Purpose
The purpose of this article it to provide information to instructors about how to manage a dropped notice in student view resulting from course date settings
Note
Sometimes when an assignment has not yet reached an assignment due date, the word “Dropped” appears in the student grade view but not in the instructor’s gradebook. This happens when instructors use the Turnitin plugin instead of the Turnitin activity. The Turnitin plugin is at the bottom of the assignment settings. The Turnitin assignment is one of the activity tiles instructors choose when first setting up an activity in Moodle
Turnitin Plugin
Turnitin Activity Tile
Procedure
To remedy the problem when using the plugin, the instructor will need to change the post date of the assignment. The post date is the date grades and feedback appear for students. Below, the due date for this assignment is 27 February. The post date is 6 March. Changing the post date to the same date as the Allow submissions from date will remove the “Dropped” message for students
March 6 postdate
February 20 postdate – same as Allow submission from date
Beware: the lack of a postdate means a student will receive an assignment grade as soon as grading on that item is complete. This means the class will not receive grades for the assignment all at once but, rather, one by one. Using the Turnitin activity option instead of the plugin is a way around this. Instructors using the plugin could also forewarn students of the “Dropped” message and leave the postdate enabled