How to be a TA in charge of deferral issues


Deferral Form

Students will email you directly to request deferrals. There is a declaration form in the course Google drive accessible through Brightspace or jimdavies.org/classes.  Students must print, fill out with a pen, photograph/scan, and email this form to you. If they declare that they were ill for the exam, then go ahead and grant their deferral.   

 

Deferral Justification

If they need to travel for something important, like a family event, death, graduation, or sports event, grant it. If you have a question, email Dr. Davies, but for the most part Dr. Davies will trust your judgment. Just a note: missing a quiz/final because a student overslept or they read the time wrong, is not a valid reason to retake or write a missed test.

 

Deferral Dates

When setting deferred quiz dates, do not set the date between the Friday-Monday over quiz weekends. Other weekends are fine. 

 

Tracking Deferrals

Keep a list of students who take a late exam and email it to Dr. Davies at the end of the year so he can update their grades.

 

Brightspace

 

Deferrals in Brightspace are given to students by granting Special Access through the quiz edit tool for the specific assignment or quiz the student needs deferred. Among other things, granting special access allows you to change the date in which an assignment is due or alter a quiz timeslot – what must be done to give a deferral.

 

Granting Special access for Quizzes

For quizzes Special Access is granted through editing quiz restrictions which can be navigated to in multiple ways. Below is on example of accessing quiz restriction settings:

 

  1. When in the course space select/hover the Tools dropdown menu under the Nav bar (left 3 bars in mobile and across top of screen on PC). Select Quizzes which will bring you to the Manage Quizzes tool.
  2. From the Manage Quizzes tool, click on the quiz that needs to be deferred to get to the quiz edit page.
  3. On the right-hand panel, click "Availability Dates & Conditions"
  4. Within that, click "Manage Special Access" 
  5. click the “Add Users to Special Access” button. A new window will appear
    1. Start by scrolling down and select/search for the student you are making the deferral for first (selecting or searching will clear any settings you have made above) under the Users heading.
    2. Select the student in question by clicking the square next to the name.
    3. Change the properties for that student only (start and end dates and times) 
    4. Click Save 
  6. You can verify your changes and/or make edits by clicking the pencil by the name on the next screen that appears 
  7. Click Save and Close to close the Special Access window
  8. Click Save and Close to close the Quiz window

 

 

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Granting Special access for Assignments - legacy

 

It is unlikely you will need to grant a deferral for an essay since the syllabus states there are "no deferrals for essays...", but steps will be provided here if needed. Special Access is granted for essays through editing quiz restrictions which can be navigated to in multiple ways. Below is on example of accessing quiz restriction settings:

 

  1. When in the course space select/hover the Tools dropdown menu under the Nav bar (left 3 bars in mobile and across top of screen on PC). Select Assignments which will bring you to the Assignments tool page.
  2. From the Assignments tool page, click on the essay that needs to be deferred to get to the quiz edit page. Click on the light blue Edit Assignment button to bring you to the edit assignment page. Note: Be careful here as it is too easy to accidently change the pre-existing dates and times for everyone (IMO).
  3. Look for the header Availability Dates & Conditions and open this header’s drop-down section by clicking on the arrow just to the right of the heading.
  4. From the Availability Dates & Conditions dropdown section find and click on Manage Special Access. A Manage Special Access menu will pop up and from here you can add and edit special access for individual students.

 

Brightspace Resources

Brightspace interface: https://mediaspace.carleton.ca/media/Welcome+to+Brightspace+for+Instructors+%28TLS+Media+Channel%29/1_n67a72pw

Brightspace Support site: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/

 

Note: Editing BS is not compatible with Firefox

 

Moodle/CULearn - legacy

 

You will need to give students who have deferrals for online quizzes a new, special time on cuLearn. This can be done by following the "user override" directions described here: https://carleton.ca/culearnsupport/instructors/setting-up-quiz-overrides-user-and-group/. However, you may need to first be granted "Manage Overrides" permission by Dr. Davies, or directly from Carleton computer services. The current contact at CCS is Ryan Kuhne - RyanKuhne@Cunet.Carleton.Ca