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Display Assignment Submission Date in Roster > Student > Grades Table and Enhance API Support

Esmeil Naqeeb

July 07, 2025 13:11

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Description:

We are requesting the addition of a column in the Roster > Student > Grades table view to display the submission date and time for each assignment per student.

 

 

Use Case:

Currently, there is no visible field in Populi’s user interface that displays when a student submitted an assignment. This information is only available in the change log, which is not accessible to users with roles such as Advisor and Faculty and is not in a convenient location for instructional or advising use.

 

This limitation makes it difficult for instructors and advisors to:

• Confirm whether a student submitted work on time
• Accurately assess patterns of late submissions or academic engagement
• Use submission timing as part of advising, grading, or academic support decisions

Proposed Enhancement:

• Add a “Submission Date/Time” column in the existing Roster > Student > Grades table for each course
• The column would pull data already captured in Populi (submission timestamp) and display it alongside the grade
• Extend the Populi API to allow setting or retrieving the assignment submission timestamp, which can be matched to the actual submission time in external systems like Canvas
• This would allow external integrations to sync the original submission date/time recorded in Canvas (i.e., when the student actually submitted the assignment), rather than defaulting to the timestamp when the API pushes the grade to Populi
• Ensure that access to this data aligns with existing permissions for instructors and advisors

Benefits:

• Improves academic transparency
• Enhances support for at-risk students
• Enables accurate syncing of data from third-party LMS platforms
• Reduces reliance on external systems or manual tracking
• Aligns Populi’s UI and API functionality with capabilities available in platforms like Canvas

We believe this change would be relatively low-impact from a development standpoint, as the submission timestamp is already being logged, and would bring significant value to faculty, staff, and integration partners.

 

Please let us know if you need more details or if this request needs to be submitted through another channel.

 

Best,

 

Esmeil Naqeeb

Network Security Engineer

The Chicago Lighthouse

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3 comments

• 0
  
  Adam Sentz July 07, 2025 20:11

  Esmeil Naqeeb - The page you submitted in your screenshot will show "Late" in red in the left column if an assignment was submitted past the due time. There isn't an Assignment Submitted column because not every assignment type has a submitted time, and some can have many. Even in cases where there was only one you would still need to know the assignment due time for that assignment and student (they could have an exception) to figure out if it was submitted on time using the date. Instead Populi just figures this out for you and indicates if it was not submitted on time.

  It is also not true to say that the change log is the only place where you can view assignments submissions times. Any place that shows an assignment submission will also show you when it was submitted as well as indicating whether or not it was submitted on time.

• 0
  
  Esmeil Naqeeb July 08, 2025 11:47

  Hi Adam,

  Thanks for your response and clarification.

  I understand that Populi displays a “Late” indicator when an assignment is submitted past its due date, and that not all assignment types support submission timestamps. However, in our case, we’re leveraging the Populi API to sync assignment grades from Canvas, where we do have access to accurate submission timestamps. Our sync process runs once daily, so the grade posted in Populi reflects the sync time—not the actual submission time recorded in Canvas. We are trying the add this enhancement to our assignment grade sync script.

  What we’re hoping for is a way to surface the actual submission date/time—even if it’s just the one provided through the API—in a convenient location accessible to advisors and instructors. Date level accuracy will suffice for us. The current approach of relying on due date exceptions and “Late” indicators doesn’t suit our structure well, since our courses are self-paced and students are enrolled on a rolling basis, making due dates an unreliable measure of progress.

  You mentioned that “any place that shows an assignment submission will also show when it was submitted.” Could you clarify whether this refers to the exact timestamp of submission (e.g., July 5, 2025, 11:37 AM), or just a binary on-time/late indicator? We’re particularly interested in making this timestamp visible in a way that supports advisor-level review of student activity, especially since tracking engagement and pacing is critical in our asynchronous learning model.

  Thanks again for your attention to this feature request—we appreciate the support.

  Best,

  
  Esmeil Naqeeb
  Network Security Engineer
  The Chicago Lighthouse

  Edited by Esmeil Naqeeb July 08, 2025 11:51
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  Adam Sentz July 08, 2025 17:18

  Esmeil Naqeeb - Populi's assignment submission times are by student assignment submission and not cached per student assignment at this time so there isn't a place for that date/time to be stored. We can consider this a request for that functionality. In the meantime you'll probably need to rely on your third-party LMS to get the reporting you need to advise your students.