Assignments submitted through Canvas will now be due at 11:59pm and have consistent late penalties applied university-wide. This protocol change is intended to improve the student experience in Canvas and was also a response to feedback from students on the consistency and perceived fairness of various academic administration practices at UTS. The update was recommended by an Academic Administration Working Group and has been implemented in Faculty Board Protocols. For an overview of the impacts on your Canvas site, see our explainer on Standardised submissions and hear how these changes will support you and students.
In this blog, we answer 4 frequently asked questions about implementing consistent due times and late penalties in Canvas.
Consistent due times
Which assignments in Canvas must be due at 11:59 PM?
All assessments submitted via Canvas must have a standard deadline of 11:59 PM.
The standard deadline applies to all assessments except for:
- Regular tasks that must be submitted before or during a synchronous class, such as weekly homework, pre-class or in-class quizzes, etc.
- Single assessment tasks that are performed and assessed during class time such as presentations
- Exams, including take-home exams, scheduled at the end of the teaching session
Late Penalties
Is the 5% late penalty applied to the assignment total possible marks or the mark achieved by the student?
The 5% penalty is applied to the total possible marks/points for the assessment task.
Example: The total points possible for an assessment task is 100. For this task, the 5% penalty equals 5 marks that will be deducted from a student’s score each day it is late, up to 7 calendar days (maximum of 35 marks). A student submits their assignment 1 day late – they receive a score of 75, but with the 5% late penalty applied, the score is reduced to 70.
If a submission is made 30 minutes after the due time, will it incur a penalty under the new policy?
A submission made within 60 minutes after the due time should not incur a late penalty, according to the updated Coursework Assessment Procedure (s4.35).
However, in Canvas:
- A submission made between 11:59PM–00:59AM will still appear as ‘Late’ in Canvas Grades to staff and students
- If ‘Automatically apply deduction to late submissions’ has been selected in the Gradebook settings, a deduction will also automatically be applied when a mark/grade is applied to the submission
- To align with the Coursework Assessment Procedure, the ‘Late’ status of a submission needs to be manually changed to ‘None’
- For more detailed instructions check out our Manage late penalties in Canvas resource
How should I apply the late penalty policy with Grades/No marks subjects?
Subjects with a Grades, no marks policy are those where students receive a letter grade rather than a numerical mark. In Canvas, these subjects typically have a hidden numerical score for each assessment. This is for calculating the final subject grade at the end of session. Due to the underlying numerical score, late penalties can be applied to submissions for grades, no marks assessments.
For example, consider the following scenario:
An assignment is due on Monday. The total possible points for this assignment is 100. The policy indicates that a late submission incurs a 5% penalty for each day it is late, up to seven days.
A student submits their work two days late. They initially receive a score of 85 (HD). With the 5% late penalty applied for each of the two late days, their score is reduced by 10% of the total possible points, resulting in a final mark of 75 (D). The grade D is the grade visible to the student.
After seven days, any late submission must receive a failing grade (F) and remain unmarked.