Set Assignment Default Due Time

[mwade]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

---

We are a K-12 school. One of the biggest negative feedback items we receive on Canvas has to do with assignments being due at midnight (11:59). Parents are concerned that we effectively asking them to stay up until midnight to turn in their homework. This is especially important for our middle school and junior high students.

We would like to be able to set assignment due time to default to a time that can be set in our school's account settings.

Yes, it is true that teachers can change the time, but we are relying on them doing the extra steps all the time to match our school's assignment policy - and it requires a lot of clicks to make this simple change.

[James]

Maybe you could benefit from using a keyboard macro program like AutoHotkey (for Windows) or Keyboard Maestro (for Mac). I've used AutoHotkey (AHK) in other software to replace repetitive tasks by assigning a keyboard shortcut to it, but I've not used the Keyboard Maestro.

For another system I use, I have to drag an assignment across the screen and drop it into a box for a particular week, then click edit (the button changes position on the screen based on how many assignments there are), then change it to either be due on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and then click save, wait for it to close the edit dialog, and then repeat the entire process with the next assignment. As far as I know, they don't have an API so I could do it programmatically, so I'm stuck with the web interface.  With AHK, I was able to put my mouse over the assignment on the left side and then press Ctrl+Alt+1 for Monday, Ctrl+Alt+2 for Wednesday, or Ctrl+Alt+3 for Friday and let it do the rest. When I'm done, I unload the hotkeys so they're no longer active.

In your case, you might be able to pick keystrokes that send " 08:30am", " 10:30am", or " 12:30pm" and then, as soon as you type the date, you press the hotkey to add the time.

If you use the date picker, it would be a little more complicated since it adds the "at 11:59pm" at the end that needs deleted. In that case, you could send a "{BS 7}08:30AM{TAB}" to backspace 7 times over the 11:59pm and then put in the desired time and TAB out of the date picker to the next field. You then activate the hotkey after clicking the mouse to choose the date.

Some people who want it to default to the current date could do something similar. You can get fancier, like going ahead and clicking the "Save and Publish" button or filling out other information that can be programmatically determined. You could even exam the URL to get the course ID and then automatically decide which time to add based off which course it is. There's a lot that could be done.

Ultimately, what you do comes down to how much it bothers you. If it's a minor inconvenience, you comment how it could be improved so Canvas is aware of the issue and then you deal with it. If it's a major annoyance, you look into alternatives. That's something each person has to decide for themselves. I'm a person who hates repetitive tasks and will spend 13 hours of programming to avoid 5 minutes of clicking, but for many, the work-around takes more effort than just dealing with it.

[Stef_retired]

For anyone interested in this topic, be sure to RSVP to the CanvasLIVE event Adjust all assignment due dates on one page, which is coming up this Friday, January 13, 2017. RSVP “yes” if you will be there--and if you’re interested, but your schedule doesn’t allow you to attend in real time, RSVP "no" or "maybe" to receive all event updates. Your RSVP ensures that you will receive a notification should the event be cancelled or changed.

[jpaull]

Another plea for this to be made an adjustable default setting!

In the meantime, can Canvas simply make the system-wide default time 5pm or 8pm instead of 11:59pm?

I work at an independent high school. Overheard in the halls: "I have until midnight to get this in" or "they keep telling us to get more sleep but then the deadline is midnight; teachers are hypocrites." Yes, the default time can and should be adjustable - but since so many teachers, in all sorts of schools, don't consistently take those extra steps, there's a strong demonstrated need to make the default time somewhere in the realm of normal working hours.

This would help adjust school cultures where students' lack of sleep is a growing health issue (or even an troubling type of bragging right). Correcting the default time could improve students' well-being, while reducing unintentional midnight deadlines.

Changing it to a time like 5pm would also reduce confusion for those who aren't looking carefully at a.m. vs. p.m. I sometimes hear teachers say they thought it was a midday time.

Thanks!

[RobDitto]

A default per institutional account, or even sub-account, does make sense. For what it's worth, in our business school's culture, the current default of 11:59pm in the school time zone works well for us.

[tbunag]

I think this is one of those preferences that is definitely different between Higher Ed and K-12.  In HE, setting a deadline at midnight makes sense (students are adults, and they often need more time flexibility).  In K-12, kids need more support in making good choices about how and when to study and work.  It definitely further supports the need to adjust the system-wide default!

I will note that we once accidentally found a way to change the default time as a designer/teacher in Canvas (thank you  @abunag ).  We were building courses in Denver for a University out of California.  We wanted the 11:59 time as the deadline.  What ended up happening when we tested classes was the deadlines were all 10:59pm since the students were on Pacific Time (thankfully, we caught it early, but it all had to be fixed manually - no easy fix was available at that time).  It seems a bit of an annoying fix to have the system time and the computer time of the designers set to make it so that the default time is what you want, and I'm not even 100% sure it would still work this way, but it's an idea.  I'll admit, it's not a great one!

[kredmon]

The teachers at the Sequoia Union High School District would like to request that the automatic time stamp have the option to change the default from "11:59pm" to another option.  Currently, for each assignment, teachers have to change the time.  The teachers in our district are trying to move away from the 11:59 deadline because we don't want students submitting work late into the night.  We want to encourage healthy sleeping habits and this default does not help us do this.  We would like the option to change the default to whatever we want it to be.  

[dtheriault]

Yes. In talking to students 8am is their preferred time. It was also the time that things would normally be due for students when they turned in traditional paper work. 9pm is too early, too many athletes don't get home until around then or later. My son would rather go to sleep at 11pm and then wake up early so his mind is rested before doing an assignment. 

[jeremy_winn]

The due time SHOULD NOT BE 11:59pm (even in higher ed).  And it should not be such a hassle for teachers to change it.

I came specifically looking to see if this feature has been added yet.  Honestly this is a feature that should be implemented regardless of popularity because it has such a tremendous impact on the students.  A lot of the features being proposed are "nice" for teachers to have, but the ability to change default due times affects many thousands of students in a significant way.  

[jpaull]

Thanks, Jeremy, for raising this. To your point about it affecting so many students - I also see this feature as an influential reflection of how educators (and those who make educational tools) consider the well-being of all participants, students and teachers. Yes, a teacher may want to personally give a midnight deadline etc. for higher ed students. But if we signal throughout an entire system that it's OK to expect work at such a late hour, eating away at a crucial resource (rest and sleep, especially for young people), that signal indicates a broader value, implies other expectations within educational culture. It validates working late, crunching, pushing oneself in cycles of work that can become unhealthy patterns.

One default setting in a complex tool may seem like just a detail - but these signals in such a widely used system truly do have a larger significance.

[richard-jerz]

Quite honestly, setting due dates and times is something that I see as simply needing to be done in any LMS.  It goes hand-in-hand with creating an assignment.  Sure, as I said above, it might be nice to be able to set a default time, and it would be great if Canvas could know the date too.  But I think that these things are best done by humans.  Even if we had a system to say "Make this assignment due 3 weeks after the start date of the course," what would you do if this date happened to be a holiday?

The default of 11:59 PM, in my opinion, is as good as any.  For teachers who think this is a strange time, I would say "Yes, it is strange. It is there to draw your attention to change it."  I don't see having any other default time across the system being any better.  If you surveyed people, you would probably end up with many different suggestions.  For example, I would probably say "00:00AM" would be better, but this gets translated to 12 PM, and is this lunchtime or midnight?  I teach at the college level, so my favorite due time is 11:55 PM (which is my vote for a system-level default due time.  And I would like this default to be "by teacher" and not by course or by the system.)