Clearing Premature Submissions

You created and revealed all the course assignments so the students can prepare for the course in advance.  This is a great practice as it allows students to manage their busy schedules better and increases their chances for success.

However sometimes an overzealous student submits work before the module starts.  This usually results in an ill-prepared assignment that hurts the student’s grade and does not accomplish any pedagogical goals.

Sometimes the early bird gets the worm, but other times it may fail to be prepared for the day.  There are two preventative ways to help avoid this:

First, you can explicitly state in the syllabus to only post assignments and to discussion sections during the week of the module. This encourages class collaboration, as discussion should be a key part of the learning process and assignments should reflect lessons learned from the discussion. You could even treat failing to follow instructions punitively.  This passes the responsibility to the students while informing them of the importance of their class participation in the learning process.  Often students do not realize this and it consequently detracts from their learning experience.

Second, you can use the adaptive release.  Allow students to see the content only when the class is at that point.  Now students cannot submit anything early. A drawback to this strategy is that it makes it harder for the students to prepare for the assignments.
You can adopt this strategy by editing the assignment.  Go to the “Availability” section on the bottom and either:

• Manually make the assignment unavailable to the students until it is time by unchecking the “Make the Assignment Available” option. You just re-edit the assignment and select the appropriate box.
  
  OR
   
• You can use adaptive release with the assignment to automatically reveal the assignment to the students by selecting the “Limited Availability” feature and selecting the date you want the assignment released.

You should note that if you choose either method, you will need to modify the course if you copy it in semesters to come.

These options are great for discouraging premature submission. Still, on occasion a student may accidentally submit the wrong file or still submit prematurely.  Remember - don’t panic.

You can clear their grade attempt by going to the Full Grade Center
When you go to the cell containing the assignment, click on the chevron and select “View Grade Details”
On the lower right you have three options:

1. “Clear Attempt” will remove the submission. You may not want this, if you want a record of the premature submission.
    
2.  “Ignore Attempt” will do exactly that.  The attempt will not count in the acceptable number of submissions.  This is probably what you want.
    
3. “Allow Additional Attempt” is another option you may choose and it does exactly what it says. 

Selecting any of these options will allow the student to submit again.

Remember, the best way to avoid this scenario is through communication. Try to remind students of the importance of submitting assignments during the weeks that they are due and that this process is critical for their educational experience. 

This will benefit the students and reduce the times you will need to ignore or add additional attempts for students.