Change the label of "Due Date" in Academics--> Grades--> Grading Setup --> School Year Setup (when Editing Grade Plan Details) interface

Every year when I'm configuring my school year setup for grade plans, I have to remind myself that the "Due Date" field is NOT the date that grades are "due" (i.e., it's NOT the date that teachers have to have grades turned in by). Rather, as far as onRecord is concerned, it's the last date that a gradebook assignment could fall on for that marking period and still be factored into the grade calculation for that marking period when a teacher hits the "Calculate" button.

For this reason, the name/label "Due Date" is confusing. I've talked to many other schools who have the same confusion. In common parlance, "due date" for us means "the day teachers need to get grades in by". onRecord uses the "End Date" field for that purpose- the date you set in "End Date" is the date that affects the countdown that teachers see on their "My Day" page, reminding them that they need to get their grades in by that End Date (and they won't be able to continue entering marking period grades after that date).

Can you please rename these two fields, the "Due Date" and "End Date" fields? I don't know what names would make the most sense across a broad range of schools. Maybe "Marking period end" as a replacement for "Due Date", and "Grade Entry Closes" for "End Date"? Something like that?

  • Sylvie Andrews
  • Jul 25 2018
  • Under consideration
Blackbaud Student Information System / Grading
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  • Katrina Hong commented
    March 31, 2022 07:51
    Thank you for this. I literally had nonidea what the difference was between the two.
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  • Matt Duncan commented
    October 20, 2020 19:13

    Thank you for spelling this out and explaining. This gets my upvote, for the very reason that I didn't understand it until reading this page.

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  • Andrea Eckler commented
    October 16, 2019 14:21

    I agree with this.  It is incredibly confusing and I had to speak with several different people at Blackbaud before I could get an answer as to what Due Date even does.  

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  • Alex Orlebeke commented
    July 26, 2018 12:24

    I agree with this.  We are in implementation at the moment and our project manager had to make this same point.  Much of the grading setup tasks have informational text related to specific settings to shed light on what they do in the system, so adding this as well on top of the renaming of the fields would be very helpful and not lead to confusion.

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