What issues affect time limits and due dates of online quizzes?
You will learn about issues to consider regarding quiz time limits and due dates.
About Time Limit and Until Time
A time limit may be set under options. It creates a countdown clock during the quiz. If the clock expires, the quiz is auto-submitted.
A time limit is required for Proctorio remotely proctored quizzes.
Until may be set under Assign. The quiz will be auto-submitted if it is in progress and the Until time has been reached.
Canvas does not display seconds in the time fields. The quiz displayed here will auto-submit at 2:00:00 pm (not 2:00:59 pm).
A detailed guide regarding quiz time settings is available at Canvas Quiz Availability Guide.
Campus Regular Maintenance Window
Sometimes upgrades and maintenance of critical campus systems will require system downtime or degradation. These events are rare, but when they happen they are often scheduled between Thursday at 10pm until Friday at 2am Pacific time. It is not recommended to set expected quiz start times or any assignment due dates during this period.
Canvas is hosted off-site by Instructure and can be expected to be available during the regular maintenance window; however, necessary auxiliary CSUF components could be impacted. For example, if the single sign on system was unavailable, the Canvas site would be up, but users would not be able to create new login sessions.
Quiz Availability Windows
When instructors want students to take a quiz during a specific time frame, the Time Limit, Available from, and Until time are often combined to form an availability window.
In this example a teacher sets a 10 minute time limit and a window of 1:51pm until 2:00pm.
This window has a problem because even if students are perfectly on time to start the quiz, they will only have 9 minutes to take the quiz. This is because the quiz will auto-submit at 2:00:00 and not at 2:00:59.
Quiz Availability Windows and Late Submission Policy
Depending on how busy the Canvas site is, it can take up to 2 minutes for an auto-submission to be processed. If the course has a late submission policy configured, this can incorrectly mark the submission as late and automatically apply a penalty. For this reason, it is good to add a few extra minutes to the quiz availability window and remind students to start the quiz as early as possible.
Best practice is to not intentionally configure quizzes so they will be auto-submitting based on the Until date. Have some extra time in the availability window, and remind students to start as early as possible.
A detailed guide regarding the late submission feature is available at Canvas Late Submission Policy Guide.
Quiz Availability Windows and Moderate Quiz Feature
The moderate quiz feature may be used to grant certain students additional time. Detailed guides are available at Canvas Moderate Classic Quiz Guide and Canvas Moderate New Quiz Guide.
If this feature is used to grant a student extra time, the setting only affects the time limit. The window needs to also be expanded in order for the student to actually have more time to take the quiz.
In the example below, "Matt Demo" has a different Available from date than "Everyone Else".
Quiz Availability Windows and Remote Proctoring
If Proctorio is used for online proctoring, the quiz time limit starts when the quiz is ready to be taken (after pre-exam checks like ID check, Webcam check, etc.). However, additional time might be needed in the window so students can do their pre-exam checks. Up to 15 minutes might be necessary based on the proctoring settings that have been selected and the status of the student's computer. Instructors and students can enroll themselves in a practice proctorio quiz course, so they can become familiar with the online proctoring experience at Enroll Yourself in the Proctorio Practice Quiz Course.
You have learned about issues to consider regarding quiz time limits and due dates.