Set Dates for Course Pacing

[KaraTooke]

I have a Professor at my institution that has a course with rolling enrollment. Students in this course must submit reports on the last day of each month, and the professor has been frustrated with manually assigning all the due dates for each student so that they line up with the last day of each month.

If a student enrolls in March, then the Report due in February is already past, and the professor has to manually adjust all of the monthly reports to loop into the next year. Course pacing would be a great solution to this problem, but the professor wants the reports due on specific days,

Is there any plans for course pacing to include set options such as the first, 15th, or last day of each month? This would be a really helpful feature.

[dlyons]

Are you saying in this case the due dates are always the same date but they need to role to the next year? So if something is due on Feb 1 2022 and I join on Feb 2 2022 my due date for that item would become Feb 1 2023?

If that is correct I'd love to hear more about the usecase/workflow this is for. I've never heard of a course setup in quite that way!

[KaraTooke]

Yes, That is exactly it! The biggest frustration that we are having is when assignments roll into the next calendar year (or don't).

The course is used to facilitate the students internship requirement for their specific program. Students must submit monthly reports on their hours and the observations they are making and the feedback that they are getting from facilitators. For the ease of the students remembering when to submit the reports, and so that the instructor can predict when reports are coming in, they are always due on the first of the month.

Currently, the instructor has been manually adding each monthly due date for each student so that if they join Feb 2, 2022 their February report is due Feb 1, 2023. We have been able to help reduce the admin workload on the instructor by assigning dates using Sections, but with rolling enrollment, there were still multiple assignments that had to be manually adjusted for each student.

We had tried removing the due dates altogether, then there would be no incorrect dates, but then student often forgot to submit their reports completely and they were not flagged as late for the instructor to see when marking the reports.

It would be ideal to use the course pacing feature that rolls assignments into the next calendar year, and adjusts dates based on the student start date, but also have it account for the differences in month lengths.