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@James wrote: If they are turning it in past the due date, it is late. You may accept it, but it's still late. Canvas calls that "still acceptable" date the "available until" date. Canvas doesn't have a "I really wish you'd turn it in early" date.  There's no "bonus for turning it in early" date in Canvas. It's just a "due date" and "available until" date. You start out your post being derisive. Then you are derisive some more. And some more. Is this how you treat all your contemporaries? Your students? A way to encourage people to turn it at the desired time is to apply a penalty to late work. Again, this is the instructor's decision. If that means is a grade penalty, is the instructor's decision. Canvas is a platform and should not be making red pen decisions on the instructor's behalf unless the instructor asks for it. If an instructor wants to implement punitive measures, make it an option, not a default. If that seems like a lot of work, it is. The solution you listed is not just a lot of work, it is ridiculous and confusing for all parties involved. If it's just a grace period issue, then it would be much easier to move past the objection to the use of "late" for something that is past it's due date. Then your usage becomes consistent with the dictionary's definition for the word "late", which is "coming or remaining after the due, usual, or proper time." People using words in a fashion consistent with the rest of the world is also a benefit for the students who may be surprised to find out that "due date" doesn't mean when it's due and then think it means that in all of their classes. Your answer to the many valid concerns of your fellow teachers to provide a hyperlink to the word "late" in the dictionary?  The argument that printing a big red LATE tag for work that came in after the due date somehow is a blanket good that helps students in school and in life is cruel and misguided. Students that are chronically late are like that for many reasons, none of which you can fix with a red pen. To penalize them psychologically with markings they will have to look at for the entirety of a term is not something I want for students. Let this be an option the instructor controls on a per-class basis, and for goodness sake, don't make it a default. If you to be a punitive hardass, you should have that right. It's even worth Canvas including tools that make that possible, such as the LATE flag or the automatic grade penalty, or both. But it's not the job of Canvas as an educational platform to be the decider of how students should be penalized. These are fine as optional features, decided by the instructor on a class-by-class basis. Students with disabilities especially don't need a reminder that they are not as fast as their peers. It is psychological warfare against students who work differently in the name of "helping" procrastinators. That kind of logic reminds me of a parent who employs corporal punishment over academic performance while telling their kids "this hurts me more than it hurts you." It never actually does, and tends to have unwanted side effects. Canvas should either get rid of it or turn it off by default. Lateness is already noted on the submission page. If you really want to encourage timeliness, maybe adding a reward for on-time submissions, like a big green ON TIME would work. But as it is, that big red LATE is the most visible marking in the gradebook, and it will haunt a student for the entire duration of the course. By including both, you still get to break their spirit a little if that is something that you need, but you at least make it worth looking at the gradebook. Some students will never appreciate the 95% of the work they turned in on-time, even if they get straight A's, because of how stark and defining that late tag is to the appearance of the whole page. ... View more