Do not encourage your son to go to the department head. I guarantee you, this is not a good interaction that reflects well on the student, especially if this is the first time complaining to a department head or if there is a more significant issue to deal with in the future (this would paint the student as petty and not put them in a favorable position). While we don't make fun of these things necessarily in faculty meetings, we do complain about the ridiculousness of student requests like this very often. It's not a good look.

The way this stuff works is the the assignment displays for students as:
Due Jun 20 at 11:59pm

The instructor interface says
Due at 11:59:00pm

The computer marks as late, not the professor. It's a machine-graded hard line for a reason.

Lesson learned. Suck it up.

He does not have the power in this situation. That can be frustrating and feel unfair...but it happens sometimes.

Maybe the dept head will intercede or the kid will deal.

Your should help him more with this type of situation (how to cope), not this particular one.

If the wording was that the deadline was 11:59, then the professor is correct

If the wording was that the deadline was 12:00, the student is correct

The system is making the determination based on the deadline the professor made and inputted into the system. That deadline was then communicated with the students. This is exactly why the professor is not responsible for making the determination and any request to do so is asking him to bend the rules.

This is likely the first assignment he has ever been late on, and I guarantee this will be the last. It’s a tough lesson to learn, but it’s effective.

Anonymous wrote:Professor is wrong and would lose if legally challenged if tge paper was filed before 12:00 unless the deadline was 11:59:00.

If the time stamp is before 12:00:00 the professor is a real asshole.

Signed,
Former judge & arbitrator.

Professor here. Yeah but it's not. This professor is surely using some kind of online LMS like Blackboard or Canvas, and when you select a date the default is 11:59:00. If something is turned in at 11:59:14 it is marked late by the system. This is visible to students. Arbitrate all you want, it'll be the student's fault. This is the beauty of Blackboard/Canvas, etc...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a professor and would have given your child a break due to the circumstances. That said, I would warn your child that appealing to higher-ups based on what you described will probably go nowhere. Most chairs/admins defer to faculty on grading/lateness policies. The only exception is if the instructor is an adjunct or TA/grad student.

I believe you and appreciate your individual attitude but I also how that general attitude by higher education to not respect the customer is going to get crushed by the coming downturn. Numbers of students were already dropping because of the next generation is smaller and covid will only accelerate the financial pressure on colleges and universities.

The students who leave will be the weaker ones for the most part and it will be easier and more prestigious to serve the strong ones who stay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your college student! Man. I'd make my high schooler handle this on their own.

I'm a high school teacher. Unfortunately, there are many parents like OP who would email me (cc'ing the principal) as a first strategy, never thinking of asking the student to approach first. This is the kind of parent who believes they must take care of all problems for their child. My university professor friend reports that she has some parents contact her every year now.

I don't know how this kind of child will function after college.

DC was asking mom for advice, not asking mom to call his professor. Geesh. What is it with people on this site??? Do you expect your DC to not ever ask your opinion or advice on anything after their 18th bday, as a PP said? What a parent you are.

The kid was in the wrong. Sorry. He has no recourse here. My kid handled these types of problems in late elementary.

Professor here. Major eye rolls if your son pushes this. Submitting at the last possible second isn't really a good way to ensure your assignment uploads on time...even a slow, churning internet connection could make it 1-2 minutes late and late is late.

Your kid took a risk by submitting after 11:50 and it didn't work out for him, as well as others it seems. That's life.

Also, seriously, if your child has a chronic illness that sometimes requires accommodations, he needs to see the office that provides those accommodations. He should not ask a professor to accommodate without that paperwork: it puts the integrity of the professor in question and is unfair to other students. I realize he didn't ask in this case, but if he needs to ask, there are pathways to that being totally legitimate and he should take them. There are processes in place for this at every university and students need to use them, even if they never trigger the accommodations. It's essential, and I push this every single semester.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Professor is wrong and would lose if legally challenged if tge paper was filed before 12:00 unless the deadline was 11:59:00.

If the time stamp is before 12:00:00 the professor is a real asshole.

Signed,
Former judge & arbitrator.

The deadline was 11:59, as OP said. I can tell you that it is set that way because of how the software is programmed. Many college assignments (and, actually, court filings) are set to be "late" after 11:59:00

Ok so what? Op's son should be researching and making his own case, politely and respectfully.

Hint to op's son: whatever you do, don't screenshot some anonymous post from "former judge and arbitrator" as a citation for your argument.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a chronic illness that requires me to spend 50% of my existence in the bathroom. I understand chronic illnesses can be rough. But let me tell you now, it never made a difference between me submitting something at 11:59 and 11:59:01.

If his illness was the reason for the delay, it still shouldn’t have come down to a game of minutes.
Professors don’t budge on stuff. It’s how they turn teenagers into adults. It’s unfortunate, but he will recover from this grade dip.

Thank you for this.

As I said, DS takes full responsibility for submitting last minute as he failed to ask for more time. He doesn't blame his illness for the delay.

The only reason why he is considering appealing the professor's decision is that if the deadline is 11:59pm, should something that is submitted at 11:59 be late?

So let him figure out how to make that argument in a persuasive way.

Given that his parent is on dcum about this, I am not surprised he's not very self reliant. This is part of your job, mom/dad (no, posting on dcum isn't your job; letting him navigate the world independently is. And long has been.)

Anonymous wrote:With online courses, a hard deadline of 11:59 (not 12) is common. This was almost always the case for me. I think it has to do with them wanting to keep stuff organized in the same day. Also, instructors have their own deadlines when grades have to be submitted.

I’ve had professors who would give an automatic zero for assignments that were even one minute late. I’m not sure if they are just pricks or if it is an attempt to teach us how the “real world” works, but it was stressful when you had a programming project and were stuck trying to fix a bug that you couldn’t figure out. It’s not like writing a report where you can’t really get stuck.

Of course, in the “real world,” projects are past due more often than they are on time.

Yes, but....at least in my industry if a project is going to be past due, approval for the extension comes before the deadline, not after.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a professor and would have given your child a break due to the circumstances. That said, I would warn your child that appealing to higher-ups based on what you described will probably go nowhere. Most chairs/admins defer to faculty on grading/lateness policies. The only exception is if the instructor is an adjunct or TA/grad student.

I believe you and appreciate your individual attitude but I also how that general attitude by higher education to not respect the customer is going to get crushed by the coming downturn. Numbers of students were already dropping because of the next generation is smaller and covid will only accelerate the financial pressure on colleges and universities.

Most professors have a Maginot line set up to thwart attempts to get around their dopey policies, so there is probably zero chance of successfully challenging this despite what other posters claim. Remember, they deal with challenges all the time, so they are kung fu masters at blocking them.

Petty tyranny and Academia go together like a horse and carriage. Don’t stress about it.

With online courses, a hard deadline of 11:59 (not 12) is common. This was almost always the case for me. I think it has to do with them wanting to keep stuff organized in the same day. Also, instructors have their own deadlines when grades have to be submitted.

I’ve had professors who would give an automatic zero for assignments that were even one minute late. I’m not sure if they are just pricks or if it is an attempt to teach us how the “real world” works, but it was stressful when you had a programming project and were stuck trying to fix a bug that you couldn’t figure out. It’s not like writing a report where you can’t really get stuck.

Of course, in the “real world,” projects are past due more often than they are on time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Professor is wrong and would lose if legally challenged if tge paper was filed before 12:00 unless the deadline was 11:59:00.

If the time stamp is before 12:00:00 the professor is a real asshole.

Signed,
Former judge & arbitrator.

The deadline was 11:59, as OP said. I can tell you that it is set that way because of how the software is programmed. Many college assignments (and, actually, court filings) are set to be "late" after 11:59:00

Google classroom does this.

Anonymous wrote:Professor is wrong and would lose if legally challenged if tge paper was filed before 12:00 unless the deadline was 11:59:00.

If the time stamp is before 12:00:00 the professor is a real asshole.

Signed,
Former judge & arbitrator.

The deadline was 11:59, as OP said. I can tell you that it is set that way because of how the software is programmed. Many college assignments (and, actually, court filings) are set to be "late" after 11:59:00