Policy on Extensions (for illness, etc.)

A clarification on the late policy for workbooks.

The Parts of Class and Grading (Workbooks) describes workbook grading.

If you cannot turn in your workbook by the late cutoff, you may ask for an extension by emailing the instructor. If your extension is confirmed by email from the instructor, you may turn an assignment in after the cutoff. It will be treated as a late assignment, but will be marked as “Late Extended” to remind us that there was an extenuating circumstance (if we need to consider late penalties, as described below).

Extensions may be requested when some unexpected reason prevents a student from doing their work in the normal time frame. Extensions may be requested for medical reasons (including mental health reasons) or emergencies (e.g., a death in the family). Requests are taken at face value - we generally will trust students and not ask for documentation.

The late policy is designed to encourage students to do the work required to understand the late material enough to move on. We therefore only allow late assignments to earn “standard” points. With late assignments, students must still sufficiently complete the standard parts of the workbook. We do not want students spending their time trying to do advanced aspects of old assignments: we want them to move on to current assignments so that they do not fall behind. See FAQ - The Whys? (Why the hard deadlines and cutoffs?)

For final grading, late assignments count as “standard” grades (see Parts of Class and Grading (Computing Final Grades)). If a student has late workbook submissions on multiple occassions, there may be a penalty. Generally, one or two late submissions is not a problem; situations with more than two late submissions will be considered on a case-by-base basis.