[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.

[chriswhite]

Tomorrow marks the three-year anniversary of the original post, and I know that this feature was requested in the previous version of the Canvas Community long before I ever got around to asking for it. I've enjoyed reading the additional feature ideas and supportive comments from everyone that has posted here, but I think many of us would like to have some feedback from the product team. Is this idea doomed to stay "on the radar" indefinitely?

[jennifer_paris]

This would be huge for me. In my two week modules, students need to create a post in the first week and replies in the second week. I have discovered that rather than go through the modules, students tend to access work by its due date (from the To Do List or the Calendar), so they miss work if I can only input the later due date or later work is marked late if I input the earlier due or they miss it all together if I choose not to put any due date.

[lindsapj]

Jennifer,

I first submitted this request three years ago. Frustrating that hundreds

of academics agree with the idea but Canvas has done nothing.

A student suggested a temporary solution: put the first posting due date in

the Assignment/Discussion* title*. Then put the final due date in the

required calendar setting. At least they will see both when it shows up on

their To Do List or personal Calendar.

Best,

Patrick Lindsay

Farmer School of Business

Department of Marketing Faculty

First Year Integrated Core Faculty

Pi Sigma Epsilon Business Fraternity, Faculty Advisor

Office: 3071 FSB, Oxford, OH 45056

Ph. 513-505-0828

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.

The hard is what makes it great." Manager Jimmy Dugan Rockford

Peaches from A League of Their Own.

On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 12:38 PM, jennifer.paris@canyons.edu <

[Steven_S]

This is an excellent idea that has a lot of support from the community.  It would be nice to hear the input from canvas about why it is only on the radar three years later.  I'll bet the community could suggest a solution or two! 

[lynnve]

As someone who has concurrently used Canvas as both an instructor and a student, the desire on both sides to have multiple due dates for discussion boards is palpable. Discussion boards typically require a student to post an original reply to the instructor's question on the DB, then require the student to respond to classmates' replies. Canvas prohibits a student from seeing others' postings on DB - until they have responded once to the instructor's question. So students have two assignments in one DB: post an original reply AND respond to classmates' replies. As an instructor, I want to give points for making the original reply, and also points for responding to classmates' replies. AND I typically give a couple of days after making the original reply to reply to classmates. So, from the instructor's view, I need to have multiple due dates for Canvas DB assignments to allow my students to meet my DB requirements.

Lynn V. English, MAEd, CHES

Credentialed Course Instructor

Doctoral Student

Educational Studies in Diverse Populations: Health Disparities Concentration

lynnve@uab.edu

"A society is only as strong as its weakest members" -attributed to Gandhi

[SHEBENE]

I concur, Kelley is putting things well.

I am wondering if the proposed student dashboard we saw during last year's InstructureCon could help as it allowed the addition of things that weren't assignments to be added to it (even content pages so I'm wondering if an assignment could be added to it twice... seems plausible).

Often optimistic, mostly sarcastic, Neal

[kira_michaw]

This is a great idea! We need multiple checkpoints for discussions to hold students accountable throughout the unit or topic.  I think this will allow for students responses to be more meaningful, instead of requiring them to respond to a certain number of people and the responses begin to lack substance.

[hensonj]

While I would hope that this doesn't derail the conversation, this is also a feature that would be beneficial for assigments (think first draft, final draft).

[rdutta]

High time, been upvoted since 2015...! I do not even need this specific feature, but I would argue that smooth instructor workflow is positively correlated with time spent with students in meaningful ways. 

[woodsdm2]

Like everyone else, I would love to see this.  I want to add two details that I think could be useful

• The to-do list item that students see should tell them how many more posts the need to make
• When a rubric is used for grading, being able to scale the total points based on the number of posts would be useful.  So, if 4 posts are required and the student only makes 3, their assignment score would be 3/4 of the rubric score.  Right now I have a rubric element for the quality of the discussion post along with one for the quantity.  This feature would let the rubric focus on the quality of the posts.