[Discussions] Multiple Due Dates (checkpoints) for Discussions

[chriswhite]

This idea has been developed and is On Canvas Beta •  How do I access the Canvas beta environment?

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2025-01-18) 

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With the way that many schools set up forum discussions and require "check-ins" to the forum throughout the week, it would be great if we could include multiple due dates in the discussion activities. For instance, I have classes that require everyone respond to the prompt by Thursday night and respond to at least 2 peers by the following Sunday. Being able to remind students that they have responses due, especially if we could scatter responses over multiple days, would likely increase participation.

[SHEBENE]

This made me think that, if the assignment coding is complex to get multiple due dates, and the workarounds are just okay for now, the upcoming student dashboard (I'm hoping that it goes live this summer, he said hopefully) could be an excellent workaround. It would allow you to add to the students' to do list something that isn't an assignment. That would put it in front of many students and hopefully work out better.

[jbuchholz]

I agree with cms_hickss‌. I would like to see parameters on the multiple due dates. For example, a discussion post could have an initial post and a follow-up post set of parameters. If a student doesn't post to an initial discussion but the due date, the wouldn't be able to post to the follow-up.  Peergrade has something like that and I like the functionality of the professor having the options at least.

Jesse

[DeletedUser]

Generally, I do not vote on Ideas because a) I haven't figured out how to get a current feed of new Ideas, and b) labels with voting dates in the past, e.g. June 3, 2015 through September 3, 2015, make me think that my vote would not count.

[pritchad]

I concur with Kelley Meesuen's post on August 1, 2015!

I also complete the steps she outlined to provide the students every opportunity to complete their assigned discussion board posts timely.  Discussion boards is so vital to online coursework; this is where you can expand upon a subject content and help develop the students critical thinking skills. 

However, students rely on the Canvas calendar and the dashboard to guide them when course assignments are due, and in my experience with Canvas, many of my students miss the first due date for initial posts because it is not on that calendar.  I have had students complain to me about this, even though they have a weekly module calendar available to them for review for assignment due dates because their dashboard only allows for one due date per assignment to be viewed.

I hope Canvas is listening to us, the instructors, as to what is needed regarding the dashboard and calendar to help our students succeed in our courses.  It is frustrating for the students and the instructors and this issue has gone on far too long to have not had a resolution by now.

Donna Pritchard

[hdicarlo]

Original suggestion was in 2015!! This will greatly enhance the Discussion feature for students without requiring us to build in work-arounds and multiple reminders.

It's 2018 folks. Move this up in priority. (Please...)

[hensonj]

This is now the voted to the 6th highest position on "Radar".  Two of those voted higher are quiz related, one is a request to modify the ability to copy or move "anything" in Canvas,  and the other two are great (why haven't those been implemented too?)

[hensonj]

instead add an event to the calendar for that course. It will show up in the syllabus page but not in the gradebook.

[bfloyd]

Yes, this needs to happen along with the ability to turn off the option to make new threads, essentially turning the discussion into a reply-only environment after the first checkpoint/due date.

[bdalton_sales]

That would be my suggestion.  Recurring calander events make that insanely easy.  The upcoming student todo list view may also help this (its in beta at the moment).  

[dmurphy1]

Multiple dues dates is a great idea and long overdue. I encountered this same issue with another LMS. Some faculty would set the assignment due date to the initial post date (there can't be a discussion until someone posts) and direct students to respond to each other by n days later. Others would use the follow-up due date as the assignment due (that's when all comments are due, after all) and hope students would read the assignment instructions before the due date to make the initial post on time. Both approaches had their problems to say the least.