For each assignment, I typically apply a 5% late penalty per day, capped at 50%, to discourage excessive lateness while still giving students a chance to submit their work. However, I’ve run into a significant issue when assignments include extra credit that pushes the total possible score above 100%. Take, for example, an assignment worth 10 base points with 2 additional points of optional extra credit. If a student submits it very late but completes everything perfectly—including the extra credit—I would expect a final score of 6 points: a 50% deduction from the 10 base points (resulting in 5), plus 1 point from the extra credit. The problem is that Canvas applies the late penalty by capping the final score at 50% of the maximum possible score, regardless of how much the student actually earned. In the above case, the system reduces the student’s score to 5, whether they completed just the basics or went above and beyond with extra credit. Even worse, if a student earns more than 5 points—say 11 or 12—Canvas still brings the score down to 5. The system completely ignores the student’s actual performance and effort, basing the penalty entirely on the assignment’s maximum possible points rather than the points actually earned. To further illustrate how misleading this is: suppose a student submits a very late assignment and originally earns exactly 5 points. Under the current Canvas formula, their score remains 5—even after a 50% penalty is supposed to be applied. In other words, a student who did the bare minimum and one who completed everything including extra credit both end up with the same final score, simply because the system caps the score based on the maximum possible, not on what the student actually achieved. This behavior defeats the purpose of a fair late policy and removes any incentive for students to put in extra effort once they are past the late submission window.
A more reasonable yet simple calculation would be to deduct 5% of the base score (10 points) per day, capped at 50%. That way, in the scenario above, if the student originally earned 12 points, they would receive 7 points after the maximum late penalty is applied. And a student who earned 8 points before the penalty would get 3 points (8 − 5), rather than 5 points as the system currently assigns. This approach would more accurately reflect student performance while maintaining a consistent and fair penalty policy.
