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Last semester, I was teaching a class where there is a small assignment (~2% of the total course assessment) that students need to submit every week. Unfortunately, some of the students joined the class late, due to add/drop forms that needed to be signed manually, or for other unknown reasons.

Is it fair to give zeros to students who missed early assignments because they added the class late? There were a few students who may have missed 3 or 4 weeks of assignments.

Response to comment

Q: Were the students not able to physically be present? Were the students not able to predict that they would take your class?

They were physically able to be present. Some students may not have been able to predict that they were able to take my class. For example, one student had to add the class after the add date deadline, because he was admitted late to the university.

Edit

After thinking things through, I checked that the last date for adding the course is the Monday of week 2, and the first weekly assignment is also assigned and due in week 2. I found in the data that there were several students who did not attend in week 1, but all of these students attended and submitted the weekly assignment in week 2.

Consequently, all of the students in the course were registered by week 2, and would have been able to submit all the weekly assignments. Thus any students who did not submit a weekly assignment deserve to get zero for that assignment, unless they have a reason to be excused.

I Like to Code
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    If students were auditing a course with the expectation of enrolling when the paperwork was sorted out, why didn't they do the assignments at the appropriate time anyway? Certainly they couldn't get them "officially" graded before they enrolled, but if they were taking responsibility for their own education they shouldn't need "extra time" to turn them in after they officially joined the course. – alephzero Jan 09 '17 at 15:25
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    @alephzero in some schools, you can join class A, then swap to class B, so you as you do it within the add/drop period. So a student may have been in a completely different class the first couple weeks. – iheanyi Jan 09 '17 at 21:04
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    @iheanyi: The only case where I'd remotely have any kind of sympathy is when this class's lectures conflicts with the schedule of the class that the student swapped with. Even then, you should be keeping up with the materials of both, just maybe through some way other than attending lectures. The add/drop deadline should have no bearing on this. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:33
  • To show why relying on the add/drop deadline is ridiculous: there are cases in some schools where students can add/drop courses until the end of the semester (I'm not talking about the very-rare cases that require a dean's exception or something, there are much-more-typical cases). That doesn't mean you should be letting them skip all the homeworks. Which means the two should be independent. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:50
  • Do your institution have an official policy on this? – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Jan 10 '17 at 00:03
  • Again: The assumption that students added late were attending the class prior to registration is not part of the question, nor is it the protocol at many (most, U.S.?) institutions. It's not even possible if you don't know in advance what section to which you might be added. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 10 '17 at 04:00
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    Does your institution charge students for classes they attend, wether they are registered or not? ( then no, it's not fair). Does it allow unregistered users to attend classes? (Then yes, it is fair, but only if ) Has someone explained those new users that they can ( and should) attend from day 0 wether they are registered or not, and that their grades will be recorded even if they fail to(register), for the next time they apply? (Then Yes, it is fair. – CptEric Jan 10 '17 at 08:18
  • @Mehrdad If they're allowed to add a class near the end of the semester, how are they expected to pass? – Random832 Jan 10 '17 at 12:54
  • @Random832: By having done the work since day 1 like they were supposed to? – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 12:55
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    @Mehrdad So, in other words, there is no accommodation, so in effect they're not really allowed to add classes, the school is just happy to take their money for a class they are doomed to fail. – Random832 Jan 10 '17 at 12:57
  • @Random832: They're really allowed to add classes. They're also adults and understand that it's their responsibility to keep up with courses they're adding, not the responsibility of instructors to bend over backwards fifty times during the semester for every single student who wants to add the class at an arbitrary point in time. And students aren't exactly stupid enough to avoid the class and then expect to be able to enroll halfway through the semester and succeed. The system works out fine. – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 13:16
  • @Mehrdad So it sounds like this is mainly an alternative to no-penalty dropping of courses? In other words, students attend the class all semester, and then decide whether they want to have it on their transcript or not at some point and officially "add" the course (or not) then? That's a very different use of adding courses than I'm familiar with, but I can see how it would work. – 1006a Jan 11 '17 at 22:12
  • @1006a: Note that I'm not claiming this is very common, or even possible for every student in every situation. There are a few restrictions and hoops to jump through after a few weeks into the course that I'm not inclined to mention here, but I'm saying they don't require extenuating circumstances or a Dean's approval or anything like that (there are other cases that have those kinds of requirements). (cont'd) – user541686 Jan 11 '17 at 22:24
  • @1006a: As for use cases, you can (say) drop a course because something prevented you from finishing it successfully (exam/project/trip/family/whatever issues) but then add it if that gets resolved. I'm sure a few do what you're describing too. And I'm sure there are other use cases. But by and large people commit to their schedule early in the semester. Modifying a schedule this late isn't rare per se, but given that there are a few hoops involved it's not so common either, and people avoid it whenever possible. – user541686 Jan 11 '17 at 22:26

11 Answers11

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At most institutions, the last day to add a course is set up by the institution, not the professor. We have an obligation to honor that, which means allowing students to enroll, with full full privileges, up to the last day they're allowed to.

Giving 0's for assignments they've missed is inconsistent with that. I prefer to simply ignore previous assignments of the sort you're describing - if their score for that part of the class would have been based on 13 weekly assignments, now it's based out of 11. (Sadly, this can be a little hard to administer depending how you calculate grades.) Alternatively, they can be asked to make up the work; it is the responsibility of students to keep up with the courses they've enrolled in, either by auditing them while deciding or making up what they missed, so it's reasonable to ask them to do the assignment on a reasonably short time scale (I usually like two weeks, which should be enough time to avoid excessive overlap with any other commitments, but one week would be appropriate if the assignments are short and it's not an exam-laden week).

Kevin
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Henry
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    There's actually an easy way to substitute scores for missed grades in a traditional spreadsheet. Take the average of the completed assignments and set the missed grades as the average. So if you have a 87% average in 11 assignments, the remaining 2 missed assignments would both get assigned scores of 87% as well (as opposed to 0% or excluded) This keeps the overall weight of the assignments equal in your spreadsheet. – Compass Jan 09 '17 at 16:20
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    Personally, I really don't like corrupting my data records by overwriting actual test scores (or blanks) with other numbers for grading purposes. (Later: Did that student really do assignment 1 or not?) Another option perhaps is to give all students a computed grade of max(avg-of-13, avg-of-last-11). – Daniel R. Collins Jan 09 '17 at 19:39
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    @compass I was thinking of some LMS software (including the one my institution uses) which doesn't provide a way to do this (but which insists on reporting averages to the students anyway, even though it can't calculate them correctly). – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 19:40
  • @Henry LMS makes the hard things easy and the easy things hard. The ultimate goal is to try and be fair to the student. Regardless of whether you fill in the blank, use averages, or something, as long as it is fair, everything is kosher. – Compass Jan 09 '17 at 19:42
  • I totally disagree with this. It means students can just avoid enrolling until the last day and avoid doing homework in the process. If students are thinking of enrolling in a class, they need to be attending. In my experiences profs just say "let me know if you're waitlisted/auditing" so that they can do the appropriate stuff on their end (like getting you access to the materials). If physically attending is not possible then that's another story, but inherently you have no obligation to change your schedule because of this. What if the add/drop deadline was at the end of the semester? – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:26
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    @Mehrdad: If students are trying to avoid homework by not enrolling, they can always be asked to make it up, as I mentioned. (I've never seen this - the benefit of getting extra time is outweighed by the delay in getting any feedback, and there's the risk of losing a slot if the class fills.) Professors are under an obligation not to invent an add deadline prior to the official one; prior to that day, students should be able to enroll as full participants. – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 23:11
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    @Mehrdad: If students have to have already audited a class to add without penalty, what happens to students who drop a course and need to replace it? What if they want to replace it with a course at the same time, which they couldn't have audited? As for your last question, if the add/drop deadline is at the end of the semester, students should be able to add the course without a penalty at the end of the semester. Presumably with a combination of making up work and forgiving missed work (for instance, by basing the grade entirely on the final). – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 23:12
  • Re: LMS: As an example, Blackboard can't handle programatically overwriting grades (nor would one want that, as above); but it does easily support dropping a certain number of low grades of some type (which is what motivated my switch to that, as in my answer elsewhere). My philosophy on LMS is to not fight the tool (be just a tad flexible on making your policies match what's supported there). – Daniel R. Collins Jan 09 '17 at 23:26
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    @Mehrdad: At some institutions, there is no such thing as a waitlist/audit for individual sections. My department does call up needy students a few days into the semester and add them to courses; but it could be any of 50 different sections run with different instructors and policies. Saying "go to class before registering" is simply infeasible. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 09 '17 at 23:30
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    @Henry: Then they should have planned accordingly? Is it too much to expect students to plan out a schedule with a couple backups before starting a semester? They're not babies. If there are time conflicts then that's something they know from the semester before; they're adults and need to figure out how to keep up somehow. At my college neither students nor faculty seemed to think this was unfair; it was expected that you'd attend if you might enroll. In fact, students complained because the system didn't let them officially enroll in conflicting classes, not because the classes conflicted. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 23:30
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    @DanielR.Collins: By "sections" do you mean discussions for the same lecture, or discussions for different lectures? Discussions for the same lecture should be similar enough to accommodate students from each other (certainly no "policy" should be wildly different?!), so if they're not, there's your problem -- not the lack of an official waitlisting/auditing system (which isn't necessary for this). Discussions for different lectures are different classes, it doesn't make sense to go to one but enroll in the other. It's certainly feasible even at a larger scale, I've seen it with my own eyes. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 23:35
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    @Mehrdad: Yes, it's unreasonable to ask a student to fully participate in several extra courses, adding a third to a half to their workload, just for the privilege (?) of adding courses the way the school's policies say they can. It's doubly unfair when the request is physically impossible because the courses happen at the same time (or, as Daniel Collins points out, because they may not know which class they'll be assigned to). Joining a class late and having to catch up is penalty enough; starting them with 0s is unfair (to them and to other professors) and serves no educational purpose. – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 23:39
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    @Mehrdad: I'm having trouble parsing your terminology. By "section" I mean "one of the classes formed by dividing the students taking a course" (Meriam-Webster, def. 11a: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/section). Although the same course title, they are all run with separate instructors, lectures, assignments, etc. IME, that's more common than not. If at your institution students are waitlisted in advance for a particular section/instructor/syllabus, then that's a very different context. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 09 '17 at 23:42
  • @Henry: What is it about a little bit of planning ahead that you're so against? We're not asking them to do rocket science here. The college is being nice by letting you add courses later; they could have just banned that entirely, requiring them to do their due diligence before, and that'd have been fair. What would you have done then? Like I said at my institution this simply wasn't something people complained to any visible degree about (and trust me they had a lot of other visible complaints); you were expected to keep up with courses regardless of enrollment and that worked just fine. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 23:43
  • @DanielR.Collins: I'll phrase it another way. When you're talking about students going to one section but being added to another -- are these taught based on the same syllabus, graded as part of the same grading curve, assigned the same projects, etc.? Or are they totally independent of each other? I'm saying if they're totally independent, then there's your problem -- having an official auditing or waitlisting procedure doesn't solve that. Where I went, there would be more like a couple of independent lectures (for larger classes) with many discussions each. Not 50 independent lectures! – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 23:54
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    @Mehrdad: “Do all the work for one or two extra courses for three weeks" is a lot more than "a little bit of planning ahead". What is it about a little bit of bookkeeping that you’re so against? It’s a lot less work for the faculty member to grade late homework than for students to do weeks of extra homework. Being “nice” (which was probably done out of a belief it’s good policy rather than as a gift to students) was a decision by the school. It's not the prerogative of individual faculty to undermine that policy by punishing students for following it. – Henry Jan 10 '17 at 00:07
  • @Henry: You realize you only have to do the work for extra courses if you haven't already committed to your classes, right? I'm saying just plan ahead early so you can commit early and you won't have this problem. That's what adults do. If you don't want to commit by the beginning of the semester then make it work on your end, don't expect people to dance around you. I keep saying this and you keep ignoring it but I've literally seen this system and it works fine. – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 00:56
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    @Mehrdad: That's exactly what I mean by undermining policy: demanding that students either do lots of extra work or operate under a more restrictive policy ("commit early"). You're calling for a different policy ("plan ahead") that matches your values and pretending your values are so universal ("That's what adults do") that they justify imposing that policy unilaterally. They don't. If your school's add rules are more generous than you like, you push to change them, you don't pretend that being asked to follow them is some unreasonable demand that you "dance around" your students. – Henry Jan 10 '17 at 01:40
  • @Henry: How about you call your policy "relaxed" instead of calling mine "restrictive"? Have you never seen a respectable university that does what I'm telling you? Here, just to give you one of a myriad of examples: http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~abowers/past/20a_winter_2016/waitlist.html – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 01:54
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    @Mehrdad: I didn't call yours restrictive, I called it more restrictive than the school wide policy that it's undermining. No, I have not seen a school like you describe (though perhaps they exist). I have seen individual professors unilaterally failing to honor the add date, often under the mistaken belief that everyone is doing it: professors often don't know what administrative policies look like in other classes, especially outside of their department. (You linked to someone describing a policy for students to hold a position on a waitlist, which is not the same thing we're discussing.) – Henry Jan 10 '17 at 02:08
  • @Henry: How's this? Department-wide policy: "You should attend class and discussion section from day one, turn in homework, etc., if you intend to enroll in the class once space opens up." If you still think this is still somehow inadequate -- is there anything in this world you find convincing? Can you show me some written policies which agree with your own viewpoint? – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 02:20
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    @Mehrdad: You've again linked to a waitlist policy. I'm not sure what these examples are supposed to prove; individual people or departments doing things they shouldn't is evidence that they happen, not that they're okay. You might be looking for my institution's add policy, which specifies the requirement to keep up with work as an explicit part of the policy. It's not my preferred policy, but I don't object to professors giving 0's for missed homeworks at such an institution, because it's an actual part of the written policy. – Henry Jan 10 '17 at 03:29
  • @Henry: How about you show an example of a school that actually has written the policy you're advocating? You know, the policy that instructors should allow students extensions/drops/etc. for homework if they enroll late? If you can't find one, then have you considered maybe that's not their intention, and you're the one interpreting the absence of a policy incorrectly? – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 03:49
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    @Mehrdad: Again, not all institutions have waitlists for particular sections. E.g., At U. Texas, they can be turned on and off at each department's discretion: http://registrar.utexas.edu/staff/waitlists ("Why should I turn a list on or off?"). At my institution, there are simply no waiting lists. But in both these examples the department can add students late to sections of the department's choosing, which cannot be known in advance. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 10 '17 at 04:13
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    At my institution, the official policy is that students are not allowed to attend classes they're not registered for (http://devpolicylibrary.gatech.edu/student-life/d.-attending-classes). This would make it difficult for a professor to require students to attend classes while on the waitlist. – Joshua Dwire Jan 10 '17 at 04:24
  • @DanielR.Collins: Again, I keep telling you, it's totally irrelevant whether you have an official "waitlist" or not. A waitlist is just an official name for a bunch of students trying to get into a class who have not yet succeeded in enrolling. Waitlist or not, the situation is exactly the same, and hence the policy I'm talking about is the same: if you're trying to get into a class, you should be doing the work from day 1. I'm confused why you keep bringing this up, especially given it seems totally independent of what you mentioned earlier regarding there being 50 sections instead of 1. – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 04:35
  • On the other hand, it's possible to be sitting in on a class and doing the work without having officially added it. While I think it would be gracious on the part of the professor to allow students to make up missed work based on having added the course later, I don't believe that he should be obliged to do so. – Philip Schiff Jan 12 '17 at 10:27
  • @Mehrdad And what do you do when the number of students exceeds the room capacity? In many Universities (and mine is one of these), the class size is set by the actual number of seats in the room assigned to the class, and often, there are no bigger rooms available. Students end up on the waiting list because there is no physical space in the classroom for them.... – Nick S Jan 12 '17 at 21:44
  • @NickS: Then they don't let you enroll. It's obviously contingent based on spots being available... – user541686 Jan 12 '17 at 21:45
  • @Mehrdad The question was not about enrolling, the question was about students on waitlist. Those students are waiting for someone else to drop the class, which happens often. How do you force them to attend?\ – Nick S Jan 12 '17 at 21:49
  • @Mehrdad Also, isn't this the class policy at your university? Check what it sais: "No student may enter upon any organized instructional activity until registered and enrolled with the approval of the appropriate study list authority."http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/Registration-Classes/Enrollment-Policies/Class-Policies/Class-Attendance – Nick S Jan 12 '17 at 21:49
  • @NickS: You don't force them to attend, you assume they keep up with the material and proceed accordingly. You can give them access to the material if they ask you, etc... what you don't do is change the deadlines for them. I'm not going to respond to your last comment aside from pointing out that it also very clearly says "Late registration may not* be used to justify inadequate performance in a course"* as I do not wish to discuss where I may have gone to college on this website (and if you've stalked me and figured it out then please respect this and keep that to yourself). – user541686 Jan 12 '17 at 21:57
  • @NickS: Do note the "Auditing Classes" provision of the same site you linked to: "With instructor consent, registered students and interested individuals are permitted to audit a class." So the instructor can allow you to audit from day 1 and expect you to have kept up from day 1 if you ever enroll. Obviously a sane instructor isn't going to outright disallow you access to the course and then blame you if you manage to enroll!! I'm really confused why these are not obvious... – user541686 Jan 12 '17 at 22:01
  • @Mehrdad First, sorry if I gave the wrong impression, that was the website you posted as an example, I thought it was your website, that's what I meant by your school, which was the wrong choice of words, sorry for that :) Second, IMO, students which end on waitlists, have no guarantee that they will get into a class, but many times they are forced to take a number of courses per term (this most likely differs from university to university). In order to make sure that they get into class, they often need to join the waitlist for multiple courses, in the hopes of joining one.... – Nick S Jan 12 '17 at 22:06
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    Asking the students to do work in all those classes, not knowing which one might open is IMO a bit too much. As for the last post, yes, that is a good choice at the university from which you posted the example, but not at my place. When the number of students reaches the class limit, no matter if the student wants to join or audit, there is no physical place in the room for them and they are added to the waitlist. – Nick S Jan 12 '17 at 22:09
  • @NickS: (Ah I see, I didn't remember that, sorry.) Yes, that is true. Waitlists do not keep going until the end of the semester, they end after a few weeks. You are expected to keep up in those first few weeks. The procedure for enrolling later is not waitlist-related, and as I said in another comment under the question (not here), it is not that commonly used as there are some hoops to jump through and it is not guaranteed or automatic. One such hoop includes instructor consent and your own signature, implying you both know what you're doing and have figured out how to make it work. – user541686 Jan 12 '17 at 22:10
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No, it is not. Some accommodation must be made, either in how the grade is generated, or preferably, with an opportunity to make up the work. The latter discourages gaming your calendar.

Three or four weeks, though, is ridiculous. If they were in the class by all but their official registration, they should have found a way, or you should have found them a way, to turn in assignments.

Scott Seidman
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My solution to this is to have a certain number of low or missing assignments dropped from each student's weighted total at the end of the semester, and to have this number be at least as many assignments as in the add/drop period. So then I think it is fair in this case for late-adds to get zero on those assignments; they can still conceivably get top marks for the course, but they're working without a safety net. And the rule and processing is uniform for all students. I don't recall any major complaints after I explain the drop policy to late-adders.

Daniel R. Collins
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    This is my solution to the problem. – march Jan 09 '17 at 16:49
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    Don't students still complaint that it's not "fair" because they didn't have a choice of what homework to drop? – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 02:34
  • @Mehrdad: No, I've never heard that complaint. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 10 '17 at 03:54
  • That's pretty lucky! – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 03:55
  • @Mehrdad: I don't see it that way; no one is making a "choice" about what to drop. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 10 '17 at 04:01
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    I don't see it that way either, but I've seen other students who do see it that way, because they view this as "this guy had 2 chances to avoid doing the homework he don't like, but I didn't". They feel they don't have a chance to make a decision about not doing the homework in the first place. – user541686 Jan 10 '17 at 04:41
  • I have never in over 3,000 student-semesters ever heard anyone assert that they were intentionally choosing to skip an assignment based on its content. – Daniel R. Collins Jan 10 '17 at 05:04
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    content, maybe not, but, from overload of work from other classes? for sure. A lot of people might, at some point, do the maths, and if even missing assignment X and getting a 0 guarantees them a 8/10, it's worth to spend that time in Y assignment due next week that they need to pass that class, instead of failing that class but gaining a small decimal advantage on yours. – CptEric Jan 10 '17 at 08:04
  • @DanielR.Collins: my history GCSE had a drop system for coursework, and I got full marks on my first N pieces of coursework (IIRC the rule was 6 pieces in 3 pairs, count one of each pair and drop the other). As it happened I did not intentionally choose to skip an assignment, but I very well might have if my workload in other subjects had been high. Time better spent. My teacher did argue that there was a risk that a 100% mark could be revised down by the exam board and then it would be useful to have a second shot at it, but that argument wouldn't apply to most university courses. – Steve Jessop Jan 10 '17 at 16:51
  • ... so in short, the history coursework system did create an advantage in geography for students who were (a) time-pressed and also (b) good at history. But then that's always the case when subjects compete for time, even if the coursework marking scheme isn't exacerbating it. So although it's lucky nobody ever complained about it, it's not as if they'd have an especially compelling case if they did :-) – Steve Jessop Jan 10 '17 at 16:58
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Yes, it is absolutely ethical, if and only if students have access to the necessary resources, including this homework policy, from the beginning of the semester, regardless of whether they are officially registered.

I've had an "adding late does not excuse missing homework" policy in my syllabus for years, partly as a defense mechanism against the long waiting lists my classes usually start with, and partly to avoid students missing important early material that they will need later in the course. Moreover, I prioritize the waiting list by the initial homework scores, and I actually remove students from the waiting list if they don't submit homework.

In short, if you want to add my course late, you must demonstrate that you have engaged with the early course material, because otherwise, you're going to be totally lost later.

But to make sure this is fair, I release all my homeworks on the public course web site (not behind some stupid password-protected LMS), along with lecture notes and recordings of the actual lectures. Moreover, the TAs and graders do not know which students are officially registered; they grade everything that is submitted. The additional work is a minimal burden on the course staff, which quickly fades out as registered students drop out and active students take their place in the official roster.

Being officially registered for a class is a mere administrative hurdle. It has no bearing on the students' ability to do the work.

JeffE
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  • Hmm, this policy would be pretty crappy in other schools with different add/drop policies and of course, requires that a teacher do what you did, which is post things publicly and make it well known the pitfalls to students joining your class late. – iheanyi Jan 09 '17 at 21:09
  • You don't need to release the homework publicly, you just need to say "if you're waitlisted or auditing then come talk to me so I can get you the materials". Other than that I agree with you wholeheartedly, it seems crazy people are saying this is somehow unethical. It's totally ethical, people should be doing the work. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:28
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    @Mehrdad You don't need to release the homework publicly — True, but it's much simpler than the alternative. I don't have time to deal with 100+ students coming to my office to get an extra copy of the homework. – JeffE Jan 09 '17 at 21:46
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    @iheanyi You say that like requiring profs to post course materials publicly would be a bad thing. – JeffE Jan 09 '17 at 21:47
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    @JeffE: It is indeed, no doubt about that. But some LMS allow you to add students who aren't in the official roster, so you don't have to print it for them or something. So if you don't feel like releasing it publicly (many don't), you can just ask for their names at the first few lectures so you can add them. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:47
  • @Mehrdad Yeah, but then I'd have to use an LMS. – JeffE Jan 09 '17 at 21:50
  • Right, that's the alternative you were proposing to a public course website. I wasn't saying you should switch to an LMS, I was just saying that the alternative of using an LMS isn't as bad as printing 100 extra copies of the homework and waiting for students to roll in. – user541686 Jan 09 '17 at 21:52
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    I actually think it is a good thing to post materials publicly. But, I'm pretty confident (based on my personal limited experience at 3 different schools and anecdotal reports from friends at a few others), that this is not the norm. So, I was criticizing your answer since it's based on an assumption, which I feel is critical to your answer, that's not safe to generalize. – iheanyi Jan 09 '17 at 23:11
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    To give more context to why I felt public posting of course materials is not the norm, despite my limited sample size, as an undergrad, and then later a TA, there was a growing push to using Blackboard and similar online tools to disseminate course materials. These were universally locked down on a course level - as in you needed to get the specific key for a given course in a given semester or be enrolled by the prof or TA. Most profs who maintained sites didn't use SEO, making it hard to discover if you even thought to look. So, the only way you'd know is by actually attending the 1st class. – iheanyi Jan 09 '17 at 23:19
  • Since future handouts (if any) would not include the deeply nested on university's domain URL and of course, that even assumes any of this was available online at all. Perhaps such a policy works for graduate courses where the typical student has more apriori knowledge of a given professor and how they work but unless things have changed a lot, it doesn't seem workable generally for undergrad courses. – iheanyi Jan 09 '17 at 23:25
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    So you have 100 students on a wait list, who for all intents and purposes take the course, but don't get time allowed for it in their schedules? Sounds like you basically reject the notion of "adding a class late", which is fine as long as the university doesn't create the opposite pressure. You can't add late, but you can start the course and then drop out at the point where the university informs you that the list is closed and there's no prospect of getting any credit for it. Are you in fact teaching a MOOC with a small sideline in university credits for a select few participants? ;-) – Steve Jessop Jan 10 '17 at 17:03
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    So you have 100 students on a wait list, who for all intents and purposes take the course, but don't get time allowed for it in their schedules? — Nope. I'm teaching a class with 100 more participants than will fit in the room, and I am happy to help anyone who make time for the class to jump the necessary administrative hurdles to get credit. — drop out at the point where the university informs you that the list is closed — Nope. I maintain the list myself, and I request overrides, with documentation of effort if necessary, if a space opens after the official add deadline. – JeffE Jan 10 '17 at 22:41
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    Are you in fact teaching a MOOC with a small sideline in university credits for a select few participants? — Nope. Last semester, my classroom held 400 students, and I ended the semester with 400 registered students, including everyone who started on the waiting list and who did the work. – JeffE Jan 10 '17 at 22:42
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In general, I would say "no", it isn't fair. Further, you may be promoting the appearance that you are penalizing someone for wanting to take YOUR class, even though that might not be your intent.

The school policy, apparently, allows students to add classes late. Your policy makes it appear you are contradicting the school policy.

In general, I believe this policy makes you appear unreasonable. Students will come and go, but you will remain and so will your reputation.

Inquisitive
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Yes, it absolutely is. Assuming this is a taught course, students who join three or four weeks late have missed substantial instruction. In the U.S. four weeks is more than a quarter of a semester.

However, you must set the date of the first assignment at least a couple of days later than the official drop/add date. Students who join during drop/add may have to scurry to catch up, but they ought to expect that.

Of course, I've made the assumption that there is an official drop/add date, and that it is reasonable compared to the duration of the course, e.g. seven days for a 16-week semester. If not, that's a large problem, and one to take to the Faculty Senate or a similar body. Having students join a class at arbitrary times during a term seriously compromises the quality of instruction for the entire class and abuses the instructor.

If there is not an official drop/add date or the drop/add period is long compared to the duration of the course, then you must make accommodation for students who enter late. As Scott Seidman has already written, that should be to allow time to make up the work, not by changing the grading plan for those students.

Bob Brown
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    I strongly disagree. At my institution (and possibly OP's), the add deadline is three weeks into the semester; it would be unreasonable to delay regular assignments for weeks because of that. Indeed, I would argue that one should prefer to have returned at least one graded assignment prior to the drop deadline (assuming the timing and nature of the course make that possible) so that students underprepared for the course have more warning. – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 13:40
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    @Henry In your circumstance, I agree with you on both points, and I have edited my answer to reflect that agreement. I work with a 7-day drop/add deadline. In my case, it is impossible to return graded work before the deadline for large classes, and reasonable to make the first assignment due shortly after drop/add. (I also have to say that a three week period seems unreasonable to me.) – Bob Brown Jan 09 '17 at 13:53
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    My undergrad institution actually had a three week add deadline out of ten weeks (though even the students understood that this was extreme and that joining a class you hadn't been auditing after three weeks was an unusual and risky choice). My views on the importance of following the add rule are influenced by the professor who wouldn't let me add a course because I'd missed the first day and felt that allowing any additions would mess up his teaching style. In retrospect, this was unfair not only to me, but to his colleagues who had to pick up his slack by teaching students he wouldn't. – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 14:10
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    @Henry I agree that professors should follow the institution's drop/add rule. In fact, before your comment, it never occurred to me that one wouldn't. I'd have an unpleasant chat with my department chair if I tried that. – Bob Brown Jan 09 '17 at 14:32
  • Consider also the following situations in which a student may add late: 1) being waitlisted because the class was full, 2) changing majors shortly after semester start, 3) replacing a class they dropped to maintain full-time status, 4) changing sections due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts – Tristan Jan 09 '17 at 16:21
  • @Tristan With the exception of 4), all of those should happen during drop/add. In the case of 4), a professor could choose to accept the work from the other section. Allowing students to change classes haphazardly during the semester disrupts the other students and seriously disadvantages those who make late changes. – Bob Brown Jan 09 '17 at 16:48
  • @Tristan I'd add to that list: dropping from a higher level course to a lower level, or honors to the regular version of the same, which might be allowed for a longer period than ordinary changes (my school fairly routinely waived the add deadline to allow these during the gap between the add and the drop deadline). But, as Bob says, in that case you'd usually use work from the old course to fill in the missing scores. – Henry Jan 09 '17 at 19:47
  • @BobBrown At a school I used to work for, it was 100% up to the instructor whether or not a student could add their class after the quarter started. One of the program chairs told me he would never dream of trying to force a teacher to change their mind. In my experience, they were always reasonable, but I imagine a few didn't accept any late adds. – Kat Jan 09 '17 at 22:20
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Giving zeros to late-joiners is only fair if you have it stated in the syllabus (or otherwise communicated it in a way accessible to them).

A better solution, balancing fairness to the student and the professor, is to give them the same amount of time to complete all overdue assignments starting with the enrollment cutoff. For example, if four one-week assignments have been graded and a fifth is announced at the start of week 5, then give all new students one week to finish all five assignments and be caught up.

user1717828
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Even if there are no problems at all and all students do all the assignments and sit the exam as planned, it's not 100% fair, because assignments and exams are an inaccurate way to assess students' capabilities. So, the usual system is already a compromise, but it's the only practical way we can teach and evaluate how well the students have mastered the subject. So, we must not pretend as if any particular system we use for assignments and exams is the perfect gold standard such that upholding that gold standard becomes the main goal. This mistaken attitude leads to this whole idea that you could give students zero points for missed assignments, even if missing the assignments was beyond the control of the students.

The students are there to master the subject, the Prof. is there to teach the students. The system of assignments and exams exists to help facilitate this, we're not there to religiously uphold the rules, to make the rules the main issue when fixing problems. If there are problems with the assignments, you have to go back to basics and think about how you can best assess how well the students are mastering the course.

Count Iblis
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In the light of students being able to exploit the late entry to avoid having to do assignments, it sounds fair to the rest of the class who had to actually do the work, that late entries be given zero.

Trying to find the middle ground, e.g. having the due date after the late entries cut-off date, or handing out the assignment to the new students with a few days to get it done, sounds like a good idea.

joel.cass
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I'm not instructor, but I am a recent student so I'll throw my opinion into the ring.

Based on the following:

  • Whether or not students are physically capable of attending the class is case by case, and may (almost certainly will) depend on factors outside of your visibility or the student's control
  • Students trying to take high-demand classes will often wait for slots to open post-kickoff because of enrolled students dropping the class, and it's not usually reasonable to expect students to do classwork for several extra classes while waiting for such a chance to appear
  • I don't think I have ever met anyone in my entire educational career who waited to register for a class in order to deliberately get out of doing the early assignments
  • Since it's before the add drop date, it may be out of your hands anyway, check university policy or ask other instructors
  • It doesn't really reflect life after school. Most companies' hiring processes are agnostic to concepts like application windows
  • As an instructor it's your job to teach the students the material, and judge them fairly based on how well they know it, so from that perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense to penalize otherwise possibly bright students for missing some sessions before adding the class.

A compromise is your best option. If they miss a very small portion of the class assignments, less than a few percentage points, perhaps just drop those grades from their average. If they miss a larger amount of work, consider allowing them to complete those assignments (or similar ones that cover the same material) for some amount of credit.

Anecdotally, when I was taking classes, most of the instructors with large class sizes (often the physics and mathematics courses, which are required for many majors and where there were sometimes 100+ students per instructor) had just such an alternate version of each homework assignment planned out in advance for just the occasion of students missing work due to circumstances outside of their control (late add, emergency travel, etc)

Wug
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It's not fair to allow new students to add a class but then penalize their grades; you need to give late adds a reasonable chance to make up the work that they have missed. (In addition, this will let them catch up on learning that they have missed.)

Another answer suggested that students should do the work speculatively while waiting to be formally added to the class, but this may not be feasible: if I'm on the waiting list for 9 different classes I'm not going to do 9 different assignments just in case. (This is especially problematical if I'm on the wait list for multiple classes in the same time slot -- I can't even sit in on all of them.)

If there is critical work that students will have missed if they add the class at the deadline then ask the university for an exception to the late add policy, and be prepared to have your request denied.

arp
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  • If you're on the waiting list for nine classes, it sounds like you've got other problems. – Philip Schiff Jan 12 '17 at 10:30
  • @PhilipSchiff at a large university it would not be uncommon for a student who wanted to take a popular class to get on the waiting list for every section that fit in their schedule, or for a student to get on a waiting list for a variety of classes that meet a particular graduation requirement. (This is not always just a matter of poor planning, either -- when I was in school there were required classes in my major that filled up the day that registration opened.) – arp Jan 12 '17 at 15:04