AVISO: Unexcused Late Assignments Receive No Credit

(If you have been turning your assignments in on time please ignore this message.  And, thanks.)

If you turned in an assignment late and are wondering where your points are, you may not be getting any.  (Excused late assignments are not included here.)

Let’s cut to the chase: What the situation in the end comes down to is reasonable practicality.

Here’s the situation: Spring semester 2011, for e.g., the 100+ students in my four courses have been assigned a total of 2,460+ written items to be submitted. In addition, the 100+ students were each given the opportunity to submit one Extra Credit Case Study and one Extra Credit Review, which at least theoretically could add another 200 papers to the “pile.” Four hundred of those are generally fairly lengthy items (term papers, exams, extra credit papers, and some projects). So we’re talking about approximately two-thousand-five-hundred [2,500] papers, exams and forum assignments for the semester.

In order to carefully read, respond, and record that quantity of written material, it must be turned in in a timely manner, and as scheduled. I actually really like reading what you have to say, but even in the Garden of Paradise there are limits.

This first week about twenty items were turned in late.  At that first-week-of-the-semester rate, for the semester (and it’s generally higher the last three weeks of a semester), one would expect about 300 late papers and forum postings for the term.  Each of those, should they be graded, needs to be read and evaluated on one screen, then have a score entered by hand in the Gradebook, which is in another part of the Moodle system—and that is not an efficient or reasonable thing to do.

Therefore, unexcused late assignments receive no credit.

If you can think of a better way to read, evaluate, score, and record the 2,500 items, please let me know and I’ll be happy to give it a try (throwing the paper set down the stairs and assigning grades based on the step they land on does not work anymore with electronic submissions).

Thanks,

Tim Roufs