PressPrimer Assignment supports due dates and late submission policies for assignments. You can set a deadline on any assignment, decide what happens when work comes in after it, and optionally close submissions entirely after a final cutoff. This article covers all the options, how the penalty math works, and what students and graders see.

Setting a Due Date

1. Navigate to Assignments > Assignments, then click the Edit link while hovering over an assignment.
2. Click the Scheduling tab.
3. Pick a date and time in the Due Date field.
4. Save the assignment.

Due dates use your WordPress site’s timezone setting, and dates shown to students follow your site’s date and time format. Leave the field empty for assignments with no deadline;the late policy options only apply when a due date is set.

The Three Late Policies

When a due date is set, choose what happens to submissions that arrive after it:

Accept late submissions with no penalty

Late work is accepted and graded normally. Submissions are still flagged as late internally, so graders can see which work came in after the deadline, but no points are deducted. You can optionally add a cutoff (see below) so that even penalty-free acceptance ends at some point.

Apply a penalty

Late work is accepted, but a percentage is deducted at grading time. You configure:

• How late the work can be — “If late by up to [X hours or days]”. This window doubles as the cutoff: submissions after it are not accepted.
• The penalty percentage — how much to deduct from submissions inside the late window.
• What the percentage is deducted from — either the assignment’s maximum points or the student’s earned score. On a 100-point assignment where a student earns 80 with a 10% penalty: deducting from maximum points takes off 10 (final score 70), while deducting from the earned score takes off 8 (final score 72).

Reject late submissions

The submission form closes at the due date. Students who arrive after it see that late submissions are not accepted and cannot submit.

The Cutoff

Under the accept and penalty policies, you can stop accepting submissions after a set amount of time past the due date using the Stop accepting submissions after option. A common setup: assignment due Friday at 5:00 p.m., a 10% penalty for anything late, and a cutoff 2 days later, so nothing is accepted after Sunday at 5:00 p.m.

The cutoff is enforced at submission time. A student who tries to submit after the cutoff sees a message that the submission window has closed, including when it closed. No submission is created.

How Lateness Is Measured

Lateness is measured against the student’s effective due date, not always the assignment’s own date. The resolution order is:

1. Per-student override (requires the Educator add-on 2.2) — if an instructor has granted a specific student their own dates, those win.
2. Group schedule (requires the Educator add-on) — if the assignment was distributed to the student’s group with its own due date, that applies next.
3. Assignment default — the due date set on the assignment itself.

The penalty and cutoff are always computed against whichever date applies to that student. That means a student with an extension isn’t penalized against the original deadline — their extended date is the one that counts.

The late policy itself (the penalty percentage and cutoff length) is the same for everyone. Only the dates vary per student or group.

What Students See

On the assignment page, students see a notice with the due date and a plain-language summary of the policy. For example:

• Due: July 31, 2026 5:00 pm
• Up to 2 days late: −10%
• Not accepted after 2 days.
• Late penalties are deducted from the assignment’s maximum points.

With the reject policy, the notice instead reads Late submissions are not accepted. Students always know the rules before they submit — there are no surprise deductions.

What Graders See

When grading a late submission on a penalty-policy assignment, the grading interface itemizes the calculation: how late the submission was, the penalty applied (e.g., Late penalty: −10%), and the resulting math (e.g., Raw score 80 − 10 late deduction = 70 final). The grader enters the raw score as usual; the deduction is applied automatically and the final score is what counts toward pass/fail.

Changing the Policy Later

Editing the due date or late policy affects future submissions and future grading only. Submissions that have already been graded keep their recorded penalty and final score — there are no automatic retroactive regrades. If you need to adjust an already-graded submission after a policy change, regrade it manually.