The assignments tool is a very simple tool that allows your students to upload documents to the course.It can be used to accept responses to open questions from individuals or groups, or for uploading any other form of document
You can make files visible to all students by default, or only visible to yourself according to the requirements of your course. Making all files visible is useful when, for instance, you want to ask students to share opinions on each others papers, or when you want to give them experience in publishing texts globally. Keep files invisible if, for example, you want ask everybody the same question but to avoid 'cheating'. Making the documents invisible will also allow you to have some form of control over when a document is available to all the other students.
If you want students to hand in a document for grading you're best, from within the tool, to assign submissions to a folder.
You can use the the tool to set deadlines and instructions for delivery, as well as a maximum grade/score.