Submission of masters -any Uni tutors around ?

[3isthemagicnumber]

Hi ,
My son was granted an extension on his masters -has evidence in writing -until this Friday (23rd) .
Finished and tried to submit today but the portal is saying it's late .
Both tutor and supervisor are on leave and not replying (understandably) .
He's now panicking that he will have to do a late submission and so lose 50%.
Will the email evidence of his extension ,even if it wasn't recorded in to whatever system it should have been ,be enough to cover him? Should he submit to the late portal anyway if he doesn't hear from his tutor and then appeal after ?
Not helped by the fact it's his second attempt as had mental health issues last year which meant he had to have a break in studies ,so is really scared that he has (his words) blown it again

Can he call the admin office? His portal should have had a new closing date on it. I'd submit on Friday anyway, and email to say I'd done so attaching any evidence re the extension, but calling would be good.

My advice would be that he contacts the student office, not the tutor or supervisor, and ask why the submission date hasn’t been changed.

At my university the portal doesn't update the submission date for individual extensions. Therefore it will still say late for those students where I've given them an extension.

I suspect it will be the same for your son's university. As long as the tutor knows that there was an approved extension then it will be fine.

Hi OP, the course should have a specific administrative team- I would suggest emailing them directly. Sometimes an extension is granted but, a new submission portal doesn’t get opened due to admin error. As long as your son has written proof that an extension was provided then it should be ok and the submission should not be capped at 50%. I am an university tutor and at times we do run into similar issues.

Thank you .
I have told him to call in the morning .
Hopefully what he has in terms of agreed extension should be enough to avoid a penalty

I’m a lecturer. I can see exactly when something is uploaded and moodle will tell me it’s late. I would only penalise for a late submission if there was no evidence of an extension. Extensions aren’t granted by lecturers so I always check with student services before deducting marks.

Don’t stress about it. We actually don’t want to deduct marks and all marks are provisional until the exam board so there’s plenty of time to get this sorted.

I would also get him to email a copy to his tutor before the deadline explaining the issue/difficulty with submitting and saying you know it does not constitute submission, but here is a copy of the final version. Then the tutor has proof and a time stamped version showing that there is a valid final copy ready and submitted before the deadline.

(I did a masters a couple of years ago and my tutor told us all to send an emailed copy to her as well at the same time as submitting, just in case there were any probs with the portal as it would then make it easy for her to authorise extenuating/mitigating circs. I got the impression a lot of people said “portal says no” was used quite a lot when that was not exactly the problem).

I can't thank you enough j you enough .
I've sent him a screenshot of your messages and he is feeling a lot better now.
Thanks again

You've had good advice so far but just to emphasise, you said 'tried to submit but it's saying it's late', did he successfully submit the work or not? Even if there had been an admin error with the extension submission inbox, which there is plenty of time to sort out before the board, he needs to have submitted the work before his new extended deadline. So if he can't get hold of the office etc then make sure the work is either uploaded or, if that's not possible, emailed to the office before the deadline. Even if they made a mistake, the work could still be deemed late if not submitted by the new agreed time.

Hi -tried was the wrong word but appreciate how it came across .
'Went' to submit would be more accurate, and then stopped due to it saying it's late .
He is going to call admin in the morning ,has already emailed the submission to his tutor tonight and then will submit tomorrow regardless ,which will still be before the agreed deferment deadline
He just got a bit spooked tonight .
Thank you for all the advice here tonight -it has really helped

This.

There is absolutely no reason to stress here.

The tutor and supervisor will have details of the extension. If he wants, he can email them to let them know that he has submitted and remind them of his extension.

Just fyi, emailing it to the tutor means nothing at our institution. If you don't submit via the portal it's not a submission. So make sure he submits via the portal asap, and assume tech issues so don't leave it until the last minute!

As other PPs have advised: your DS needs to submit in whatever system there is, and sort out the penalty later. Most systems for online submission of work are - sadly - fairly clunky and not very good. But it is what it is. He should submit.

And belt & braces: email the whole Masters thesis file to his supervisor, or send the supervisor/tutor a link to the thesis on OneDrive. Academics are taking annual leave at the moment - it's about the only time we can - but it will be proof that he finished & submitted by the extended due date.