Assignment Submission Guidelines – Details

Proctoring Exams

The purpose of proctoring exams is to help maximize the student’s learning, preparation, grades, and retention. The basis for and benefits of proctored exams are explained here:

Proctoring Exams At Home

The procedural guidelines for proctoring exams, including the required downloadable Proctor Signature Form, are here:

Exam Proctoring Guidelines

• TPS exam proctoring is a parent-led process. A parent is required to actively manage the process from start to finish following the TPS procedural guidelines.
• TPS exams are required to be started, completed, and submitted in a single sitting with continuous proctored oversight and no breaks. (Note: The exams are not long, including both parts together. The “no breaks” requirement is not expected to present a challenge.)
• A multi-part exam (e.g., one part automated (AT) and one part submitted as a document) is considered as a single exam for the purpose of proctoring and grading. Both parts are included in the “single sitting with continuous proctored oversight and no breaks”.
• If the requirement for the exam (all parts together) to be started, completed, and submitted in a single sitting with continuous proctored oversight and no breaks is not clearly met, the teacher will apply a Proctoring Penalty: 20% High School course; 10% Middle School course; No Penalty for Elementary School course.
  • The penalty is applied to all parts of a multi-part exam.
  • An exam submitted without a correct and complete Proctor Verification Form submitted with the exam is penalized. (There is no option to submit the form later.)
  • Proctor forms are required to be attached to the exam document. If the correct and complete form is submitted with the exam but not correctly attached, there will be a reminder but no penalty unless the problem is recurring.
  • The Proctoring Penalty is added to any other applicable penalties (e.g., Lateness Penalty, Resubmit Penalty).

Due Dates and Timeliness

• Timeliness. Students are expected to submit assignments correctly and timely (on or before the Due Date).
• Extensions. No extension requests (i.e., arrangements for late submit made in advance of the assignment being submitted) are considered. There is no process for requesting an extension on an assignment.
  • If an extension request can be anticipated and planned, then the assignment workload, completion, and submission process can be similarly anticipated and planned to submit assignments before due dates or accept the reasonable late penalties.
  • The most common reasons for requesting advance extension are travel, major events, or high workload. These potential conflicts are derived from discretionary choices and may be managed by planning for and around the assignment due dates.
  • Inability to submit an assignment on time due to unforeseeable, unavoidable, and unpreventable matters (e.g., sudden illness or hospitalization) is considered under the Lateness Penalty Waiver or Humanitarian Academic Leave processes below.
• Lateness Penalty
  • Assignment documents may be submitted up to five days (120 hours) late. After 120 hours, the assignment is scored as a Zero and may not be submitted. (If a document is submitted after 120 hours late, it will be scored as zero without evaluation or feedback.)
  • For High School and Middle School courses, a Lateness Penalty of 10% per day will be applied by the teacher to documents submitted late, with a Zero grade after five days (120 hours). For calculation purposes, Day 1 (10%) starts at the due date and time, Day 2 starts 24 hours after the due date, etc.
  • For two-part exams that have a document and an AT portion, the two parts are intended to be completed and submitted together as one assignment. Any Lateness Penalty will be applied to both parts equally based on the time of the last part submitted.
  • No Lateness Penalty for AT/SP assignment. However, these assignments automatically Zero after five days and will not be reset.
  • No Lateness Penalties in Elementary School courses. However, documents submitted after five days (120 hours) late are not evaluated.
  • No Lateness Penalties in courses taken in No TPS Credit (i.e., no TPS transcript). However, documents submitted after five days (120 hours) late are not evaluated.
• Lateness Penalty Waiver. A waiver of Lateness Penalty may be provided by the teacher for lateness within five days (120 hours) that is entirely unavoidable and unpreventable by reasonable planning and measures.
  • “Entirely unavoidable and unpreventable lateness” covers matters such as sudden illness or injury or family emergency where the assignment is submitted as soon as reasonably possible and within the five days.
  • “Entirely unavoidable and unpreventable lateness” does not cover discretionary plans (e.g., travel) or other matters that were reasonably avoidable or preventable, including “tech issues”.
  • Technical or Technology Issues
    • Local technical or technology issues are avoidable or can be overcome, and are generally not considered a basis for waiver of Lateness Penalty.
    • Documents in progress should be saved frequently. Saving draft versions with different names (e.g., include the date and time in the name) is helpful for archiving past work without overwriting it.
    • Documents should be saved to a cloud folder or drive (e.g., Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive), not just the local device drive. This allows quick recovery from a hardware failure.
    • Internet issues (e.g., device, router, ISP) can be worked around by using an alternate internet path (e.g., mobile hotspot, friend’s home, local café, etc.).
    • Printer or scanner issues can be worked around by using a tablet or phone camera, using a friend’s printer, or visiting a local office store.
    • Potential issues deriving from lack of required technical knowledge (e.g., lack of knowledge for compressing PDF documents) may be avoided by planning reasonable extra time for learning new processes before they are needed (i.e., before an assignment deadline).
  • Travel Plans
    • Travel and related issues are readily avoidable or easily overcome, and are generally not considered a basis for waiver of Lateness Penalty.
    • Internet is readily available worldwide and assignments may be submitted from virtually anywhere at any time.
    • To accommodate periods of actual transit (e.g., car, airplane), reasonable advance planning is expected to submit assignments prior to the transit.
  • Requesting Waiver of Lateness Penalty. The request for waiver of Lateness Penalty based on entirely unavoidable and unpreventable lateness must be submitted in writing as part of the assignment document.
    • Add a new page as the first page of the assignment document.
    • On the new page, provide a short explanation of how the entire duration of lateness was unavoidable and unpreventable, including explanation of the duration of lateness (i.e., why the assignment could not reasonably have been submitted sooner after the due date).
    • Requests for waiver of lateness penalty submitted separately (e.g., by email, in class, separate document) will not be considered.
    • For assignments that are entirely auto-score (AT) or poll (SP) with no associated document, there is generally no lateness penalty assigned so there is no process for waiver. However, these assignments may not be submitted at all after five days (120 hours), and there is no routine process for resetting to allow a late submit.
    • For two-part exams that have a document and an AT portion, the two parts are intended to be completed and submitted together as one assignment, and any request for waiver of lateness must be included with the submitted document to cover the entire exam (document and AT portion).
    • The final determination of “entirely unavoidable and unpreventable” and application of a waiver rests solely with the teacher and TPS.
      • A disagreement with the teacher’s denial of Lateness Penalty waiver may be appealed in writing to TPS Support. TPS will review the matter with the teacher and guide the teacher in final resolution.
      • If at any time TPS determines that a Lateness Penalty was inadvertently miscalculated or misapplied by the teacher — too high or too low — TPS will review the matter with the teacher and guide the teacher in correcting the grade.

Resubmitting Ungradable Documents

• The guidelines for submitting documents require the student (and proctor, if it is an exam) to verify that the document was submitted correctly by downloading and reviewing the document immediately after it is submitted. This ensures that the teacher receives the document and content the student intended to submit.
• Submitted documents which are unable to be evaluated (e.g., blank, wrong content, wrong file type) are a human (not technical) error, usually due to failing to save and submit the correct document (and verify after submitting). Submitted documents which cannot be graded will be scored as a Zero.
• Resubmit Before Grading
  • TPS encourages students to review their submitted documents immediately after submitting, and to resubmit immediately if a problem is discovered (e.g., wrong version submitted, missing proctor form, etc.).
  • For a document resubmitted before it is processed by the teacher, the latest version will be evaluated and earlier versions will be ignored (no score). All timeliness and lateness penalty considerations will be applied to the submit date and time of the latest version.
• Resubmit After Grading
  • Teachers may authorize an ungradable document to be resubmitted with the following conditions:
    • Must be submitted within seven (7) calendar days from the date the zero grade was assigned. (Note: At the end of each academic term, StudyPlace closes to assignment submission following dates posted in the academic calendar so that no assignments are accepted after the StudyPlace close date. The seven days for resubmit are also limited by the StudyPlace close date. Therefore, final exams, essays, and projects will generally not have opportunity for resubmit if submitted ungradable and the zero score will be final.)
    • Resubmit Penalty: 20% High School course; 10% Middle School course; No Penalty for Elementary School course.
  • Multiple resubmits (i.e., a resubmit of a resubmit) are not permitted or considered, including in Elementary School courses.
• Multiple Penalties
  • Resubmit Penalty is added to any Lateness Penalty for the original submission.
  • Resubmit Penalty for an exam document is added to any Proctoring Penalty for the exam.
• Any adjustments, exceptions, or alternatives to these guidelines must be requested of and approved in writing by sending a new separate (i.e., not mixed with other topics) email request to TPS Support.

Resetting Auto-scored (AT) Assignments

• AT assignments have a confirmation window that pops up to confirm the student is ready to complete that particular AT Assignment in one sitting. This should prevent a student from inadvertently opening the wrong AT assignment.
• If an AT Assignment is interrupted due to technical issues of any kind, the student can immediately (re)load the assignment into a working browser with a working internet. In-progress work is not lost and the assignment is not automatically submitted.
• With these confirmations and safeguards, requests to reset AT Assignments are generally not supported. Any request for a reset must be made and approved in writing by sending a new separate (i.e., not mixed with other topics) email request to TPS Support.

Cross-Checking “Ask Score” Poll (SP) External Quizzes

• Some TPS courses use external web site resources for quizzes (e.g., digital resources provided as part of the textbook by the publisher).
• If an external quiz score is used for a score in the TPS StudyPlace gradebook, an “Ask Score” Poll (SP) is used to insert the score. The “Ask Score” Poll (SP) is assigned and listed in StudyPlace like any other assignment.
• The student is responsible for completing the external quiz and accurately entering the numerical score in the StudyPlace “Ask Score” Poll SP assignment.
• Teachers will check the StudyPlace “Ask Score” Poll scores against the external quiz records. Discrepancies will be investigated. Significant or recurring incorrectly reported scores will be assigned score(s) of Zero.

Regrades, Extra Credit, and Course GPA Protection

TPS does not support requests to re-do, re-take, or regrade a fairly graded assignment for the sole purpose of assigning a higher grade. However, we commit to GPA Protection for every student in every course.

Academic Leave (Extended Absence) and Waivers

Please see the Academic Leave information and guidance.

End of the Academic Term (Finals)

Every academic term (e.g., Summer, Full Year, Fall, Spring) has a final date for accepting student work. These dates can be found on the Academic Calendar. StudyPlace closing dates are not flexible and cannot be extended for individual students. Students who fail to submit all work completed and in the correct format prior to the final assignment submission date of the term will be graded based on the work submitted. Work sent later (e.g., by email or postal mail) will not be considered.