Students missed Canvas final - what do?

I have a two-part final, half on Canvas as a take home and half as an oral exam. The Canvas part was designed to help them for the oral exam, so I discussed with the class early on it had to be due with enough time that I could release and post the answers right away so they could correct any misconceptions before they walk in to part two. On Monday I posted their exams and they had until today at 11:59am to complete it before answers were automatically posted. Because I know most are used to midnight deadlines, in addition to setting the Canvas due date appropriately, I firmly suggested they write down the time I verbally shared and double check it on our last lecture day, Monday, and finally the day before (Tuesday) I also made sure all the text instructions for the final mentioned the time as well.

Sure as shit 4/66 students panic emailed me asking for extensions because they could have sworn the deadline was midnight. They were all in class the day I begged them to note the time. Normally I’d say sure, I’ll just grant another attempt, but in this case all the answers have been available for many hours, and I can tell others did it last minute, but didn’t email me asking for extensions because they took responsibility. I’m sure they’d all love an extension. I’m the new guy presently, so I can’t just whip up a new test, nor can I make a written version of the Canvas test and find a space/time for an in-person makeup. It doesn’t help that I’m taking this personally because two of them have been in a clique where they constantly reinforce they feel entitled to good grades and lax policies (this is a notoriously difficult A&P class) and freely discuss their regrets they didn’t get the “chill” professor who has no due dates to begin with.

I told them I’d concede that because of the non-standard time I would let their oral final be their grade for the final category (15%) rather than retake an exam where the answers have already been out for a day. One of them sent an email setting up a conversation about presumably complaining about that decision, even though with their historical good grades and typical grading trends for orals, the offer I made was already very generous.

Should I stand my ground? Does denying a retake pass the reasonable person test? Should I find another way?

Submitted June 13, 2019 at 02:16AM by FuckingTree http://bit.ly/2wSBoQM