SOFTENING THE BLOW: MANAGING DEADLINES IN ONLINE COURSES

For the past seven years, the authors have been managing four fully online English language courses at a Japanese university, each consisting of more than 250 students. These course are managed using the open-source Moodle LMS. They have no face-to-face component and so are designed to run with minimum teacher intervention. One issue the authors faced was how to manage the multiple weekly quiz deadlines during the 15-week courses without increasing their workload but at the same time giving students some leeway as to when they completed tasks. Our solution to this problem is the 'Cascading Deadline' plugin; a third-party Moodle plugin which allows students to complete quizzes after a deadline has passed for a reduced score. The plugin allows quiz creators to create up to four ‘deadlines’, each with a set penalty. The potential benefits are three-fold. First, this system helps students take more responsibility for their time management. Second, it potentially reduces the number of emails from students asking for extensions. Third, it reduces the number of failing students. After describing this module and explaining the pedagogical and managerial reasons for its creation, the authors will present student data covering multiple semesters which focus on student use and perceptions of the penalty system.