Due dates and cut-off dates in Moodle

The MS 150 Statistics homework assignment due dates in Moodle were set in order to make sense to students in an online section. That homework assignments were due on the same day as the lecture surprised some students. After class I took a look at the due dates issue with the intention of altering the way due dates work. I ran into the same issue I have encountered in the past: the students will wind up confused as to which homework should be done after the lecture section. 

As an example, here are the homework assignments as currently configured for next week:​


The lecture on the material necessary to complete homework 2.1 will be delivered at 9:00 AM on Monday 19 January. Underneath the title of the homework is the due date, also 19 January. The lecture and homework dates match. 

Behind the scenes this is the result of the following settings:​


​The homework assignment is due on 19 January at 22:00, 10:00 PM. The homework is open for submission until 1700 (5:00 PM) on 26 January - a week later. There is no penalty for submission prior to the cut-off date.


This also puts the homework assignment on the same date as the lecture in the Moodle Calendar (in the Dashboard). You can look at the calendar to see what assignment you should complete that day. ​


If I set the due date to be one week after the lecture, as seen above, then...​


... the due date that you would see on the Moodle course home page is one week AFTER the lecture on that material. If you use the dates on the course home page to organize your work schedule, then you will be learning about chart types in the lecture on 26 January but doing homework based on the lecture a week earlier. To me, that is very confusing for you.

 


Those who use the calendar will have the same issue: they will be doing homework for a lecture that happened a week earlier. 

To get the course home page and the calendar to display the homework assignment on the same day as the lecture which explains the assignment, the due date has to be the same as the lecture date. Which is why the due date is at 22:00 on the same day. There is a seven day grace period for late submissions which cuts off at 17:00 (5:00 PM) on the seventh day. Why 5:00 PM and not midnight? Because 5:00 PM is the end of the business day - the business day does not end at midnight. Many deadlines are set to the end of the business day, the course reflects that practice.

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