Lesson

Ah, yes the start and end dates are cosmetic at the moment, that is, they don't do anything. What the start date should do is obvious. Not too sure about the end date though. In the exercise module, when the end date is reached students can still do the exercise (our regulations insist on that) but the student's work gets flagged as late. The flag really only effects the grade, that is returned as zero. The teacher can use the Admin page to remove a "late flag" and then the student's grade for that exercise is shown (as the full grade).

That approach is a bit simplistic. There are other schemes for dealing with late work like a percentage penalty or capping late work to the pass grade. Not sure that the individual assessment modules should handle that themsleves. It would be much better done in the Grade Page. However, that would mean (a) that a set of standard ways for calculating the grades of late assignments is available (the teacher chooses the most appropriate one for their course) and (b) the modules can tell the Grade page which assignments are late. Not sure whether this is a neat enhancement or a can of worms .

The end date is not a very prominent feature at the moment, my students complained that they did not see the deadline on the lessons. The date could be given a bit exposure. The question of what it actually does, however, is still open...