I just spoke with support, and was informed that Populi's philosophy of the Discussion Board is that it is to be an active, weekly discussion -- that other students do not benefit in a discussion when a post/response is late. Therefore, I was told that there is no exception that can be applied to a Discussion Board assignment to extend the date beyond the end of the term.
Philosophically, I agree entirely, which is why we typically don't allow late submissions on Discussion Boards. However, it seems odd to me that Populi would make this decision for ever school that uses the system, rather than allowing the schools themselves to decide their own Discussion Board philosophy. In this case, I have a student with a major medical emergency that came up two weeks before class ended. In this extreme case, I granted an exception, allowing him to submit his initial response after the end of the term (he received an "Incomplete" for the course and had several assignments -- including the final two Discussion Boards -- to complete). I informed him that I could not grant credit for his replies to other students, since the discussion had ended -- but I would accept his initial post, and would grade it on its own merits. However, because Populi made the philosophical decision about how Discussion Boards must function, I am unable to extend this assignment for this student (although, oddly, I am still able to add an "availability exception" for the Discussion Board assignment -- it just doesn't function to extend the availability beyond the end of the term!)
Please reconsider this issue, and allow the schools themselves to determine their own philosophy about how to handle the Discussion Board assignments. Enable the "availability exception" feature on the Discussion Board assignments, just as it is available on other assignments.
