UofG has developed guidance for colleagues who are considering implementing a flexible approach to assessment submission, which has been shown to be successful in those Schools that have tried it.

Flexible submissions can help students to take control of their time and manage their assessment deadlines without creating submission bottlenecks later in the semester. It can also enable staff to manage marking loads more effectively and return feedback in a timely manner. Importantly, introducing a submission window has been found to result in minimal additional work for those administering the assignment.

What is a flexible submission window?

Offering a ‘submission window’ means setting a period of time for submission of an assignment, rather than specifying a single deadline. So, for example, you might ask students to submit an assignment between the Monday and the Friday of a particular week.

Flexible submission windows are best suited to larger pieces of coursework that students complete over the course of a semester, for example, a substantive essay or report. The length of the window is typically a week but could be longer for larger pieces of work such as a final year project.

How to implement a flexible submission window?

Guidance on how to implement a flexible submission window, as well as how to set this up on Moodle, is outlined on the Flexible Submission Guidance webpage, located in the Assessment & Feedback Resources Hub.

First published: 30 April 2025

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