Canvas Late Policy Undermines Extra Credit Incentives

[samuel_cheng1]

I usually apply a 5% late penalty per day, capped at 50%, to discourage excessive lateness while still allowing students to submit work. However, I’ve encountered an issue when assignments include extra credit that pushes scores beyond 100%.

For example, suppose an assignment is worth 10 points, with 2 points of extra credit available. If a student submits very late but completes everything perfectly—including the extra credit—I would expect him to earn 6 points after the maximum penalty is applied (i.e., 50% off the base 10 points, resulting in 5, plus 1 point from the extra credit).

However, Canvas seems to deduct the penalty from the entire earned score—including extra credit—bringing it down to 5 points in this case. This approach feels both sloppy and incorrect, as it effectively nullifies the student's effort on the extra credit.

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 was originally scored with 12 points including extra credit, he would receive 7 points after the maximum late penalty is applied.

The current late policy feature in Canvas is otherwise very convenient—it saves instructors time and ensures consistency. Unfortunately, this particular behavior with extra credit undermines that convenience.

I hope Canvas will consider making the appropriate change to reflect a more accurate handling of late penalties for assignments with extra credit.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @samuel_cheng1 ...

Thank you for posting this.  After reading through your posting, it almost sounds as though you are requesting changes to the way that the Canvas Gradebook works...or at least requesting that additional considerations are made for the scenario you provided for graded work plus extra calculations when assignments are submitted late.  I'm not sure if you are aware or not, but there is a separate space here in the Community where you can submit your ideas for consideration (and voting later on).  I'll just say that current, the entire idea process is undergoing some changes, but you can find more information about that here: Turning Your Feedback into Better Prioritization and Release Processes: Our Path Forward.

You are still welcome to submit your idea here in the Community.  Or, maybe you'll find a similar idea that already exists (in which case, there's no need to submit your own...to avoid duplication of ideas).  Here are a handful of Guides to help you along the way:

• What is the feature development process for Instructure products?
• How do Ideas work in the Instructure Community?
• What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea?
• How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Community?

I hope these links will be of some help to you.  Good luck, and please let Community members know if we can be of further help.  Thanks!

[samuel_cheng1]

Thanks, Chris. I’ve submitted an “idea” as you suggested. I really hope Canvas addresses this issue—I don’t see it as a feature but rather as a flaw in the design that functions more like a bug.

Just to clarify further, the problem isn’t limited to extra credit. For example, if a student submits a very late assignment with a maximum possible score of 30, Canvas will automatically cap the final score at 15, no matter how well the student actually performed—as long as they originally earned more than 15 points. This behavior occurs regardless of effort or accuracy, as illustrated in the attached image.

[Chris_Hofer]

@samuel_cheng1 ...

Thank you for submitting the idea here in the Community.  For everyone's reference, the idea is located at:

Canvas late policy formula is incorrect

[dbrace]

Hi @samuel_cheng1,

Mixing extra credit with late policies can be a challenge and I do not think the Canvas LMS as a whole would be able to take into consideration everyone's preferences for how they are handled together.

I am not sure if you have or have not reviewed the  How do I give extra credit in a course? - Instructure Community - 1253  support article but I provide it as a starting point.

One option to consider, is "Create New Assignment with Zero Point Value". If you create it as an assignment without any dates, you (1) avoid the late policy and (2) based on student work throughout the entire length of the class, continously add points to it.

You would need to provide comments/feedback in the original assignment that makes reference to awarding extra credit but actually put the extra credit in the extra credit assignment.  I know that this is not ideal and create additional work but it is a way to deal with how things currently are.

-Doug