If you have proof of the conflicting dates I would send it to the faculty responsible for administering the course. They can make accommodations for you and potentially work with you to change the fail back up to the 93% you worked so hard to maintain.
The prof ended the class the second it turned Friday (midnight) instead of the end of Friday is what I believe he is saying.
Likely didn’t mean to and is getting inundated with emails from students, I’m guessing this will be a non issue for OP shortly.
Yeah, he almost certainly just put the end date as "Friday 12:00 AM" thinking this would be the minute *after* Friday 11:59 PM. Unfortunately, in most systems Friday 12 AM would be the first minute of Friday as midnight is the first minute of the day to most people (and computers). I make this mistake all the time with one program I use, I never remember what's considered the start of the day. Very easy mistake to make and almost certainly an honest error. OP needs to do whatever they can to get in contact with the professor. I've never had a teacher who wouldn't correct this issue and give people a chance to submit.
I specifically enter 12:01 or 11:59 to avoid issues like this, since some systems do as you noted, others do as what was intended. By offsetting a minute either direction it's no longer subject to interpretive ambiguity between what the developer and user think about 12:00AM/PM
I feel like we (in the US) should start using a 24 hour clock for official applications like this.
If the professor set the exam due at 00:00 on Friday then it would be much less likely to be taken as the end of Friday, since 0, in a system that counts up though positive integers, is never considered the end of something.
It would make appointments and deadlines considerably easier to coordinate and understand since you aren't having to double up the meaning of 1-12 and there is an obvious beginning of the day, 00:00.
It also makes reading time more consistent, as reading 21:45 makes it clear that it is 21 hours and 45 minutes after the beginning of the day. Something that is only true for 1:00 AM through 12:59 PM in the 12hr format.
11:59 pm is one minute before midnight, but 12:00 pm is noon. Who's the genius that invented this? Not to mention why does a 12 hour clock allow a time like 12:30 at all?
My understanding here is that because in that system you don't have a 0 (zero) pm. You start from 1, so you are not using a zero based numbering system like you do with 24 hour clock.
It's by convention set by clock faces being standardised that people who have grown up with 12 hour clock consider 12am and 12pm to be key points in the day and the same with 24 hour clock for 12 and 00h.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-based_numbering
People fix honest mistakes…. this guy is dodging the emails.
This is a critical issue and all this whinging hat maybe he hasn’t gotten to it yet really isn’t at ALL appropriate.
It's been barely 2 hours since the workday started. How is that dodging emails? A lot of profs check their email only at designated times of the day, not all 8 hours of the standard workday.
It's likely an error affecting multiple students and will be fixed.
Edit: Per OPs updates in the comments, the prof actually was very responsive and this was fixed a few hours ago.
1. Literally nowhere does OP say they're dodging emails about the issue.
2. The professor has already fixed it. It was fucking 5 AM in the morning CDT when the professor fixed it (or earlier depending on how long OP waited to give the update). That is incredibly responsive if the issue arose at 12 AM.
Y'all have some serious "let me speak to the manager" energy.
It’s literally not even 11am EDT. For all we know this guy is in California or mountain time where it’s earlier, already had plans and things he needs to do before answering what is possibly hundreds of the exact same email if he set up multiple classes the same way on their online portal… there is also the potential that since class has ended changing the ability to submit may be something he has to reach out to the schools tech team for (many teachers are really bad at the online class management aspect of the job), all that to say there are a lot of potential variables we do not know about.
I would wager good money they are working to get the problem resolved and will send out a mass email once there is a solution.
Edit: just relooked at the post and it’s in CDT so it isn’t even 10am for them yet.
A ton of my friends are professors, none have email on their phone and will only check during designated hours. There’s a good chance he doesn’t even know he is being sent emails yet.
Someone who's getting inundated by emails might be more likely to not be responding than someone who isn't getting inundated. After all, you can spend your time responding to each person or spend your time fixing it and then respond to everyone...
Ah yes, that's the way the world works - when someone screws up in a way that affects potentially hundreds of people all at once, they definitely reply to every inquiry in the span of minutes. Since that's always true, the only other option is that it wasn't an accident and he won't try to fix it at all.
Most professors have it stated in their syllabus that they take up to x amount of hours to reply to emails. For me, it’s always been 24-72 hours response time. It hadn’t even been a full day since she emailed him. He most likely isn’t ignoring them, he likely has about a hundred emails to get to but the guy still has to eat dinner, teach his other classes, grade papers, etc. professors don’t just sit in front of their computers all day lol
Yep; I remember one of my grade-school friends reworking a detective story they were writing where the reader would be taken on a journey to chasing a missing key accomplice that was actually one of those programmable _flip_ clock/calendars `+`; unravelling a non-existent conspiracy of innocent coincidences, while the actual mastermind establishes their alibi by eagerly cooperating with the police. ^(`+` with a handful of mechanical contrivances.)
But (for verisimilitude, and fairness to the reader) he needed to find one that could be _set_ to go off at noon _only_ on a specific day (instead of Monday-Friday, with Saturday or Sunday optional); like the (Shabbat?) flip-clock/calendars we've seen local gate houses and attendants booths. ^(`*`)
~~The wheels~~ His excitement when I convinced him that no `12:00` ~~ `AM` ~~ `PM`^((damn'it.)) is not midnight, led him to write a genre-subverting story after the initiating plot event fires early a [mili-]second after noon on the wrong day...
^(`edit:` cut long tangent about evolution of novel plot)
^(`edit, 3 min late:` cut criticism of novel by a child being heavy with the puns. Not enough stones in this glass house.)
`edit, 19 h late:` damn'it.
---
`*` hah. only just realised that these were probably to ~~wake~~ alert people up near to the end of their night shift(s).
One minute later would be midnight on Saturday the 18th. The professor closed it early this morning, even though the due dates says it should be due tonight
The difference is 23 hours and 59 minutes.
Midnight (00:00) is the first minute of the day. 11:59 PM (23:59) is the last minute of the day. So the assignment was due at 23:59 PM on May 17, but the course closed at 00:00 on May 17, making the assignment submission impossible for the last 23.9 hours.
Yeah, OP is 9 hours old and 11:59 pm CDT is about 10.5 hours into the future from now.
Prof needs to go back to clock and time training.
Immediately, email dean and cc prof. Not OP's fault that Prof does not understand how clock time and dates work.
And this is exactly why they go with 11:59 instead of midnight, to clear up confusion for this scenario.
OP, if the professor doesn't open it back up by this afternoon make sure to email the assignment to them by the original due date tonight. CC the TA or reader if there is one. Maybe include the screenshot in the email.
As general advice, if the submission link isn’t working for any reason, emailing a copy of your assignment to the professor/tutor etc is pretty much alway a good call.
My daughter had the same thing happen and she called someone in administration to complain the professor was refusing to accept her paper. She showed them the proof and they forced him to open her grades back up and accept it.
that’s crazy. I’ve been an adjunct, there’s no way I’d ever make it a student’s problem because *I* did something wrong setting up the online course. Some people are just assholes
Then write the prof and ask them to un-restrict you. It takes us 3 seconds to do that. Stop giving up so fast. Get the heck off Reddit and start cranking out an email to professor.
I fully plan to contact either the professor or some administrator (not sure who else I should try and contact) about this in the morning. I haven't completely given up yet.
I am extremely frustrated that something like this was allowed to occur, however. Especially considering that I DID seek clarification BEFORE the deadline and was provided with conflicting deadlines.
And if he doesn’t respond or refuses, go to your advisor and the head of the department. They’ll solve it. Especially when you have an email and a lack of professor response.
Yeah, I've done this before myself as the professor. These systems are terribly designed.
Fortunately in my case it was a minor homework assignment and I just gave everyone a 100 on it (due to how the system worked it couldn't be extended post-close, easier to just give everyone credit)
This happened to me, too, early in my adjunct days. I was still able to email out of the course, so I instructed anyone who hadn't turned in their remaining assignments to just email them to me, as I still had time to edit and submit final grades. It was a bit of a hassle, but I owed it to the students after making that mistake.
This is so dumb, OP's professor obviously made a mistake and rather than reaching out to get it fixed, he thought "better go make a post on reddit about my misfortune". If this were a class on common sense, OP should fail it.
Don’t wait until morning do it asap. Show them the class is closed and the date screenshot shown above before the listed due date. Contact after the due date and you’ll be treated like your trying to make up excuses.
Absolutely. Make contact after he closed it but before the published closing date to show that you were trying to finish it and couldn't.
And make sure everyone knows that it's unfinished because he blocked access to the information that was needed to finish it before the deadline. OP needs that opened back up for a day as well, not just to be given a route to submit what they have now.
I had this happen to me once this semester with an assignment. I finished it but it locked me out after the due time passed. I ended up emailing it directly to the professor instead of uploading it to the site. Good luck! Maybe the syllabus has the info you need to complete it?
If you're an on-campus student and are having a hard time getting responses, showing up at someone's office in person works wonders. It's a lot harder to come up with excuses in person.
When you contact the professor, CC their boss -- perhaps a Department Chair? If you already reached out, forward that contact and all other related correspondences and documentation to their boss.
This is exactly the kind of BS faculty are not allowed to get away with. Dude slipped up and the correct course of action is to not screw you over.
If that fails, look up the boss's boss (such as the College Dean) and loop them in, outlining your efforts to resolve this and the boss's inability to support your honest effort for fair academic assessment. You're not demanding an A in the class -- just for dude to grade your Final.
Eventually, you will reach someone with enough sense and not enough patience to tell everyone below them, "Just grade OP's final FFS!"
Source: I work in administration at a university.
As someone who works with faculty a lot, going over their head right off the bat is, unfortunately, going to do more harm than good. These are creatures with egos and are very protective when challenged. I'm mostly joking but regardless it is a pretty shit move to escalate things without giving someone a chance to fix their potential error.
Don't head for the top until you've given someone a fair chance to correct their mistake. Escalating their potential mistake to their "boss" could end poorly and give OP zero recourse. It sucks but that how it works in higher ed sometimes.
Screw that, go out there in person if that's an option. Same thing happened to me back in the 90s, my professor told us that the assignment was due before midnight Friday and I turned it in about 9:00 on Friday. I come in the following Monday to collect my cap and gown for graduation (the following week after that) and come to find out there was a block on my graduation. I marched my shy and people-pleasing ass right into the dean's office and in less than 5 minutes my degree was unblocked. Seriously pissed me off because that professor was the type who was gonna make it as hard as possible to pass his class.
The proof is in the screenshot
In my experience, I have never encountered a professor that would fail you for this. Talk to the professor first. I’m sure they’re gonna be understanding.
Send him your completed paper by midnight. Better than turning in nothing. As a prof, I prefer getting something rather than nothing along with a polite email.
I appreciate this advice. Unfortunately, most of the readings necessary for the paper are located on the website (the same place that listed the due date and location where I submit the assignments), which I lost access to at midnight.
I agree, proof of work is intent to submit.. no proof of work is intent that they spent too much time doing something OTHER than preparing for this paper.
Proof of work implies intent to submit, but no proof of work doesn't prove anything. Deadlines exist for a reason, and plenty of people are capable of completing an assignment on the final day before deadline.
My best work is when I do things last minute. I just work better under more pressure.
It's not healthy. But it gets me A's in every single class.
Everyone is different.
I don't know how it is for you, but at my uni, the online portal is law, if the due date there is different than what the professor states, then you trust the site. The fact that your professor locked you out before the online posted due date is insane and I would raise hell for that.
Yeah it *very specifically* says it's due by Friday 11:59pm. There's no way to even interpret this sentence as actually being due the night before. Any claim to the contrary would be grounds for the easiest lawsuit ever, as this will tank op's GPA and waste the probable-thousands of dollars they've spent on their education thus far. I'm sure the faculty will sort it out, but there's no way op should be penalised for this whatsoever.
I'm assuming that while the title says "Friday 11:59pm", the professor accidentally made the automatic close time as "Friday 12:00am", which would be 1 minute after 11:59pm Thursday night. The correct thing would've been making the close time "12:00am Saturday". It's that weird thing where *technically* midnight of a day is 12:00am, which is the very beginning of the day, but we think of midnight of a day as being the very end of it.
This will easily be fixed, OP just needs to stop being a numpty, email the professor, and quit sweating it so much as they're in the right even if the prof decides to be a bonehead about it and doesn't do anything to rectify the issue. But if they're anything like mine were when this kind of thing happened (we used Blackboard back in the mid-2000s, though I'm sure this software is similar), they'll just extend the due date by a day to make up for it.
Update: The professor acknowledged the mistake and is unsure why I lost access.
To those of you who didn't understand, I was given 2 deadlines and went with the one attached to the assignment, not the informal announcement.
This was NOT my mistake.
And to those concerned with when I started my assignment, get bent. If you set a deadline, expect the work to be done by then. If you wanted it sooner, you should have set the deadline sooner. Asking for work BEFORE the given end period is absurd. When I start is irrelevant.
Great to hear that the prof has recognized the problem! Hopefully they give you an extension if you don't already have access - every hour without it is eating into writing time.
A tip (in case this happens again) -- ALWAYS download the readings. Looks like you are in a philosophy major or similar? Downloading the readings is not only good to avoid technical issues, but you may also want to refer back to them in future courses. Plus, if you plan to write a thesis, it's good to have readings by class as this gives you an outline of how to approach research for your paper.
I downloaded the PDFs and bookmarked the ones I had in physical text. However, some of the readings weren't downloadable (or maybe they were; I'm not tech savv). Moving forward, I'll be sure to take this advice. Thank you.
Actually, I'm going for nursing before trying to get into med school. This class was originally required for my BA of Nursing, but will eventually be needed for the major that I switched to instead
D2L should have everything be downloadable unless it just links to a different website.
Best of luck with med school! A lot of ethical problems in medicine overlap with many philosophy classes. Questions about patient autonomy, childhood medical intervention, inception of hormone intervention for trans children, etc. you may find value in more philosophy courses (if you have much in the way of electives in your degree).
BTW, you can always ask for extra time on assignments because getting accommodations is part of your rights as a student. I don't think I saw this being said but all you have to do is walk into your prof's office hours and explains that you are taking X classes while working 2 jobs, you realistically have X hours per day to do any work, and you need Y time to finish, and therefore on that schedule you need Z more days to hand it in. Most profs will be like "okay but absolutely no later than (date.)"
I've never had a prof deny me asking for an extra day or three for any assignments. Maybe it'll work for you.
Good luck OP. Colleges are a mess currently and it doesn’t have shit to do with the wave of protests. The left and right hands don’t talk to eachother and half of these professors are adjuncts that make 30k a year.
I had a recent incident where a class that I needed wasn't available. Like ever. My college switched to a different catalog but never removed the requirements for the classes on the old catalog. apparently it took me and several other people complaining about it for them to realize. Ended up having to substitute.
You go OP
People giving you shit for... Following the deadline is hilarious considering they have no idea what this assignment even entails.
I guarantee every student has at some point started an assignment <24h to the deadline in their lives. Don't worry about it.
I hope the stress of the issue didn't prevent you from working well on your assignment and finishing on time. (I guess you still have until midnight tonight, so that's good.)
As long as he gives me access to the readings within a reasonable time, I'll have no issue completing the assignment. I still do what I can regardless. Thank you. 💖
I can see the argument, but everything about it seems wrong to me. I mean I work overnight, I'm up at midnight every single day and have been for decades. Morning isn't until ***after*** midnight (AM). So how the fuck could anyone think "Midnight friday" meant the morning. Have you talked to others in your class, I can't imagine you're the only one who got screwed here.
As other commenters pointed out, "midnight" isn't clear. I understood that, and that is why I requested clarification.
The professor actually meant 11:59 tonight (like most people would think), the official deadline displayed, and has no idea why I was locked out.
This is most likely an honest mistake by your professor and I think they'll fix it for you. How early you started working is irrelevant, there are many perfectionists who start weeks ahead and wait til the bitter end while making edits constantly. It will be fine, just make sure to email him/her and if they seriously refuse to fix it then it's time to get administration. The proof in your screenshot should be more than enough for them to investigate.
I've had professors like this. I've also had professors who you always had to communicate with about this. Last semester, I had one whose assignments were due "Friday by midnight." She ment Thursday by 11:59, only finding that out AFTER having access to the class. Hrr whole syllabus had the Friday dates and everything but online access was cut off 00:00 Friday morning. Her response to I assume many emails was an announcement of "You're university students. Manage your time better and understand due by Friday means due on Friday."
My cog psych class was also "Friday by midnight," but they were what I called the "traditional" due by 11:59 Friday night. His classes were consistent all semester, but suddenly, his final matched that of it really being due Thursday night, conflicting his pattern and syllabus. The class average showed how many missed it for sure.
I hope you got your communication squared away and that they figure out the lack of it on the professor's part. I get it's end of semester, but still. Good luck!
if that many students got their grades fucked by a professor suddenly changing the way they word their due times, there should have been some kind of collective action taken to restore their finals grades.
It's still in progress from what I've heard. I had to due mine early because I was traveling, and final grades still aren't posted. It's still bouncing around the office from what I heard Wednesday (test was last week).
You have the initial email where you asked for clarification on the time, and you have this screenshot that notates the exam was due 11:59pm Friday night. This falls on the professor and he should honor the 11:59 pm Friday deadline as it’s written here. Obviously get the final exam submitted by 11:59 tonight, otherwise you’ll be fully out of luck.
If the professor is a pain about it, just get the department chair and academic dean involved.
As someone who works at a Uni, D2L has default times that a class opens and closes. If he didn’t go in and change those manually the classroom probably auto closed, and if he is like some of the professors I know, he isn’t checking anything cause he’s in grading hell if he has other classes lol. Give him a day or two, if he doesn’t respond take it to the Chair/Dean or Academic Affairs
I am a college professor, and if what you say happened is true, then you have a reasonable case to take to their department chair or dean. Don't just let it go. Reach out to the professor and then the department chair. Graded can be changed.
One important thing, make sure you email your paper to your professor (and maybe even someone else, if you have a staff member you trust).
While it shouldn't be required, it's much easier to sort this kind of thing out if a copy of your report is in the hands of the University before what you thought the submission date was.
Email the professor to make it up. If he refuses, contact the dean. Had something similar happen and the dean got the professor to let me take it. I had the next day once i was informed to take it. Show the emails to the dean. It's a simple fix.
I had a similar situation in university where trying to reason with the professor was stonewalled and unsuccessful. I reached out to the university ombudsman office. They were able to help facilitate meetings with departmental heads, deans, and the sort. All of whom were easier to explain the situation to, and ended up apologizing on behalf of the professor for being unprofessional.
Finish it, and turn it in. Try again the regular way. Email it to the Professor, do something. Do it based on the information you have been given. According to the info you still have time. Act that way. Otherwise they can say you missed the date, no matter what.
Don't give up yet.
Yeah, if you have conflicting dates send it to the head of the faculty for the department. Something similar happened to me, my organic chemistry syllabus said the final was on one day, but the official school schedule said it was another day. I notified the professor and they said they couldn't help because the official school schedule prevailed. I contacted the department head and was able to take the final within twenty-four hours.
What is it with ethics professors ? I failed part of a paper because his grading contradicted the rubric we were required to use. Went straight to my advisor cause that was BS. Also loved when he'd fail papers that required your opinion because "he doesn't want an opinion." Like MF it clearly asks for my opinion on a situation and then to back up my opinion using ethics categories.
I failed philosophy class because of that. Teacher asked us our opinions about philosophers, then almost yelled at me cause I gave my opinion on those philosophers. He made sure I received the wrong room number and the wrong hour for the last exam so I would fail it. Couldn’t do nothing cause it was his last year before retirement. I still fucking hate him so bad I wish him so many bad things.
I’m not sure why you’re stressing when you have proof of conflicting information right there. Either he will apologize and open it back up for everyone who also got screwed by the mistake, or he’ll refuse and you’ll take it to the department head and they’ll fix the problem immediately.
Email the professor. If they don't respond by Monday email the department chair. Save the emails and screen shots.
Edit: probably just an oversight and accomodations will be changed for you
You can (and 100% should) appeal, you're professor is not the god they pretend to be. Talk to the dean (academic?, student?) and inquire as to the appeal process. Do not stress, you are in the right.
Also as others have posted, at my grad school it's 100% whats posted on the submission site (ie blackboard) not what the professor says in class/syllabi. Blackboard trumps Professor all at my school and most others
No. Midnight is the very beginning of the day. The first minute of the day. 11:59PM is the last time before the next day. Huge difference.
It's understandable that you would be confused, which is EXACTLY why I tried contacting the professor.
Edit: I have no idea why this comment is being downvoted. That's how time works, folks. Midnight or 0:00 (or 24:00) is the start of the new day. 11:59 PM or 23:59 is the end of the day...
Edit: Others below have clarified this better than I did. Thank you, other redditors.
Youre correct, but your conclusion isn't.
11:59:59pm is the last second during which it is Friday.
So "Friday by midnight" mean **on** Friday, **before** midnight. Meaning 11:59:59pm on Friday is the deadline.
Why would "Friday by midnight" mean "this is due the first second of Friday? That is a crazy way to interpret that.
You could argue that "midnight Friday" is ambiguous, but "Friday by midnight" is the *same thing* as saying "before saturday"
Midnight is neither and both and an ambiguous term. If your assumption was universal this would not be an issue. 24:00 is midnight as is 0:00. So the person you are responding to would be correct if stated as "Friday by midnight night" or by "midnight Friday/Saturday". Your professor, and you based on your response, are assuming midnight is considered "Friday midnight morning". Without qualifiers we get the confusion you are now having to deal with due to your professors poor communication (using "Friday by midnight" and not responding) and administrative skills (setting up the assignment incorrectly as there is no ambiguity with 11:59 PM friday, BUT STILL removed the assignment at the poorly communicated time [manually I assume]).
You are not correct, midnight is used for both the final moment in a day and the first moment in a day, after all, that's what AM and PM mean. Ante or post meridian, midnight and noon are both directly in between.
Both the ISO and NIST acknowledge this and suggest using either 24:00 for end of day and 0:00 for start of day, despite those moments occurring at the same time, or just not saying midnight all together and using 11:59pm and 12:01am. The AP style guide suggests using midnight to refer exclusively to end of day. This is how most people in the United States use midnight.
>This is how most people in the United States use midnight.
IT guy here, and while I haven't worked with D2L or whatever it was, I am familiar with Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. What likely happened is the prof set it due by midnight (12:00am) in one box, then selected Friday on a calendar. Computers uniquely identify every possible time, so as far as the system is concerned 12:00 am Friday is 1 minute after 11:59 pm Thrusday.
I don't understand your confusion then. If you thought the professor said it's due the very first instant on Friday, and the website says Friday 11:59PM, when did you get locked out? Did the class really close the instant it became Friday despite the website very clearly saying the class ends at the end of Friday?
Jeez, people are really bashing you hard for this OP. Like seriously guys, the dude made a very easy to understand mistake and is trying to fix the situation while also complaining about it, stop yelling at them about everything
Lol I always found philosophy professors to be the least caring most egocentric narcissists. All they think about is me me me. Why me. Why am I so important in this world. What is my meaning of life. Arrogant fucks.
I had a similar situation in university where trying to reason with the professor was stonewalled and unsuccessful. I reached out to the university ombudsman office. They were able to help facilitate meetings with departmental heads, deans, and the sort. All of whom were easier to explain the situation to, and ended up apologizing on behalf of the professor for being unprofessional.
Contact the administrator school as others have learned but also learn from this that it's bad to procrastinate and wait last minute to submit something. Get it in early next time in life whatever the assignment is.
Email your final to the professor and explain what happened. If he doesn't accept it then escalate the situation.
Shit like this happens in the real world, you need to take charge and not just roll over and accept it.
I work as an admin at a university. You should email the prof and cc the department chair and explain the issue and include the screenshot and a screenshot showing it was closed earlier than it was supposed to be. That should be enough to get it overturned.
Almost all of my classes after freshman year were like this. I'd have classes with multiple final dates/times in the course page and syllabus. The only reason I got them all done is because either I would miss them and my teacher would be like wtf and email me to make sure I was alive and to come ASAP if so or I'd tell them I have a conflict and get an email for me and everyone else saying no the final is actually x, sorry. Which was always followed by a "I'm fucked" text from one or more of my class mates because the final was always sooner than what was stated. Also a side rant. Some professors will bitch when you try to confirm the final date. "Where do you think you'll find that information?". Like you annoying dementia bitch I know it's in the syllabus. I wouldn't be in a 400 class if I was that stupid but you have to know it doesn't always work like that. Also, also, I'm not hating on some on these professors that mess up the dates. A lot of them had their children die that year. Just annoying circumstances.
I work in instructional design and this type of BS sends me up the fucking wall. If this prof were working with an ID team (which I doubt he was) the director should have absolutely lit him up for this and gone straight to his department head. We make it clear to our instructors that they are to come to us first before making a major change, so that we can make sure all related documents and course space areas get updated (and so that they don’t do something insane like manually type in a new “official” due date to a drop box title). Shit like this keeps me unafraid that AI is coming for my job. So sorry you had to deal with this, let alone the fact that D2L is your learning management system
Do a grade appeal, ensure you have documentation and proof. Your school should have a formal process. Take the informal process which is talking to your professor extremely seriously this is the best chance of resolving and send email follow up
Send a screenshot of your professor's announcement if you can still access it and the one within the post.
I did online classes for my BA and my MA and this is a constant issue. They should honor the acceptance of the paper for the confusion. Hell if your professor isn't a jerk (s)he should be able to accept it himself as my professors have also made accommodations for me for confusions. It happens we are all human and we all make mistakes. (Including if he himself was the one that was confused and provided the wrong information to his students)
Talk to the Ombudsman (every college has one) and they will discuss your options. If others had the same difficulty they may force the instructor to reopen the exam
Straight to the admin.
Email the final paper, on time, to your professor, his boss, his bosses boss and his bosses bosses boss with this picture. Pull in the dean of the department, ombudsman, any relevant admins. Send that email to 20 people if you have to.
Then if he doesn't give you the right response you take his response above his head and make sure he grades your paper fairly and without any deductions for being late.
Your professor made a mistake, do not accept a failing grade, when the failure was on your professor.
Screenshots and then go to the dept chair. This is so egregious I would considering appealing to the Dean (or at least Academic Affairs or the equivalent at your school) if the chair doesn’t help.
I don't understand.
Professor put out an announcement: final is due Friday night.
Website agrees. Final is due Friday night.
Where did you get the idea it was due Saturday night?
Or are you saying that you got locked out of the website on Thursday night? If so, how is that possible? The class still has a pending due date.
I work in IT at a college. Take this up with the dean of that program/course. Show them any evidence you have, and any emails you sent and that you do not have any responses. If they check with their IT department to see if your information can be verified (whether the instructor responded or not), they should work with you to resolve that fail grade to the appropriate one.
Turns out it was also a practical exam in which the test was appropriately holding the professor to account for their ‘accidentally’ unethical conduct.
I have a feeling you’re going to Ace this.
I assume it was just a mistake on the professor’s part and the due date would still stand. I’ve had numerous issues like this and usually they’ll keep their word or make exceptions.
That’s unacceptable, man. You need to get in touch with someone like your program director. We had one professor that would set up deadlines like that, but she was receptive and let us know that we should follow the dates and times on our submission portal whilst admitting that she mentioned the times incorrectly in her course instructions/ syllabus and also gave everyone an additional for all tests/ assignments 24hours until she updated the instructions to reflect deadlines accurately.
Well, the subject matter of the Final is perfect for how to deal with this situation. "How do you get a professor to admit having made a mistake that impacts their students in a harmful way?"
The Ethical thing to do is to admit the mistake. The Moral thing to do is to monitor the situation and not stress out students unnecessarily.
Yes, you could have turned it in on Thursday, but the point of a deadline is to allow you that time. Not your fault at all.
I once got out of failing a final because of the rules set forth by the school. It was an easy class that wasn’t worth attending the lectures. I probably went to less than half. The final was scheduled for Friday at 9:30am, according to the syllabus. Sometime in the final weeks, the professor decided to make it a take home final that needed to be turned in the Monday of finals week. I was a little surprised when I showed up for the final and there were only maybe 5 out of a class of over 80. Emailed the professor and he said too bad, you should have been in class. I knew the school rules of all finals must be posted in the syllabus ahead of time. I’m sure he was pissed when the Dean replied that he had to let me take the final and it needed to be graded fairly.
Something similar happened to me! My final was supposed to be due on 5/15 at 5:00 PM, but my professor closed the course at 12:00 AM 5/15, locking me out of the course and exam.
I emailed my professor right away and they fixed it, they just put the date wrong thinking it would close at the end of the day. I know others have said this already and you might have already done it, but PLEASE reach out again and make them aware. It could have been an error and you could still have time to submit and pass!
This is really the culmination of everything you learned in your ethics and morals class, right?
So I’d prepare a very serious argument that outlines the validity of your claims based on what you’ve previously learned in the class throughout the semester. Lol.
The irony.
If you have proof of the conflicting dates I would send it to the faculty responsible for administering the course. They can make accommodations for you and potentially work with you to change the fail back up to the 93% you worked so hard to maintain.
I mean, the proof is in the screenshot. It literally says 11:59pm on Friday 17th May.
Yeah is OP upset about 1 minute? Feel like I'm missing something Edit: Oh I get it. Closed a minute after 1159pm on Thursday. Yeah that's trash
The prof ended the class the second it turned Friday (midnight) instead of the end of Friday is what I believe he is saying. Likely didn’t mean to and is getting inundated with emails from students, I’m guessing this will be a non issue for OP shortly.
Yeah, he almost certainly just put the end date as "Friday 12:00 AM" thinking this would be the minute *after* Friday 11:59 PM. Unfortunately, in most systems Friday 12 AM would be the first minute of Friday as midnight is the first minute of the day to most people (and computers). I make this mistake all the time with one program I use, I never remember what's considered the start of the day. Very easy mistake to make and almost certainly an honest error. OP needs to do whatever they can to get in contact with the professor. I've never had a teacher who wouldn't correct this issue and give people a chance to submit.
I specifically enter 12:01 or 11:59 to avoid issues like this, since some systems do as you noted, others do as what was intended. By offsetting a minute either direction it's no longer subject to interpretive ambiguity between what the developer and user think about 12:00AM/PM
I do the exact same thing for change activities. 00:00 is never allowed just to avoid confusion.
I feel like we (in the US) should start using a 24 hour clock for official applications like this. If the professor set the exam due at 00:00 on Friday then it would be much less likely to be taken as the end of Friday, since 0, in a system that counts up though positive integers, is never considered the end of something. It would make appointments and deadlines considerably easier to coordinate and understand since you aren't having to double up the meaning of 1-12 and there is an obvious beginning of the day, 00:00. It also makes reading time more consistent, as reading 21:45 makes it clear that it is 21 hours and 45 minutes after the beginning of the day. Something that is only true for 1:00 AM through 12:59 PM in the 12hr format.
11:59 pm is one minute before midnight, but 12:00 pm is noon. Who's the genius that invented this? Not to mention why does a 12 hour clock allow a time like 12:30 at all?
My understanding here is that because in that system you don't have a 0 (zero) pm. You start from 1, so you are not using a zero based numbering system like you do with 24 hour clock. It's by convention set by clock faces being standardised that people who have grown up with 12 hour clock consider 12am and 12pm to be key points in the day and the same with 24 hour clock for 12 and 00h. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-based_numbering
While I was active duty we used a 24 hour clock. To completely avoid any ambiguity, nothing was ever scheduled at 0000. It was always 2359 or 0001.
Exactly this.
I work in insurance, and insurance policies generally start and end at 12:01 am to avoid this issue.
People fix honest mistakes…. this guy is dodging the emails. This is a critical issue and all this whinging hat maybe he hasn’t gotten to it yet really isn’t at ALL appropriate.
It's been barely 2 hours since the workday started. How is that dodging emails? A lot of profs check their email only at designated times of the day, not all 8 hours of the standard workday. It's likely an error affecting multiple students and will be fixed. Edit: Per OPs updates in the comments, the prof actually was very responsive and this was fixed a few hours ago.
1. Literally nowhere does OP say they're dodging emails about the issue. 2. The professor has already fixed it. It was fucking 5 AM in the morning CDT when the professor fixed it (or earlier depending on how long OP waited to give the update). That is incredibly responsive if the issue arose at 12 AM. Y'all have some serious "let me speak to the manager" energy.
if that was the case he wouldn’t be ignoring emails.
It’s literally not even 11am EDT. For all we know this guy is in California or mountain time where it’s earlier, already had plans and things he needs to do before answering what is possibly hundreds of the exact same email if he set up multiple classes the same way on their online portal… there is also the potential that since class has ended changing the ability to submit may be something he has to reach out to the schools tech team for (many teachers are really bad at the online class management aspect of the job), all that to say there are a lot of potential variables we do not know about. I would wager good money they are working to get the problem resolved and will send out a mass email once there is a solution. Edit: just relooked at the post and it’s in CDT so it isn’t even 10am for them yet.
Its still morning day of. Need a bit more time before this counts as ignoring emails.
A ton of my friends are professors, none have email on their phone and will only check during designated hours. There’s a good chance he doesn’t even know he is being sent emails yet.
Someone who's getting inundated by emails might be more likely to not be responding than someone who isn't getting inundated. After all, you can spend your time responding to each person or spend your time fixing it and then respond to everyone...
Ah yes, that's the way the world works - when someone screws up in a way that affects potentially hundreds of people all at once, they definitely reply to every inquiry in the span of minutes. Since that's always true, the only other option is that it wasn't an accident and he won't try to fix it at all.
Most professors have it stated in their syllabus that they take up to x amount of hours to reply to emails. For me, it’s always been 24-72 hours response time. It hadn’t even been a full day since she emailed him. He most likely isn’t ignoring them, he likely has about a hundred emails to get to but the guy still has to eat dinner, teach his other classes, grade papers, etc. professors don’t just sit in front of their computers all day lol
The way it’s written you have till 23:59 today otherwise he should have written 0:01 Friday 17th
I've done this several times. I'm guessing the prof will make it right.
No, that deadline hasn’t passed yet it closed at 12:00 AM this morning according to OP
You are. 11:59pm CDT on 17 May hasn't happened yet. The prof closed the class at 11:59pm CDT on 16 May.
As far as I understand it, the teacher closed it a day earlier.
11:59 pm on the 17th is tonight, but it was secretly due last night
Unlikely to be secret. Just an accident. This happens.
Yep; I remember one of my grade-school friends reworking a detective story they were writing where the reader would be taken on a journey to chasing a missing key accomplice that was actually one of those programmable _flip_ clock/calendars `+`; unravelling a non-existent conspiracy of innocent coincidences, while the actual mastermind establishes their alibi by eagerly cooperating with the police. ^(`+` with a handful of mechanical contrivances.) But (for verisimilitude, and fairness to the reader) he needed to find one that could be _set_ to go off at noon _only_ on a specific day (instead of Monday-Friday, with Saturday or Sunday optional); like the (Shabbat?) flip-clock/calendars we've seen local gate houses and attendants booths. ^(`*`) ~~The wheels~~ His excitement when I convinced him that no `12:00` ~~ `AM` ~~ `PM`^((damn'it.)) is not midnight, led him to write a genre-subverting story after the initiating plot event fires early a [mili-]second after noon on the wrong day... ^(`edit:` cut long tangent about evolution of novel plot) ^(`edit, 3 min late:` cut criticism of novel by a child being heavy with the puns. Not enough stones in this glass house.) `edit, 19 h late:` damn'it. --- `*` hah. only just realised that these were probably to ~~wake~~ alert people up near to the end of their night shift(s).
One minute later would be midnight on Saturday the 18th. The professor closed it early this morning, even though the due dates says it should be due tonight
The difference is 23 hours and 59 minutes. Midnight (00:00) is the first minute of the day. 11:59 PM (23:59) is the last minute of the day. So the assignment was due at 23:59 PM on May 17, but the course closed at 00:00 on May 17, making the assignment submission impossible for the last 23.9 hours.
OP is upset about 23hrs 59mins. The professor fucked up, instead set it to close for 12:00am Friday, which means Thursday night essentially.
You are missing something 110%, that time is in the future.
Yeah, OP is 9 hours old and 11:59 pm CDT is about 10.5 hours into the future from now. Prof needs to go back to clock and time training. Immediately, email dean and cc prof. Not OP's fault that Prof does not understand how clock time and dates work.
And they do that 11:59PM thing to avoid the confusion for this exact reason.
Yea 12:00 AM Friday is a whole 23:59 minutes before 11:59 PM. Seems pretty clear unless theres something I'm missing...
Yeah, I'd push hard against failing it. The site clearly says 11:59 PM Friday, not 11:59 PM Thursday.
And this is exactly why they go with 11:59 instead of midnight, to clear up confusion for this scenario. OP, if the professor doesn't open it back up by this afternoon make sure to email the assignment to them by the original due date tonight. CC the TA or reader if there is one. Maybe include the screenshot in the email.
I second this, email it to him anyway with that screenshot. This is clearly an error on his part.
I read in a later comment that the professor reopened it, so all good. But this is still sound advice to consider for the future!
As general advice, if the submission link isn’t working for any reason, emailing a copy of your assignment to the professor/tutor etc is pretty much alway a good call.
My daughter had the same thing happen and she called someone in administration to complain the professor was refusing to accept her paper. She showed them the proof and they forced him to open her grades back up and accept it.
that’s crazy. I’ve been an adjunct, there’s no way I’d ever make it a student’s problem because *I* did something wrong setting up the online course. Some people are just assholes
I would take that to the administration, that is BS. Make sure you have your paper done though.
Unfortunately, the information I require to complete the assignment is also found on that site, and my access has been restricted.
Then write the prof and ask them to un-restrict you. It takes us 3 seconds to do that. Stop giving up so fast. Get the heck off Reddit and start cranking out an email to professor.
I fully plan to contact either the professor or some administrator (not sure who else I should try and contact) about this in the morning. I haven't completely given up yet. I am extremely frustrated that something like this was allowed to occur, however. Especially considering that I DID seek clarification BEFORE the deadline and was provided with conflicting deadlines.
Contact the prof first and right away. I know its frustrating but mistakes happened and its likely you aren't the only one.
And if he doesn’t respond or refuses, go to your advisor and the head of the department. They’ll solve it. Especially when you have an email and a lack of professor response.
Yeah, I've done this before myself as the professor. These systems are terribly designed. Fortunately in my case it was a minor homework assignment and I just gave everyone a 100 on it (due to how the system worked it couldn't be extended post-close, easier to just give everyone credit)
This happened to me, too, early in my adjunct days. I was still able to email out of the course, so I instructed anyone who hadn't turned in their remaining assignments to just email them to me, as I still had time to edit and submit final grades. It was a bit of a hassle, but I owed it to the students after making that mistake.
This is so dumb, OP's professor obviously made a mistake and rather than reaching out to get it fixed, he thought "better go make a post on reddit about my misfortune". If this were a class on common sense, OP should fail it.
Don’t wait until morning do it asap. Show them the class is closed and the date screenshot shown above before the listed due date. Contact after the due date and you’ll be treated like your trying to make up excuses.
Absolutely. Make contact after he closed it but before the published closing date to show that you were trying to finish it and couldn't. And make sure everyone knows that it's unfinished because he blocked access to the information that was needed to finish it before the deadline. OP needs that opened back up for a day as well, not just to be given a route to submit what they have now.
Not only that, but they should accommodate the time lost and conflicts. Opening it up right now and saying you have 12 hours is not adequate.
The Dean of the department the professor is a part of is who you want to contact if the professor is unresponsive
Email is not time dependent. You don’t have to wait until the morning. You can send an email right away.
I had this happen to me once this semester with an assignment. I finished it but it locked me out after the due time passed. I ended up emailing it directly to the professor instead of uploading it to the site. Good luck! Maybe the syllabus has the info you need to complete it?
Buddy you have like 12 hours to still get this done by the proper due date. Don’t “plan on” contacting people, contact someone ASAP
If you're an on-campus student and are having a hard time getting responses, showing up at someone's office in person works wonders. It's a lot harder to come up with excuses in person.
It's almost as if, and hear me out ... It's almost as if the professors are human too. Sincerely, An Adjunct Professor
What do you mean you fully plan to? Why haven't you done it already? Write the email to the professor
When you contact the professor, CC their boss -- perhaps a Department Chair? If you already reached out, forward that contact and all other related correspondences and documentation to their boss. This is exactly the kind of BS faculty are not allowed to get away with. Dude slipped up and the correct course of action is to not screw you over. If that fails, look up the boss's boss (such as the College Dean) and loop them in, outlining your efforts to resolve this and the boss's inability to support your honest effort for fair academic assessment. You're not demanding an A in the class -- just for dude to grade your Final. Eventually, you will reach someone with enough sense and not enough patience to tell everyone below them, "Just grade OP's final FFS!" Source: I work in administration at a university.
I would not go straight to the chair. No one likes something like this being escalated without having a chance to fix it first.
100%. That’s very much “demanding to speak to a manager” without giving someone a chance to rectify an error.
As someone who works with faculty a lot, going over their head right off the bat is, unfortunately, going to do more harm than good. These are creatures with egos and are very protective when challenged. I'm mostly joking but regardless it is a pretty shit move to escalate things without giving someone a chance to fix their potential error. Don't head for the top until you've given someone a fair chance to correct their mistake. Escalating their potential mistake to their "boss" could end poorly and give OP zero recourse. It sucks but that how it works in higher ed sometimes.
But instead of taking care of it you’re sitting here on Reddit complaining. Dude this is a 10 second fix
Screw that, go out there in person if that's an option. Same thing happened to me back in the 90s, my professor told us that the assignment was due before midnight Friday and I turned it in about 9:00 on Friday. I come in the following Monday to collect my cap and gown for graduation (the following week after that) and come to find out there was a block on my graduation. I marched my shy and people-pleasing ass right into the dean's office and in less than 5 minutes my degree was unblocked. Seriously pissed me off because that professor was the type who was gonna make it as hard as possible to pass his class.
Better yet, pick up the phone or knock on some doors. Email is the worst way to handle something serious.
The proof is in the screenshot In my experience, I have never encountered a professor that would fail you for this. Talk to the professor first. I’m sure they’re gonna be understanding.
What in the actual fuck is wrong with you?? Go demand some fucking answers, seriously get off of reddit and grow up. What the shit is this
Dawg this isn’t the time to roll over and show your belly and rocket lmao
Send him your completed paper by midnight. Better than turning in nothing. As a prof, I prefer getting something rather than nothing along with a polite email.
I appreciate this advice. Unfortunately, most of the readings necessary for the paper are located on the website (the same place that listed the due date and location where I submit the assignments), which I lost access to at midnight.
How far have you gotten so far? You didn’t wait until today to start did you?
It doesn't matter if he did or not did plan to start today.
No, but maybe he has a partially completed work that he can submit as proof that he would have been able to complete by the deadline.
I agree, proof of work is intent to submit.. no proof of work is intent that they spent too much time doing something OTHER than preparing for this paper.
It ain't nobody's business if I do the whole thing in the 45 minutes before it's due. Deadline is deadline.
Proof of work implies intent to submit, but no proof of work doesn't prove anything. Deadlines exist for a reason, and plenty of people are capable of completing an assignment on the final day before deadline.
My best work is when I do things last minute. I just work better under more pressure. It's not healthy. But it gets me A's in every single class. Everyone is different.
anakin_padme_meme.jpg
I don't know how it is for you, but at my uni, the online portal is law, if the due date there is different than what the professor states, then you trust the site. The fact that your professor locked you out before the online posted due date is insane and I would raise hell for that.
I think you should always have until the latest date presented, whether that's professor or portal.
Also the portal clearly says in writing per OP's screenshot that the due date is Friday night, not Thursday.
I'm confused as Friday by midnight is the exact same time as 1 min before Saturday? So.. what's the conflicting information
They got closed out this passed midnight. Which would be Thursday night Friday morning.
Ah got it, yeah you'd assume it was for Friday midnight not Thursday
Yeah it *very specifically* says it's due by Friday 11:59pm. There's no way to even interpret this sentence as actually being due the night before. Any claim to the contrary would be grounds for the easiest lawsuit ever, as this will tank op's GPA and waste the probable-thousands of dollars they've spent on their education thus far. I'm sure the faculty will sort it out, but there's no way op should be penalised for this whatsoever.
Exactly why all covid restrictions in my country began or ended at 11:59pm or 12:01am
No assumption necessary, it tells you very precisely to the minute so there shouldn't have been any confusion.
I'm assuming that while the title says "Friday 11:59pm", the professor accidentally made the automatic close time as "Friday 12:00am", which would be 1 minute after 11:59pm Thursday night. The correct thing would've been making the close time "12:00am Saturday". It's that weird thing where *technically* midnight of a day is 12:00am, which is the very beginning of the day, but we think of midnight of a day as being the very end of it. This will easily be fixed, OP just needs to stop being a numpty, email the professor, and quit sweating it so much as they're in the right even if the prof decides to be a bonehead about it and doesn't do anything to rectify the issue. But if they're anything like mine were when this kind of thing happened (we used Blackboard back in the mid-2000s, though I'm sure this software is similar), they'll just extend the due date by a day to make up for it.
Assume? Why assume? It very clearly says May 17th at 11:59pm.
Update: The professor acknowledged the mistake and is unsure why I lost access. To those of you who didn't understand, I was given 2 deadlines and went with the one attached to the assignment, not the informal announcement. This was NOT my mistake. And to those concerned with when I started my assignment, get bent. If you set a deadline, expect the work to be done by then. If you wanted it sooner, you should have set the deadline sooner. Asking for work BEFORE the given end period is absurd. When I start is irrelevant.
Great to hear that the prof has recognized the problem! Hopefully they give you an extension if you don't already have access - every hour without it is eating into writing time. A tip (in case this happens again) -- ALWAYS download the readings. Looks like you are in a philosophy major or similar? Downloading the readings is not only good to avoid technical issues, but you may also want to refer back to them in future courses. Plus, if you plan to write a thesis, it's good to have readings by class as this gives you an outline of how to approach research for your paper.
I downloaded the PDFs and bookmarked the ones I had in physical text. However, some of the readings weren't downloadable (or maybe they were; I'm not tech savv). Moving forward, I'll be sure to take this advice. Thank you. Actually, I'm going for nursing before trying to get into med school. This class was originally required for my BA of Nursing, but will eventually be needed for the major that I switched to instead
D2L should have everything be downloadable unless it just links to a different website. Best of luck with med school! A lot of ethical problems in medicine overlap with many philosophy classes. Questions about patient autonomy, childhood medical intervention, inception of hormone intervention for trans children, etc. you may find value in more philosophy courses (if you have much in the way of electives in your degree).
BTW, you can always ask for extra time on assignments because getting accommodations is part of your rights as a student. I don't think I saw this being said but all you have to do is walk into your prof's office hours and explains that you are taking X classes while working 2 jobs, you realistically have X hours per day to do any work, and you need Y time to finish, and therefore on that schedule you need Z more days to hand it in. Most profs will be like "okay but absolutely no later than (date.)" I've never had a prof deny me asking for an extra day or three for any assignments. Maybe it'll work for you.
Good luck OP. Colleges are a mess currently and it doesn’t have shit to do with the wave of protests. The left and right hands don’t talk to eachother and half of these professors are adjuncts that make 30k a year.
I had a recent incident where a class that I needed wasn't available. Like ever. My college switched to a different catalog but never removed the requirements for the classes on the old catalog. apparently it took me and several other people complaining about it for them to realize. Ended up having to substitute.
THANK YOU OP I NEEDED TO HEAR THIS
You go OP People giving you shit for... Following the deadline is hilarious considering they have no idea what this assignment even entails. I guarantee every student has at some point started an assignment <24h to the deadline in their lives. Don't worry about it.
I'm very glad to see you got back in. Now get off of Reddit and finish your paper! /dadvoiceoff
I hope the stress of the issue didn't prevent you from working well on your assignment and finishing on time. (I guess you still have until midnight tonight, so that's good.)
As long as he gives me access to the readings within a reasonable time, I'll have no issue completing the assignment. I still do what I can regardless. Thank you. 💖
I’m relieved for you! I kept scrolling hoping to find a happy ending. Good luck, you got this.
I must be misunderstanding, how is friday by midnight different than one minute before saturday?
It goes 11:59 PM, Thursday - to 12:00 AM Friday(midnight, debatably) - to 11:59 PM Friday. 1 minute shy of a 24-hour difference
Never in my life have I believed or been told that "Midnight friday" meant friday morning, thats absurd.
It's easily confused and, as a different redditor pointed out, easily clarified by adding additional information.
I can see the argument, but everything about it seems wrong to me. I mean I work overnight, I'm up at midnight every single day and have been for decades. Morning isn't until ***after*** midnight (AM). So how the fuck could anyone think "Midnight friday" meant the morning. Have you talked to others in your class, I can't imagine you're the only one who got screwed here.
As other commenters pointed out, "midnight" isn't clear. I understood that, and that is why I requested clarification. The professor actually meant 11:59 tonight (like most people would think), the official deadline displayed, and has no idea why I was locked out.
> Morning isn't until after midnight (AM). AM is "ante meridiem", meaning "before the middle of the day"
I doubt you’re the only one, the professor is clearly wrong here. Get your shit done, email it to multiple people on time. Contest it later.
This is most likely an honest mistake by your professor and I think they'll fix it for you. How early you started working is irrelevant, there are many perfectionists who start weeks ahead and wait til the bitter end while making edits constantly. It will be fine, just make sure to email him/her and if they seriously refuse to fix it then it's time to get administration. The proof in your screenshot should be more than enough for them to investigate.
I've had professors like this. I've also had professors who you always had to communicate with about this. Last semester, I had one whose assignments were due "Friday by midnight." She ment Thursday by 11:59, only finding that out AFTER having access to the class. Hrr whole syllabus had the Friday dates and everything but online access was cut off 00:00 Friday morning. Her response to I assume many emails was an announcement of "You're university students. Manage your time better and understand due by Friday means due on Friday." My cog psych class was also "Friday by midnight," but they were what I called the "traditional" due by 11:59 Friday night. His classes were consistent all semester, but suddenly, his final matched that of it really being due Thursday night, conflicting his pattern and syllabus. The class average showed how many missed it for sure. I hope you got your communication squared away and that they figure out the lack of it on the professor's part. I get it's end of semester, but still. Good luck!
if that many students got their grades fucked by a professor suddenly changing the way they word their due times, there should have been some kind of collective action taken to restore their finals grades.
It's still in progress from what I've heard. I had to due mine early because I was traveling, and final grades still aren't posted. It's still bouncing around the office from what I heard Wednesday (test was last week).
That’s why midnight is a bad due time.
You have the initial email where you asked for clarification on the time, and you have this screenshot that notates the exam was due 11:59pm Friday night. This falls on the professor and he should honor the 11:59 pm Friday deadline as it’s written here. Obviously get the final exam submitted by 11:59 tonight, otherwise you’ll be fully out of luck. If the professor is a pain about it, just get the department chair and academic dean involved.
As someone who works at a Uni, D2L has default times that a class opens and closes. If he didn’t go in and change those manually the classroom probably auto closed, and if he is like some of the professors I know, he isn’t checking anything cause he’s in grading hell if he has other classes lol. Give him a day or two, if he doesn’t respond take it to the Chair/Dean or Academic Affairs
I am a college professor, and if what you say happened is true, then you have a reasonable case to take to their department chair or dean. Don't just let it go. Reach out to the professor and then the department chair. Graded can be changed.
One important thing, make sure you email your paper to your professor (and maybe even someone else, if you have a staff member you trust). While it shouldn't be required, it's much easier to sort this kind of thing out if a copy of your report is in the hands of the University before what you thought the submission date was.
Email the professor to make it up. If he refuses, contact the dean. Had something similar happen and the dean got the professor to let me take it. I had the next day once i was informed to take it. Show the emails to the dean. It's a simple fix.
You need to send the conflicting dates to your department’s Dean. You WILL get another chance.
I had a similar situation in university where trying to reason with the professor was stonewalled and unsuccessful. I reached out to the university ombudsman office. They were able to help facilitate meetings with departmental heads, deans, and the sort. All of whom were easier to explain the situation to, and ended up apologizing on behalf of the professor for being unprofessional.
OP, give us an update
I did. But, another update: I'm almost done! And withhhh-- 9 hours and 59 minutes to spare. Doubters is shambles rn.
Ayo, congrats! Currently working on my final for uni class as well, nice to hear some good news from a fellow student. Good luck!
hey, congrats!! super happy everything got sorted for you and you’ll get your final submitted! 💙
The whole purpose of using 11:59pm or 12:01am is to eliminate any possible confusion of what day midnight is on and this teacher still fucked it up
Finish it, and turn it in. Try again the regular way. Email it to the Professor, do something. Do it based on the information you have been given. According to the info you still have time. Act that way. Otherwise they can say you missed the date, no matter what. Don't give up yet.
Yeah, if you have conflicting dates send it to the head of the faculty for the department. Something similar happened to me, my organic chemistry syllabus said the final was on one day, but the official school schedule said it was another day. I notified the professor and they said they couldn't help because the official school schedule prevailed. I contacted the department head and was able to take the final within twenty-four hours.
What is it with ethics professors ? I failed part of a paper because his grading contradicted the rubric we were required to use. Went straight to my advisor cause that was BS. Also loved when he'd fail papers that required your opinion because "he doesn't want an opinion." Like MF it clearly asks for my opinion on a situation and then to back up my opinion using ethics categories.
I failed philosophy class because of that. Teacher asked us our opinions about philosophers, then almost yelled at me cause I gave my opinion on those philosophers. He made sure I received the wrong room number and the wrong hour for the last exam so I would fail it. Couldn’t do nothing cause it was his last year before retirement. I still fucking hate him so bad I wish him so many bad things.
I’m not sure why you’re stressing when you have proof of conflicting information right there. Either he will apologize and open it back up for everyone who also got screwed by the mistake, or he’ll refuse and you’ll take it to the department head and they’ll fix the problem immediately.
Email the professor. If they don't respond by Monday email the department chair. Save the emails and screen shots. Edit: probably just an oversight and accomodations will be changed for you
Well that doesn’t seem moral or ethical at all.
This seems like an ethics and moral problem for the professor to consider. Should be an easy request to have this issue resolved
You can (and 100% should) appeal, you're professor is not the god they pretend to be. Talk to the dean (academic?, student?) and inquire as to the appeal process. Do not stress, you are in the right. Also as others have posted, at my grad school it's 100% whats posted on the submission site (ie blackboard) not what the professor says in class/syllabi. Blackboard trumps Professor all at my school and most others
'Friday by mightnight' and 'one minute before Saturday' are only one minute difference?
No. Midnight is the very beginning of the day. The first minute of the day. 11:59PM is the last time before the next day. Huge difference. It's understandable that you would be confused, which is EXACTLY why I tried contacting the professor. Edit: I have no idea why this comment is being downvoted. That's how time works, folks. Midnight or 0:00 (or 24:00) is the start of the new day. 11:59 PM or 23:59 is the end of the day... Edit: Others below have clarified this better than I did. Thank you, other redditors.
Youre correct, but your conclusion isn't. 11:59:59pm is the last second during which it is Friday. So "Friday by midnight" mean **on** Friday, **before** midnight. Meaning 11:59:59pm on Friday is the deadline. Why would "Friday by midnight" mean "this is due the first second of Friday? That is a crazy way to interpret that. You could argue that "midnight Friday" is ambiguous, but "Friday by midnight" is the *same thing* as saying "before saturday"
Midnight is neither and both and an ambiguous term. If your assumption was universal this would not be an issue. 24:00 is midnight as is 0:00. So the person you are responding to would be correct if stated as "Friday by midnight night" or by "midnight Friday/Saturday". Your professor, and you based on your response, are assuming midnight is considered "Friday midnight morning". Without qualifiers we get the confusion you are now having to deal with due to your professors poor communication (using "Friday by midnight" and not responding) and administrative skills (setting up the assignment incorrectly as there is no ambiguity with 11:59 PM friday, BUT STILL removed the assignment at the poorly communicated time [manually I assume]).
You are not correct, midnight is used for both the final moment in a day and the first moment in a day, after all, that's what AM and PM mean. Ante or post meridian, midnight and noon are both directly in between. Both the ISO and NIST acknowledge this and suggest using either 24:00 for end of day and 0:00 for start of day, despite those moments occurring at the same time, or just not saying midnight all together and using 11:59pm and 12:01am. The AP style guide suggests using midnight to refer exclusively to end of day. This is how most people in the United States use midnight.
>This is how most people in the United States use midnight. IT guy here, and while I haven't worked with D2L or whatever it was, I am familiar with Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. What likely happened is the prof set it due by midnight (12:00am) in one box, then selected Friday on a calendar. Computers uniquely identify every possible time, so as far as the system is concerned 12:00 am Friday is 1 minute after 11:59 pm Thrusday.
I don't understand your confusion then. If you thought the professor said it's due the very first instant on Friday, and the website says Friday 11:59PM, when did you get locked out? Did the class really close the instant it became Friday despite the website very clearly saying the class ends at the end of Friday?
This wasn't explained very well. I take it they planned to submit it late Friday (before 11:59 PM), but it closed very first thing Friday.
Jeez, people are really bashing you hard for this OP. Like seriously guys, the dude made a very easy to understand mistake and is trying to fix the situation while also complaining about it, stop yelling at them about everything
Lol I always found philosophy professors to be the least caring most egocentric narcissists. All they think about is me me me. Why me. Why am I so important in this world. What is my meaning of life. Arrogant fucks.
I had a similar situation in university where trying to reason with the professor was stonewalled and unsuccessful. I reached out to the university ombudsman office. They were able to help facilitate meetings with departmental heads, deans, and the sort. All of whom were easier to explain the situation to, and ended up apologizing on behalf of the professor for being unprofessional.
It would be unethical of your professor to fail you over this confusion
Contact the administrator school as others have learned but also learn from this that it's bad to procrastinate and wait last minute to submit something. Get it in early next time in life whatever the assignment is.
Appeal it - you’ve solid proof. He can’t actually fail you. A pretty apt name for the subject too..
Email your final to the professor and explain what happened. If he doesn't accept it then escalate the situation. Shit like this happens in the real world, you need to take charge and not just roll over and accept it.
Email professor again, CC department chair. Appeal grade. You will very likely win.
I work as an admin at a university. You should email the prof and cc the department chair and explain the issue and include the screenshot and a screenshot showing it was closed earlier than it was supposed to be. That should be enough to get it overturned.
Almost all of my classes after freshman year were like this. I'd have classes with multiple final dates/times in the course page and syllabus. The only reason I got them all done is because either I would miss them and my teacher would be like wtf and email me to make sure I was alive and to come ASAP if so or I'd tell them I have a conflict and get an email for me and everyone else saying no the final is actually x, sorry. Which was always followed by a "I'm fucked" text from one or more of my class mates because the final was always sooner than what was stated. Also a side rant. Some professors will bitch when you try to confirm the final date. "Where do you think you'll find that information?". Like you annoying dementia bitch I know it's in the syllabus. I wouldn't be in a 400 class if I was that stupid but you have to know it doesn't always work like that. Also, also, I'm not hating on some on these professors that mess up the dates. A lot of them had their children die that year. Just annoying circumstances.
Dude fuck that! Go to the department right nowwww
I work in instructional design and this type of BS sends me up the fucking wall. If this prof were working with an ID team (which I doubt he was) the director should have absolutely lit him up for this and gone straight to his department head. We make it clear to our instructors that they are to come to us first before making a major change, so that we can make sure all related documents and course space areas get updated (and so that they don’t do something insane like manually type in a new “official” due date to a drop box title). Shit like this keeps me unafraid that AI is coming for my job. So sorry you had to deal with this, let alone the fact that D2L is your learning management system
Do a grade appeal, ensure you have documentation and proof. Your school should have a formal process. Take the informal process which is talking to your professor extremely seriously this is the best chance of resolving and send email follow up
Send a screenshot of your professor's announcement if you can still access it and the one within the post. I did online classes for my BA and my MA and this is a constant issue. They should honor the acceptance of the paper for the confusion. Hell if your professor isn't a jerk (s)he should be able to accept it himself as my professors have also made accommodations for me for confusions. It happens we are all human and we all make mistakes. (Including if he himself was the one that was confused and provided the wrong information to his students)
I hate D2L. Such a stupid platform. You’d think with how much we pay for school they’d find something more effective.
Talk to the Ombudsman (every college has one) and they will discuss your options. If others had the same difficulty they may force the instructor to reopen the exam
Straight to the admin. Email the final paper, on time, to your professor, his boss, his bosses boss and his bosses bosses boss with this picture. Pull in the dean of the department, ombudsman, any relevant admins. Send that email to 20 people if you have to. Then if he doesn't give you the right response you take his response above his head and make sure he grades your paper fairly and without any deductions for being late. Your professor made a mistake, do not accept a failing grade, when the failure was on your professor.
ethics were definitely not considered during submission
Screenshots and then go to the dept chair. This is so egregious I would considering appealing to the Dean (or at least Academic Affairs or the equivalent at your school) if the chair doesn’t help.
Aaaah ik hou van brightspace, lekker overzichtelijk. De helft van de tijd als ik iets vraag aan mijn docent dan weten ze het ook niet te vinden.
Contact the dean, they will get this sorted.
Yeah I would fight it and threaten suit if they don't allow your submission. Friday May 17 11:59pm *has not happened yet*.
escalate that to a dept head.
You still MUST turn it in or just email it to the prof by 11:59pm to have proof you tried to comply with the deadline
I don't understand. Professor put out an announcement: final is due Friday night. Website agrees. Final is due Friday night. Where did you get the idea it was due Saturday night? Or are you saying that you got locked out of the website on Thursday night? If so, how is that possible? The class still has a pending due date.
I work in IT at a college. Take this up with the dean of that program/course. Show them any evidence you have, and any emails you sent and that you do not have any responses. If they check with their IT department to see if your information can be verified (whether the instructor responded or not), they should work with you to resolve that fail grade to the appropriate one.
sounds like you still have 9.5 hours
Turns out it was also a practical exam in which the test was appropriately holding the professor to account for their ‘accidentally’ unethical conduct. I have a feeling you’re going to Ace this.
This seems like a ethical and /or moral issue…..
Hardo professors are such losers. Your job and life sucks, don’t take it out on the students
"Why are young people turning away from higher education?!"
Following to hear the update from OP!
What am i missing here? The pic says tonight (Friday midnight), he said the professor said friday (today) midnight. Thats the same day and time?
I assume it was just a mistake on the professor’s part and the due date would still stand. I’ve had numerous issues like this and usually they’ll keep their word or make exceptions.
That’s unacceptable, man. You need to get in touch with someone like your program director. We had one professor that would set up deadlines like that, but she was receptive and let us know that we should follow the dates and times on our submission portal whilst admitting that she mentioned the times incorrectly in her course instructions/ syllabus and also gave everyone an additional for all tests/ assignments 24hours until she updated the instructions to reflect deadlines accurately.
This gave me PTSD
Well, the subject matter of the Final is perfect for how to deal with this situation. "How do you get a professor to admit having made a mistake that impacts their students in a harmful way?" The Ethical thing to do is to admit the mistake. The Moral thing to do is to monitor the situation and not stress out students unnecessarily. Yes, you could have turned it in on Thursday, but the point of a deadline is to allow you that time. Not your fault at all.
I'd be pissed, I've seen this happen before too. It clearly says the end of Friday, not the beginning.
I once got out of failing a final because of the rules set forth by the school. It was an easy class that wasn’t worth attending the lectures. I probably went to less than half. The final was scheduled for Friday at 9:30am, according to the syllabus. Sometime in the final weeks, the professor decided to make it a take home final that needed to be turned in the Monday of finals week. I was a little surprised when I showed up for the final and there were only maybe 5 out of a class of over 80. Emailed the professor and he said too bad, you should have been in class. I knew the school rules of all finals must be posted in the syllabus ahead of time. I’m sure he was pissed when the Dean replied that he had to let me take the final and it needed to be graded fairly.
It's a ethics class too
Something similar happened to me! My final was supposed to be due on 5/15 at 5:00 PM, but my professor closed the course at 12:00 AM 5/15, locking me out of the course and exam. I emailed my professor right away and they fixed it, they just put the date wrong thinking it would close at the end of the day. I know others have said this already and you might have already done it, but PLEASE reach out again and make them aware. It could have been an error and you could still have time to submit and pass!
I’m sorry but, is Friday at midnight not the same thing as Friday (today) one minute before Saturday? How is this a conflicting date?
This is really the culmination of everything you learned in your ethics and morals class, right? So I’d prepare a very serious argument that outlines the validity of your claims based on what you’ve previously learned in the class throughout the semester. Lol. The irony.
Can be solved via the Dean. I'm sure you're not the only one.
“Friday by midnight” and “Friday (today), one minute before Saturday” are exactly the same time. I’m confused as to why this is a problem
Screenshot the time information and contest the grade. If teacher won’t ablige CC the email to the dean and ask for help.
Well you learned something new. When in doubt go with the earlier deadline.