The late penaltes framework and where to next.

The late penaltes framework and where to next.

by Trev Wood -
Number of replies: 4

G’day everyone,

Moodle 5.0 landed with a brilliant enhancement: a core late-submission penalty framework with it being applied to Assignments. For many of us this promises to replace spreadsheets and manual grade tweaks with a single, transparent workflow – a win for academics and students alike.

But the feature was described as stage 1 of a broader framework. The moment we look beyond Assignments we run into familiar roadblocks:

  • Most other activities expose only one “Close” date (or none at all), so they can’t record an “accepted-but-late” state.

  • Naming conventions for time fields differ between modules, and new plugins keep inventing their own.

  • Without consistent data, cross-activity tools – late penalties now, other frameworks tomorrow – have nowhere stable to plug in.

Where to next?

Rather than patch each module ad-hoc, could we take a more strategic path and standardise the way every Moodle activity handles time-based states?

Is “Due Date” + “Cut-off Date” (Assignment’s pattern) sufficient for all activities, would that mean we could potentially retire the "expected completion date"?

Keen to hear your thoughts, experiences and any existing Tracker links we can rally around. Is this work already underway?

Cheers,

Trev

Average of ratings:Useful (2)
In reply to Trev Wood

The late penaltes framework and where to next.

by John Provasnik -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
I'd say "expected completion date" is the only setting that is actually standard in all activity modules, and since it is tied to the completion criteria system, I think it's move valuable than the due date/cutoff dates that might not apply to all view-only resource activities. But it would be nice to 'meld' some of these fields together for simplicity : )
In reply to John Provasnik

The late penaltes framework and where to next.

by Trev Wood -
you're right it IS the only standard but it doesnt tie to user/group overrides. and for the activities that do have close dates (lessons, quizzes and forums off top of my head) it's placement is so separated it's a massive cognative dissonance. My institution has 3500 academics, things should be straight forward because even if we get 1/2 our staff to do training that's still hundreds of staff who we missed.. I'd just love for Moodle to prioritise this standardisation.
In reply to Trev Wood

The late penaltes framework and where to next.

by Helen Foster -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hello,

Just noting a few tracker issues of interest:

In reply to Helen Foster

The late penaltes framework and where to next.

by Shirley Gregorczyk -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Currently due dates are at the activity level, for a small set of select activity types.
My use case is different:
1. Requirement - a due date at the course level that is calculated from when the student is enrolled in the course. The Due Date condition would be on the course as a calculated value, X days from enrollment date.
2. Requirement - email notifications that can generate a calculated due date from the date of enrollment and/or I use the Recomplete Plugin, a calculated due date from the date the course was reset for each individual student(s).
3. Requirement - Reports that provide student name, course name, course enrollment date and student's due date.

I voted up the trackers, as the desired functionality seems to be getting closer.