Cover sheet left off dissertation submission

[Unidilemma]

My DC submitted his undergrad dissertation yesterday evening after a lot of stress and anxiety around it. He gets DSA so had a week extension which runs to next Weds as he had a bit of a meltdown around it a couple of weeks ago and knew he wouldn’t finish on time.
About 30 mins after he submitted it electronically he realised he’d not done the cover page - as far as I’m aware this also contains formatting that he should’ve submitted it in but I’m not sure.
He said he’ll email the admin lady who is aware of his needs on Monday and also his supervisor- but I’m saying do it this morning and maybe send the dissertation again in the right format and explain what’s happened. Is this the right course of action - I took advice from AI as obviously no access to his uni’s portal.
I know unis have v strict policies around submission and he can’t let his hard work go to waste. I’m prob more stressed about it than him, weirdly, but I don’t want to stress him out.

If this were a student of mine I would get them to resubmit it with the cover sheet without changing anything else and it would be fine. I wouldn't worry too much. I would imagine they will reply on Monday and reassure him.

Will the university portal allow him to upload another copy including the cover sheet? If so, he should do that immediately. If not, he should email his supervisor and the administrator immediately and attach the dissertation with coversheet. They won’t see it till Monday, but it will show that he realised he’d made an error as soon as he’d uploaded.

Yes, this is what I’m thinking. He won’t change anything within the dissertation itself, he’s had enough of it. I’ll get him to email them this morning and ask if he should totally resubmit.

Policies and procedures will vary between universities and even course to course, but I am on an admin team that handles UG dissertation submissions and in the scenario, where the deadline has not even passed, we would 100% allow resubmission with the cover sheet attached. Wouldn’t make a difference if he emails about it now or Monday.
The things we are strict with are when mistakes by students would take a lot of time for us to resolve and we simply wouldn’t be able to do it if lots of students were making the same mistake. This scenario would take maximum 5 minutes to resolve so wouldn’t be an issue

I’m not sure if the portal will let him do that, but he could submit a pdf with the dissertation and cover sheet by email and if they need him to resubmit through the portal they can let him know.
Im just concerned he’d be penalised mark-wise.

@KatReethanks. That is very reassuring. The senior administrator knows him due to his MH issues so I’m hoping what you say is correct. I’ll still get him to email today as I’ll know then he’s done it (he’s been at home finishing it off but is going back to his uni city today).

Obviously I don’t know what portal the university is using but it would usually have to be submitted via the portal so that plagiarism checks can be done. The default setting on the one we use is to allow multiple submissions. It is worth his time trying to resubmit via the portal. If that doesn’t work then email. I would not accept a document attached to the email as it needs to go through the portal. If needs be, I would adjust the settings to allow resubmission.

I don't know about my current university because I don't teach any more but at my previous university it wouldn't have mattered. The marking scheme doesn't include the cover sheet so it wouldn't have made any difference at all.

Thanks, we will have a look to see if he can resubmit through the portal and then send a covering email to explain what he’s done. That def makes more sense. It’s been a bit of a labour of love for him & to do this at the last hurdle is so annoying.

I have a course of 300 and I am getting so many emails about cover sheets. They're for the office mainly. I couldn't care less if there is a cover sheet on there as the person who marks it. For a dissertation, he should have had a supervisor who will know it's his work i.e. it won't get confused for someone else. It also gets linked to his log in etc. I wouldn't worry. I'd drop the programme support team and email and see what they advise on monday, it's probably fine.

Thanks. They have to sign something that they haven’t used AI (texted didn’t, he is very wary of that), and write what feedback they want to receive, plus he said something about formatting?

If his deadline has passed then don't re-submit because it could trigger a 'late submission' on the system and it's not worth that for a cover sheet. We know all the students use AI anyway regardless of the AI coversheet we have. most of mine say 'nope didn't use AI' and then second sentence are tons of quotation marks around random words, em dashes, american spelling, AI slop phrases "and this really matters..."

If his deadline is weds then it may depend on how turnitin is set up. We allow multiple submissions before deadline. it will show if it doesn't allow this though.

At both my DCs unis, they can keep uploading new versions of the assignment up until the deadline, at which point the portal closes. The person marking just gets the last submitted version to mark.

I wouldn't care at all if a student submitted without a coversheet. However, when students have made a mistake with a submission, I like them to have emailed me about it as soon as they have realised the mistake, and if the submission is not anonymous, then I like them to send the correct version with the email. I am more likely to accept something sent in 10 minutes late than something sent 2 days later. But if it is an anonymous submission, then don't send it, of course.

Don't worry, this is very unlikely to be a problem.

He’s got an extension so the deadline hasn’t passed for him. It’s not until Wednesday.

I think it is anonymous but it’s got his student number on the front of the dissertation and his supervisor and one other will be marking it so she knows it’s him!Then there is a presentation next month all students give on their dissertation.

If he resubmits to the same portal, tell him to make sure he first saves the version with the cover sheet with the exact same name as the version without. He should then be able to delete his submission and resubmit the correct one, but if the filename is different he risks a high similarity score, at least this is what can happen on Turnitin

If the deadline hasn't passed, can he not just resubmit?

I’m sitting with him now, unfortunately you can’t resubmit another version through the portal? But he’s emailed admin and his supervisor to tell them.

They may be able to remove his submission and he can resubmit the correct one before the deadline. Don't worry now, Contact them on Monday morning.

The office will be able to remove and resubmit on Monday. At my uni the lecturer can't do this, it's the office//programme support team you need.

No, most don’t let you upload multiple versions., but as he still has time until the deadline, he has no need to panic.

Whereas in mine, I as the lecturer, can do it whereas the programme support team can't.

OP - I would suggest sending the email to the lecturer and also to programme support staff if that is normal for his course. If he sent it to admin in our place they would forward on to me but there could be a delay.

Previous advice about using the same name for the file is important.

It depends on the settings the lecturer specifies. We've used 2 different systems and both allowed us to set it for multiple submissions up to the deadline. I have that set as the default for all my modules

Thanks, this is what he’s done now so hopefully all will be sorted on Monday, I got him to do it now as he’ll be back at his uni house on Monday and probably won’t arise until late morning!