Due Dates

Re: Due Dates

by Rick Jerz -
Number of replies: 3
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What I typically do with discussions is to tell students that they must make them by Friday, 11:55PM (as an example.) I set the "Ratings to" date to Saturday, 00:00AM (just after midnight).  With this method, if the student posts after 11:55PM, I will not be able to Rate it (meaning, their post was late and they don't get points.)  I also tell students that they have to make 4 or 5 good posts, and I then provide 0,1, or 2 points for each of their posts, and I use "Sum of Ratings" to add these up and put their points automatically into the grade book.  Works great.

The problem that I propose fixing is that I really believe that the Due Date, meaning Friday 11:55PM, should be set when I am editing (and defining) the forum.  Right now, I have to remember to go the the Calendar and manually enter this Due Date.  So I think a third date in the forum configuration, such as simply "Due Date," or less simple "Calendar Due Date" should be added.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Due Dates

by Sherry Manison -

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the explanation on the Ratings.  I haven't used that yet.  I did vote for your update, though.  That only makes sense.  All forums for points should be in the Calendar.

Something else that would make sense to me is to separate the forum to initial posts, and responses.  I have one deadline for the initial post, and another one for the discussion after that.  I've often wondered why that wasn't possible as well.  

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In reply to Sherry Manison

Re: Due Dates

by Rick Jerz -
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You made me thing about "for points."  Hmmm, since a Forum is defined as a moodle activity, I still that that whether it is for points or not for points, that it is still an activity that could have a due date.

Interesting concept about each initial post having its own due date.  This could get a little difficult, since students can usually create new initial posts.  I am not sure about how to control due dates for each student's initial post.  It seems to me that the date might be best controlled at the "forum" level, as they are today.

You might find it interesting that another popular LMS, Canvas, does not allow the teacher to create topics within a forum.  Each topic has to essentially be its own forum.  Somewhat awkward, but maybe no worse than Moodle if you were to create a separate forum for every topic in order to have different due dates.  Canvas is the only other LMS that doesn't provide for separate topics within a forum.  And no other major LMS provides the ability to read posts and "rate" them while reading.

For me, I have one weekly forum with a due date (that I manually add to the calendar), and then I create 5-8 topics that students can pick from for discussion.  This has been working well.

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In reply to Sherry Manison

Re: Due Dates

by Lynn Wilhelm -

I wanted to have multiple due dates and grades for a forum discussion. I found a work around with the "move this discussion" function.

Simply open two forums--set the maximum grade in the ratings section so they'll show up in the gradebook. You might want to restrict the second one for now.

In our case, students were to post SMART goals for their group work. We gave them a due date (as others said, it won't show up in a calendar) and rated items posted by that date. Oh and this forum was set as a Q&A so that each group responded to the instructor's prompt, this kept it to one discussion per group. 

After rating the first forum, simply open each discussion--we had one for each group--and select the new forum in the "move this discussion to..." drop down menu. Click move and it will show in the new forum.



It took a few minutes to move all 18 discussions but it was the only way I found to do what I wanted. The discussions will completely disappear from the first forum and fully appear in the next.

In the new forum (I set it to a Standard forum), set a new ratings window and students will be able to see their previous posts but only the new posts/replies can be rated. Now you'll have two grade items in the gradebook. (Sadly, the initial ratings, while saved in the gradebook as a grade with the previous forum, will no longer be visible for each post after you move the discussion.)

The other solution I'd devised was to simply keep adding to the grade in the original forum with new ratings--just keep extending the rating window. Then set to sum of grades and they'll add up in the gradebook. This was a less elegant solution, but could have been less work than moving the discussions.

I would love to see the forums set with grading options for multiple grading windows. But until then, this will work for us.


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