[LON-CAPA-dev] Bonus/Penalty Points in Lon-Capa

[Stuart Raeburn]

Hi,

The LON-CAPA spreadsheet can be used to implement grading schemes  
which feature bonus points.  The spreadsheet could also be used for  
penalty points.

There has been a recent discussion about use of the LON-CAPA  
spreadsheet on the lon-capa-users list.

See the threads:

http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-users/2015-February/004728.html
http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-users/2015-February/004747.html

The LON-CAPA spreadsheet is documented in the LON-CAPA Course  
Coordination manual.

The concept of turning in an assignment late is not part of the  
current LON-CAPA date management scheme which features three dates:

(a) Open Date
(b) Due Date
(c) Answer Date

Once the due date is reached students may not make additional  
submissions. As things stand today, assigning a penalty for late  
assignments can be done in a number of ways, with varying amounts of  
automation.

For the maximum degree of automation the spreadsheet would be used,  
and students would need to be informed about the existence of an  
additional "expected due" date, which would fall before the due date  
advertised on the Course Contents screen.

After the "expected due" date full points would no longer be earned  
for a correct submission made between then and the due date.  The  
calculation of points earned in the spreadsheet would then involve  
retrieval of the date/time of the student's last submission, and a  
comparison with the due date/time for the problem.

An alternative, which would require manual intervention by the  
instructor, would be to identify which students still needed to make  
submissions after the current due date, and then set a new due date,  
and problem weight (reduced from the standard weight for the  
particular problem to incorporate the penalty) for those students.

If there were many such students, it would make sense to create a  
group containing those students, and then set the new due date and  
weight for the particular assignment for that group.  A downside to  
changing the weight is that the total points available shown on a  
student's "Grades" screen would be lower for students with late  
submissions.  If a student calculated a percent score by dividing  
awarded points by available points that number would be misleading.


Stuart Raeburn
LON-CAPA Academic Consortium


Quoting "Young, Joyce E" <young257 at purdue.edu>:

> All,
> We have a faculty member that would like an automatic method to   
> assign bonus points for completing assignments early and penalty   
> points for completing assignments late. Does anyone have a method   
> for providing this function in Lon-Capa?
>                                                                       
>                 Thanks,
>                                                                       
>                             Joyce Young
>
>
> Joyce Young
> Programmer/Analyst
> ITAS - Student Systems Competency Center
> Purdue University
> 3495 Kent Avenue, Suite 100
> West Lafayette, IN 47906
> Phone: (765) 427-6340
> Fax: (765) 464-2233
> Campus Mail: ROSS
> young257 at purdue.edu<mailto:young257 at purdue.edu>