[Course Settings] Default due time by section + Default available time by section

[hawkin28]

Problem statement:

I teach 3 sections of the same course. I want my due time to be 30 minutes prior to class starting time. There are two problems. First, that you can only set a default due time for the whole course, not by section, and second, that you can only set a default due time to be on the hour--you can't specify a minute. The second thing I want is a default availability time. I make the homework available during the last five minutes of class (which happens to fall on the :45). I would also want this by section.

Proposed solution:

Proposed solution: (in Settings > Course Details) Have a default due time for each section--not just the whole course. + Have a default availability time for each section. The reason why this is important is because it's tedious to do one by one, and instructors don't have time for that. Even the "bulk update due dates and availability dates" tool requires entering them one by one (although at least you don't have to click in and out of each assignment), and it also requires you making different due dates by section ahead of time inside the assignment. Another idea is to at least change the "bulk update dates" tool so that you can expand an assignment for each of the 3 sections, without needing to go inside the assignment and separate them out before you can change them in the bulk tool. The reason why it's important to have different default due times for each section is because some classes meet in the morning, while others meet in the afternoon, and the afternoon kids need more time that a midnight due date would allow. It's time-consuming to get messages from students arguing about why it shouldn't be late if they submitted it before class. The reason why it's important to have a default availability time other than 12:00 AM is because I don't want students working on homework during the lesson, and I want learning to be timely.

User role(s):

instructor

[cziese]

Problem statement:

The issue is tedious tasking and inefficient time of assigning assignments. Instructors want to be able to assign the information with the tools we have been provided. If you teach more than one section, and have more than one due time for the individual sections, having a default due time (that only serves one time) is not helpful. The current update to the boxes for assigning assignments takes more licks than it used to, and is cumbersome. Instructors need less time to assign items and more time to build on the platform in other places. By allowing for multiple due times across different sections (So the same idea as a default due time change, but for multiple sections, instead of just one time), and streamlining the process of assigning, this will make for happier instructors. It will also prevent the frustrated assigning to the default due times, or not assigning them at all because it takes too many clicks or too much effort for the time constraint.

Proposed solution:

Is it possible to build into the coding a way to display and assign the course sections with default start times and end times and due times accordingly, and also not have so many submenus to access for the assigning of multiple sections (to include the available starting, due, and available until) times? This may not be helpful for elementary platforms (who would benefit from just one due time and only have to assign to one "group", but it would be beneficial, and time saving for junior high, secondary and collegiate levels who have multiple "gorups" they are assigning to that meet at different times (maybe even different days). For example, currently it is taking over two minutes to assign one assignment for all 6 sections of a class. By having a default "start" time for the available from, a default "due" time (not just one for the whole course. If you are teaching several sections in one day, but do not want them to access the information or have it due until the end meeting time of that particular section, one catch all due time is not helpful) for each section's meeting times, this would be very helpful and more efficient. It could possibly reside as an option in the main settings that could be turned on according to whether you are teaching that course to just one meeting time, or if you have several sections with multiple meeting times and multiple due date times. This would be efficient because if you only had one section, then you could choose that option, or if you have multiple sections you could choose that option, or if you have multiple sections that meet on multiple days and or times you could also choose that option. Then the assignments could be built accordingly, so that when the teacher assigns the assignment, if you chose these options and you assigned the default times, it would automatically populate in a dropdown list for the section, and automatically fill in the available from available to and due default times. The teacher would choose the calendar day, and could still uypdate the time if they wanted something different than the default (as it currently is right now). Thank you for your consideration.

User role(s):

instructor