[ARCHIVED] Multiple due dates for a single assignment (via Student in Multiple sections)

[jenniferhudson]

Hi All, 

I have a class that has multiple sections: some for the days students meet in-person (a Monday section and a Wednesday section) and a section for everybody (Art 311 B). See below:

I have an assignment where I'd like to have 2 due dates for each student. A discussion board where they embed an image (due date 1) and then come back and comment on other's posts (due date 2). I attempted to do this by giving multiple due dates, one due date for the Monday section to post their image, one due date for the Wednesday section to post their image, and a last due date for everyone (Art 311 B) to comment. See screenshot: 

However, students have informed me they only see the latest due date. So, even if a student is in 2 sections (ie Wednesday and Art 311 B), they only see the due date for Art 311 B. This checks out in student view too as the free choice assignment is missing from either the 21st or 22nd, as shown above. 

Any ideas? It'd be great to have multiple due dates for a single student on an assignment. 

Thanks!

Jenn

[James · Accepted solution]

@jenniferhudson 

Canvas does not support multiple due dates for an assignment. This functionality was requested in a feature idea back in 2015: Multiple Due Dates (checkpoints) for Discussions

That thread has a lot of comments and work arounds that people use. My current solution is to make the due date for the initial post and then create a separate non-graded assignment that serves as a reminder that there is a follow-up discussion that needs to be happening. The follow-up reminder doesn't open until after the initial due date is passed and then it ends when the discussion ends. 

Another thing that works is to send out reminders via the Inbox messaging that the discussion is still going on. The "Message Students Who" won't work to identify those who have made their initial post but not their follow-up posts unless (perhaps) you go through and grade the discussion in stages.

Ultimately, what I find is that the students who are concerned about their grade read the instructions and do the assignment properly even if I don't remind them. Those who "only need a C" or who live by the To-Do list don't come back no matter how many messages I send or that I put it back on their To Do list. That might be because discussions are only worth 10% of the grade and they think they can still pass without doing them. I'm not sure because they don't respond to any of my emails trying to check up on them and find out what's going on. These are the same people who cannot be bothered to go into the course modules and watch the videos I've made.

The idea of multiple sections will not work, although it was a valiant effort and one I hadn't thought of before. The assignment date overrides (called differentiated assignments) ultimately only returns one due date. That makes sense from the student perspective as you can't tell a student that it is due on Monday but also due on Tuesday and on next Sunday. That would lead to confusion and the student thinking they had until Sunday to get it done.