some courses activate a ‘Peer Assessment’ module after group assignments. Once the submission is in, Wattle automatically allocates peer review tasks, usually due within 7 days of the submission deadline. Failing to complete your peer reviews can lead to a deduction from your individual mark.

Turnitin Originality Checks and Reading Similarity Reports

Turnitin is Wattle’s built-in plagiarism detection tool, and most written assignments must pass through it. Understanding the structure of a similarity report helps you avoid unintentional plagiarism.

Report generation time: after submission, Turnitin usually takes 5-30 minutes to generate a similarity report. While it is being generated, the assignment status shows ‘Processing’. Once the report is ready, click the ‘similarity percentage’ figure on the assignment page to view the full report. The ANU Academic Skills Centre (2024) notes that similarity below 15% is generally considered acceptable, but the exact threshold is set by each course’s tutor.

Reading the report: the report colour-codes matched sources (blue = 0%, green = 1-24%, yellow = 25-49%, orange = 50-74%, red = 75-100%). Focus on the ‘highlighted matches’ area and check whether they stem from improper citation or direct copying. Common false positives: reference lists, course names and generic terms (such as ‘The Australian National University’) may be flagged as matches but are normally not counted as violations.

Excluding Quotations and References

In a Turnitin report, tutors can set exclusions for ‘quotes’ and ‘references’ sections. Students cannot set exclusions themselves, but you can use the ‘preview’ feature before submitting to see the raw similarity score without exclusions.

Resubmission and Overwriting

If your first submission comes back with high similarity, you can delete the file and re-upload a revised version before the deadline. Turnitin will regenerate the report and overwrite the old one. Note that some tutors set ‘single submission only’, in which case overwriting is not possible.

Viewing Grades and Downloading Feedback Files

Once assignments are marked, Wattle aggregates your marks across all courses on the ‘Grades’ page and provides any feedback attachments from tutors.

Finding the Grades page: click the ‘Grades’ link in the left-hand navigation on your dashboard to open the overall gradebook. The default view summarises grades for all courses; click a course name to expand the detailed marks and comments. Downloading feedback files: if a tutor has uploaded an annotated PDF or audio feedback, the Grades page shows a ‘Feedback file’ column — click to download. The ANU Education Quality Office (2024) requires tutors to finish marking and release feedback within 15 working days of the assignment deadline.

Grade notification settings: in Preferences, you can turn on ‘email notification when grades are released’. If you leave it off, you’ll need to refresh the Grades page manually. Checking the Grades page every two weeks is a sensible habit, so no assignment slips through unmarked.

Grade Appeals

If you disagree with a mark, lodge a submission through Wattle’s ‘Appeal’ function within 10 working days of the grade being released, or contact your Course Convener. Wattle keeps a record of the appeal and the tutor’s response, which serves as supporting evidence in the formal process.

Exporting and Backing Up Grades

On the Grades page you can click ‘Export’ to download your grades as a CSV or Excel file, useful for personal records or scholarship applications. ANU Student Central recommends exporting once at the end of each semester as a backup of your academic progress.

FAQ

Q1: After submitting an assignment in Wattle, how do I confirm the file uploaded successfully and isn’t corrupted?

After submission, a green ‘Submitted’ banner appears at the top of the page and the assignment status reads ‘Submitted for grading’. It is worth clicking ‘Download’ right away, saving the uploaded file locally and opening it to verify. If the file shows as ‘0 bytes’ or won’t open, delete it and re-upload before the deadline. ANU IT Service Desk (2024) data shows that about 85% of file corruption cases can be caught in advance by a download-and-verify check.

Q2: How long does a Turnitin similarity report take to generate in Wattle, and what if the score is over 30%?

Turnitin reports usually generate within 5-30 minutes of submission. If the similarity score is over 30%, open the report and inspect the highlighted matches to see whether they come from improper citation or direct copying. You can delete the file and upload a revised version before the deadline, and Turnitin will regenerate the report. The ANU Academic Skills Centre (2024) recommends using the ‘preview’ function before submitting to check the raw similarity, making sure it stays below the threshold set for the course (usually 15-25%).

Q3: How do I set up Wattle notifications so I only get assignment deadline reminders and not a flood of forum posts?

The path is your profile picture → ‘Preferences’ → ‘Notifications’. Change ‘Forum posts’ from ‘instant email’ to ‘daily digest’ or ‘off’, while keeping ‘Assignment deadline changes’ and ‘Grade releases’ as instant notifications. To mute a single course, go to that course page → ‘More’ menu → ‘Notifications’ → switch the ‘Forum posts’ slider off. Research by the ANU Student Experience Office (2024) shows that students using this configuration cut their average weekly email volume from 45 to 8 messages.

References

ANU IT Services. 2024. Wattle Annual Usage Report 2024.
ANU Student Central. 2024. Service Desk Analytics Q3 2024.
ANU Education Quality Office. 2024. Digital Submission Standards for Students.
ANU Academic Skills Centre. 2024. Turnitin Similarity Report Interpretation Guide.
ANU Student Experience Office. 2024. Digital Learning Tools Guide for New Students.
Unilink Education. 2024. ANU Wattle User Experience Database.