Introduction
The Assessment Handbook Section 6 Annex 2 Online Submission Protocols – 1.6 System Difficulties identifies procedures to be followed in the case of a system outage affecting the ability of students to submit work. In specified circumstances this will lead to assessment deadlines being extended by 24 hours:
In the event of a verified systems outage lasting less than one hour, which impacts on the ability of students to submit work, all affected summative assessment due during and within one hour of the end of the outage will be given an amended deadline, 24 hours from the original deadline.
In the event of a verified system outage lasting one hour or more, which impacts on the ability of students to submit work, all affected summative assessment due during and within 24 hours of the end of the outage will be given an amended deadline, 24 hours from the original deadline. In the event that a student has already submitted their assessment in this specific scenario, they will have the opportunity to resubmit their work ahead of any amended deadline.
The imposition of penalties for late submission will be suspended between the deadline and amended deadline in the two circumstances outlined above. Should assessed work be submitted after the amended deadline, standard late penalty policy will be imposed from the amended deadline.
Procedure to follow in the case of an outage
Programme Administration teams will be notified of outages, and details of assessment extensions, by the CQSD TEL team.
When systems have been restored, Programme Administrators will need to update the due date of affected assessments in Blackboard, Turnitin and RISIS.
Do this for both on-time and post deadline submission points.
Make submission points available again where they have been set to become hidden on the due date.
Blackboard assignments
Update the due date in RISIS for Blackboard assignments. The EMA integration will then update the assignment in Blackboard.
Turnitin assignments
Update the due date in Blackboard first, and then in RISIS.
Post-deadline submission points
The 24 hour extension must include post-deadline submission points. These should not have an end date, so once the system is back there should not be anything to prevent students submitting. However the outage would affect the application of late penalties.
Resubmissions
Students who had already submitted before the system outage are entitled to take advantage of the 24 hours’ extension and resubmit their work when the system is back up, and prior to the revised new assessment deadline. For details see Student resubmissions following a system outage
Blackboard Tests
In general, Blackboard tests would fall under the 24 hour extension rule, depending on how the tests have been configured. Contact dts@reading.ac.uk to deal with individual circumstances e.g. if the test had been started or was in progress when the system went down.
Page last updated on July 2, 2020 by andyturner
