Late Policy

in Policies

Each specific class activity has a specific late policy. See Parts of Class.

All due dates are for the date posted. If something is due on Monday, then any time Monday will be OK. 12:01am Tuesday is not Monday. All times are in Madison.

All deadlines have a reason. For example, you need to do online discussions promptly so others can read what your wrote and respond; you need to do quizzes and surveys in time so we can look at the results and adjust class accordingly. In general, I want you finishing things so we can move on to the next.

Most deadlines have two dates: a “due date” and a “cutoff”.

There are hard and soft deadlines. It is important to turn things in when they are due (the soft deadline) – there’s usually a reason why I want you to do it when I ask. The Parts of Class explains the deadlines for each assignment type, and explains their rationale.

Due dates are “soft:” if you turn things in after the time, it will be noted as late. Note: for Canvas, this is a binary decision (late or not) - course staff will look more closely at times when we are grading. A big reason for the soft deadlines is to get people to turn in their work so that others can look at it and discuss it.

Cutoffs are “hard:” after the time, you cannot turn things in anymore. We will not accept things after the cutoff except in very exceptional circumstances. For assignments (discussions, seek and finds), this is because I don’t want you doing them after the fact: I’d rather you focus on the current topics instead of going back to old stuff. For other assignments, it’s about grading: I need to get all the assignments so I can get them graded.

Consistency matters: if you usually turn things in on time, but turn an assignment a few hours after the due date, we won’t care. If you turn in all of your discussion assignments after the deadline, that will probably cost you.

As noted in Grading, if you are chronically late, you will be penalized. If you are a few hours late on 2-3 discussion postings, we won’t notice. If you are often late, we will reduce your grade.