69

I am the course lecturer of an undergraduate course. For a recent assignment, I had written the assignment deadline as 23 November 2018 (Saturday). Unfortunately, 23 November is actually a Friday, and not a Saturday.

I received an email from a student asking for me to excuse his/her assignment which was submitted late. The student explained that he/she marked the deadline as Saturday, without checking the assignment date.

Question

Should I excuse the student's late submission because I made a slight mistake in specifying the assignment deadline?

Note: We use a learning management system to receive assignment submissions, and the assignment deadline was entered correctly in the learning management system.

What I decided to do

For the current incident: After reading the answers, and thinking it through, I decided that it is better to use the later of the two deadlines (i.e., 24 November Saturday) as the official deadline for the assignment. I did make a mistake in writing the wrong day of the week for the deadline, and students could have been misled with my mistake. It is not fair to punish such students for my mistake.

For future courses:

  • The more places I put the deadline in (e.g., the syllabus, the assignment itself, the learning management system), it becomes likely that I will make a mistake somewhere.
  • In the future, I will put the deadline in only the learning management system, and refer students to check the deadlines there.
I Like to Code
  • 19,300
  • 24
  • 78
  • 116
  • 94
    _In dubio pro reo_… – ebosi Dec 02 '18 at 18:12
  • 44
    What would be the benefits for you or for your students of rejecting this single assignment which was submitted on Saturday? (I can't see a compelling benefit.) – pts Dec 02 '18 at 18:32
  • 46
    @ebosi: There's also a legal doctrine called contra proferentem that seems on point here. – Michael Seifert Dec 02 '18 at 20:36
  • 10
    In addition to the reasons given by answers, to stick to the shorter deadline you will need to argue that such a small error doesn't matter, and that could backfire in a few days when you grade their assignments and some perceivedly small mistakes will need to matter. – Pere Dec 02 '18 at 22:29
  • @MichaelSeifert You're right, that's more accurate indeed. Thanks for improving. – ebosi Dec 02 '18 at 22:41
  • 9
    BTW how do you accidentally name a weekend day if you don’t want that? (That thinking can also be applied by your students) – eckes Dec 03 '18 at 08:56
  • 20
    I can’t figure out a reason why I *wouldn’t* accept the homework as on-time in this case. To err is human, to say “mea culpa” is divine. – J.R. Dec 03 '18 at 10:06
  • 2
    @eckes Maybe the syllabus from last year was reused, but the dates were being changed, and this one slipped through the cracks? That happened to one of my professors a couple years ago (he caught it before it caused any issues like this question, but it shows that it happens nonetheless) –  Dec 03 '18 at 17:23
  • 1
    Yet another reason to put dates on assignments in the course management system and in the syllabus, etc state "refer to online course resources for due dates". If the assignment was submitted on (Saturday) I would accept it. – ivanivan Dec 03 '18 at 23:01
  • 2
    Wow, all these answers. I would like to answer with a question: what is best for your students? The mistake was clearly yours (teacher) and not theirs (students).... – Mike S. Dec 03 '18 at 18:44
  • I know this question has already been thoroughly answered, but I just wanted to mention that the fact that the date is correct in the homework submission system does not at all change anything. I often don't even look at my homework until the day before it's due, and since the student was told it was due on Saturday (I don't look at the date, I look at the day of the week), it's completely realistic that the student didn't even look at the homework submission site until Saturday – Ben Sandeen Dec 04 '18 at 16:23
  • 1
    For future homework assignments, consider having a teaching assistant go over the assignment before it's published, to see if there aren't any "cognitive blind spots" which a second pair of eyes is more likely to notice. – einpoklum Dec 04 '18 at 19:49
  • 1
    Does your university have any policies on the subject? I know that when I was going to university, one of the units I took had two different dates published for the due date of one of the assignments, and he had to go with one of them over the other due to the university's policies. – nick012000 Dec 06 '18 at 03:56
  • 2
    Quick note here: If you don't accept it late, you're saying that you can make a mistake but your students can't, which is a bad precedent to set because they'll no longer trust you. – Feathercrown Dec 07 '18 at 12:59
  • I'm surprised this question would even be posted. Do you really think it could possibly be okay to deny a student turning in an assignment late because you made an ambiguous statement about the due date? Seriously? You are in the business of education (at least partially), not intellectual warfare. The students are not the enemy. – MPW Dec 09 '18 at 13:29
  • For perspective; your situation is vastly different as no one has likely been inconvenienced all that much BUT as a student one of my lecturers gave incorrect deadlines on a couple of occasions. One in particular, with a time difference of a full week, still vexes me to this day. Some students got the extra week and therefore had more time for work on other modules (hand-ins were supposed to be staggered), while others had to slog like mad to meet the incorrect deadline and work for other modules suffered as a result. Mayou36 is correct, but don't expect other students to like it. – Brent Hackers Dec 10 '18 at 14:42

8 Answers8

171

If the assignment deadline was not shown correctly to the students, then it is your error and they cannot be penalized for being late.

Claiming it is correct in one area while incorrect in another does not absolve you, you caused the confusion so you have to accept late submissions, as long as they arrived on Saturday...

Any submissions on Sunday will, of course, be late.

Re-reading this, it sounds a bit blunt... Probably because I have done exactly the same and had to sort it out after... Peace reigns if you stick to being fair, so giving them the extra time does not usually make much of a difference, except for the recognition from the students.

Solar Mike
  • 28,097
  • 7
  • 60
  • 100
165

First thing: The student handed in on the shown deadline. That says everything. Not accepting is not an option in any reasonable way. But to be more specific:

In dubio pro reo (in a case where nothing happened anyway)

Mistakes happen. Like you writing the wrong day for a certain date. Happened once, the "damage" is that students may have a reason to hand in one day later. That's it. And that's basically nothing.

Students are humans too. Most probably he/she really did not pay too much attention, did not look it up properly. Like no one of us would have or normally does in his daily business. And that's fine. Because it was not about life and death.

Let it be like that and accept the hand-in saying that you really wrote the wrong day (and may even apologize for the small mistake, as it may caused some confusion and a little anxiety to the student when he realized it). Even thinking about that incident is too much energy wasted for nothing happened. And be happy that you did not write the date of a test wrong or similar. Keep the mouse a mouse, don't make it an elephant.

Also, not accepting it will result in punishing a (most probably) innocent student. That's just unfair and will leave a very bad impression with the student. No reason to risk that.

.

Mayou36
  • 3,289
  • 1
  • 13
  • 19
99

If you occasionally published two different dates as a deadline, you should accept the work until the latest date without penalty. This is what essentially happened: you announced the deadline as 23rd Nov 2018 but also as Saturday, which is not the same day. Go with the latest of two then — this is the best way to be fair in this situation.

Dmitry Savostyanov
  • 55,416
  • 14
  • 140
  • 202
  • 10
    Yup. Not least because if they appeal it, a) it'll waste your time having to explain that you're an incompetent and b) the university will likely side with the student and you'll look bad. – Valorum Dec 02 '18 at 20:07
  • 45
    Kinda off-topic, but one of my instructors once mistakenly wrote the deadline as 11/27/2108, and we still got penalties for submitting after 11/27/2018 :( – nalzok Dec 03 '18 at 02:08
  • 6
    @nalzok: A hundred years is far too much extra time for school work. – user21820 Dec 03 '18 at 04:40
  • 11
    @user21820 Arguable :) – user45266 Dec 03 '18 at 05:21
  • 12
    @user21820 some students would still be late after having 100 years :) ... – Solar Mike Dec 03 '18 at 10:10
  • 3
    @nalzok Worth that being pointed out in the answer though - that "latest" date in this case doesn't (hopefully) affect OPs marking schedule. Whereas 100 years in the future (or even a week) definitely would - which is worth considering when deciding how much leniency to give. – Bilkokuya Dec 03 '18 at 11:06
  • @user21820 there are only 90 years between 2018 and 2108... – CactusCake Dec 07 '18 at 18:12
  • @CactusCake: I suppose you think that Fermat considers Wiles his student. =) – user21820 Dec 08 '18 at 07:52
54

I think the most important question a teacher should ask about their own actions is "What my action will teach?"

If you accept the late submission you will teach that one must assume their own mistakes and get full responsibility.

If you don't, you will teach that the people with more power don't need to clean up and take responsibility after mistakes, and the underdogs should not trust them.

We can say the last will prepare the student to be a good employee in the corporate world, and the first to be a responsible person.

Cochise
  • 1,615
  • 1
  • 12
  • 14
  • 3
    Very good point regarding setting a personal example! Teachers educate students as persons, they don't just teach particular subject matter. +1 – einpoklum Dec 03 '18 at 08:41
  • While I agree with the idea of the teaching, being strict with with the date does not teach that "people with power don't need to clean up...", but that it is the student's responsability to make sure to have all the elements in hand. I'm still in favour of a lenient response, but the second part of your answer is biased. – clem steredenn Dec 03 '18 at 11:39
  • 7
    Maybe my answer is biased, but I think I don't need to "make sure" I "have all the elements in hand" if I trust my superior. If the student is penalized because they don't catch the professor mistake, we are not teaching students to be attentive, but that "s*** goes down", and we must not trust our superiors. The result would be improved attention? Sure. but the message was not "Attention is important". – Cochise Dec 03 '18 at 15:27
  • 7
    @bilbo_pingouin really, it is the student’s responsibility to always be on their guard in case against incompetence or errors on the side of their instructors? That seems unreasonable. If we required such hyper-vigilance from students, they would not have any time left for studying. – Dan Romik Dec 03 '18 at 20:00
  • 1
    Well I disagree, Students aren't Kindergarten kids. They can take care of themselves and do not need to be taken by hand every time. By your logic, the student could deliver any saturday, that would have been ok. I disagree. There were an error in the requirement, the student should be able to spot it. Why assume Saturday was fine and not the date? Again, I don't think that student should be penalised here. But I still disagree with your second part. – clem steredenn Dec 04 '18 at 06:07
  • The latter would prepare people for the corporate world, but would reinforce bad ethics in that corporate world by punishing students into accepting those bad virtues. Could you plz edit to either agree or disagree with this, even one or two words to make it clear. – Jesse Dec 06 '18 at 14:33
22

Purely from a standpoint of error distance, I would probably put more trust in the spelled-out day than in a numeric date, if there's any conflict between the two, because it's much more likely to accidentally hit 3 instead of 4 than to type Satur when you meant to type Fri. Of course that only applies to the mechanical aspect of typing, for most brains it's probably just as easy to mix the two up.

In any case, unless you noticed your error and communicated an unambiguous correction within a reasonable timeframe, it seems only fair that you should accept submissions up to the latest possible reasonable interpretation of the originally communicated deadline.

I say “reasonable" interpretation, because I guess the latest possible interpretation would be Saturday, November 23rd of the next year in which November 23rd is a Saturday. (This wouldn’t make sense in an academic context, but it’s a possible result of a typo in some longer-range planning.)

J.R.
  • 13,383
  • 4
  • 37
  • 58
Axim
  • 321
  • 1
  • 4
13

You can only hold people to what you said clearly, not to what you intended

I did make a mistake in writing the wrong day of the week for the deadline

Says you. As a student, I was given an assignment due on Saturday the 24th. What's that you're saying? That the numeric date has 23 rather than 24? Oh, surely that's the mistaken - it's just a typo.

See what I mean?

Actually, even in a more extreme case, where you merely hinted that the later day is appropriate, and did not spell it out, you should still have accepted late submissions.

einpoklum
  • 39,047
  • 6
  • 75
  • 192
  • 5
    This looks more like a comment to a comment, except for the bolded line that actually adresses the OP. –  Dec 03 '18 at 09:17
  • 1
    I guess I don't see what you mean, if all you've done here is swap one ambiguous date for another. And my point was the date was given twice, once nonsensically, which cannot be followed as the day didn't exist in the current year, and one clearly, where it was online. Just like you want. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 03 '18 at 14:38
  • @ASimpleAlgorithm: Which date in your opinion was the sensical one, and which the non-sensical one? – einpoklum Dec 03 '18 at 16:31
  • @einpoklumthe nonsensical one is "saturday, Nov. 23". The "sensical" one is the date on the online system which presumably was "nov. 23". Those are not three dates they are two. As a student you are held responsible for everything you are told, not your favorite piece of information. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 03 '18 at 17:03
  • @ASimpleAlgorithm: That's just, like, your opinion, man.. I saw a perfectly sensical date and a typo, and that's a reasonable - even if not the only interpretation. The fact that it says something else on the online system doesn't change anything, because once I saw that Saturday, I was reading the submission date information anywhere else - I already knew when I needed to submit. – einpoklum Dec 03 '18 at 20:29
  • 1
    Why are you responding to a comment to a different answer in your answer? It dilutes the point you're trying to make. – Beska Dec 04 '18 at 15:58
  • 1
    @Beska: I'm not sure what you mean. I responded to comments on my answer. – einpoklum Dec 04 '18 at 16:27
  • @einpoklum You did not see a typo, you made a self-serving assumption. Good students will be careful to interpret the situation in the safest way and use the earliest date. You think you're being clever but you just look like another slacker, depressing us about our career choice in teaching. If a military junta took over your vacation spot and told you to leave the country by saturday the 23rd or be shot, I'd expect you'd be out by the 23rd, not saturday. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 04 '18 at 19:51
  • 2
    @einpoklum Beska is referring to your quoted text. That is a comment on Solar Mike's answer by someone who is not the OP. I'm also confused as to why you posted a response to a comment on another answer as an answer. – kuhl Dec 04 '18 at 20:28
  • @ASimpleAlgorithm: You can't presume to know what I perceive and why. Also, while my assumption may be self-serving, but it could be subconscious, so that effectively the only thing I know is the result of that assumption. "Good students will be careful" - some will, some will get mixed up. About the military junta example, this is what will more likely to happen. – einpoklum Dec 04 '18 at 20:52
  • @einpoklum Yet you presumed to know why the instructor wrote the 23rd. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 04 '18 at 21:15
  • @ASimpleAlgorithm: I was reflecting what a student may assume (rather than presume) was the case. – einpoklum Dec 04 '18 at 21:31
  • 1
    @kuhl: Oh, sorry, yes, I had somehow attributed that comment to OP (and now it's gone anyway). See edit. – einpoklum Dec 04 '18 at 21:34
5

In my experience, there seem to be (at least) two different kinds of professors/teachers: those who believe that it is their purpose to convey knowledge and those who believe it is their purpose to fail students. At this point, I'm making to judgement here; it is easy to find ethical and rational reasoning for both approaches (i.e. the 'high washout rate' used in some colleges) but I will leave judging the ethics of those as an exercise for the reader.

So—you probably want to ask yourself what your purpose in teaching is.

Is it to teach students, proliferate knowledge, and make sure people learn what you want to course to convey? If so, be lenient.

If, on the other hand, you think your principal job is to filter students by failing them hard and early, this is a perfect opportunity to do so.

Jesse
  • 271
  • 2
  • 7
Bex
  • 430
  • 5
  • 11
  • 2
    could you please clarifythat you are not being sarcastic to make your point, or edit it to make your point without sarcasm. You seem a little new and sarcasm is usually not accepted on SO. Not downvoting, just trying to br helpful. – Jesse Dec 06 '18 at 14:36
  • 1
    @JesseSteele Like so? Or am I still coming across as sarcastic? – Bex Dec 08 '18 at 13:07
  • 1
    On the contrary, I'd say there are two kinds of students, those who are there to learn, and those who are allergic to effort. Professors, depending on where they are, and how much it bothers them to be lied to, lied about, etc., will have very different experiences teaching and will develop different kinds of standards for their classrooms. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 08 '18 at 16:45
  • "allergic to effort" that made me smile... – Solar Mike Dec 08 '18 at 17:04
  • 2
    @Bex, what you added made tons of sense to me and I know exactly what you mean. So, I edited it to make it a little more clear and used terms that convey your point. One example I know of is the Cooley law school in Michigan that actually uses that, but I didn't want to get specific in the post. You really do have an objective idea here, it defends a lot of professors, saves students grief later on, and I hope this helps people see that in your post. Thanks for doing this and sticking to it! – Jesse Dec 09 '18 at 01:17
  • 2
    @JesseSteele Thank you for your understanding and for your edit. – Bex Dec 09 '18 at 15:04
  • 1
    @ASimpleAlgorithm I don't see how your statement in any way contradicts mine. It's no secret there are a hordes of sloppy and lazy students. But there are also a lot of sloppy professors. What really surprises me is that sloppy professors hold their students to higher standards than they do their selves. – Bex Dec 09 '18 at 15:07
  • @Bex It contradicts yours because it provides an alternative explanation besides your "sloppy" theory. The professors are being strict because they believe it is the best way to control students. The ultimate goal of that control is making them learn (despite their best efforts not to). As for higher standards, the symmetry you desire is misguided. The student is there to be taught, and be rated on how well they performed. The prof is there to do a job for a salary according to a contract. These are not comparable. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 09 '18 at 21:20
  • 1
    @ASimpleAlgorithm They bloody well are comparable. A student can be good (professional, passion for learning, happy to slog, willing to help others, etc.) or bad (unprofessional, doesn't care, lazy, selfish, etc.). A lecturer/professor can be good (professional, passion for learning, happy to slog, willing to help others, etc.) or bad (unprofessional, doesn't care, lazy, selfish, etc.). Giving "an alternative explanation", in this case, doesn't directly contradict the point in question. It just outlines your bias regarding who's fault it is when a student doesn't do well absent context. – Brent Hackers Dec 10 '18 at 14:56
  • @BrentHackers No they are not comparable. And your little counter isn't even a comparison, you have just assigned similar adjectives to people in two completely different roles. My dog can be lazy and unprofessional too. That doesn't say squat about anything. And speaking of bias, you are the one all triggered and ranting. – A Simple Algorithm Dec 13 '18 at 11:55
  • @ASimpleAlgorithm Didn't mean that to come across as a rant. It read to me that you believe your argument that students can be lazy somehow contradicts the point above. And I would argue that both lazy teachers and lazy learners can quite easily co-exist. And, for the record, I could compare some of both my peers and lecturers from my Uni days to lazy dogs. – Brent Hackers Dec 14 '18 at 09:55
2

I think there is no other choice for you than to excuse your student. As he/ she already mentioned that he/ she follow calendar day deadline instead of calendar date which is also clearly mentioned in your submission deadline . So being a very valid reason and a typo mistake on your part, your student should be given excuse .

Ahmad Raza
  • 139
  • 1
  • 1
    The student doesn't need to be excused, because he/she was not late. The deadline was "Saturday", the work was turned in before the deadline. There is nothing to excuse. – Ben Voigt Dec 08 '18 at 14:00