What is a reasonable amount of time for DL paper turn around?

How long should it be before your get a paper read, graded and returned to you in a DL class? How long is too long to wait?

How quick should an instructor return an email? Should it be within 24 hours?

I have my ideas about it and I want to see if I'm off base. What's your opinion?

 

NCU is somewhere between 1 and 7 days. After 7 days I would send a follow up email or call the instructor. I never waited on a response before I started to work on my next paper in the core classes. Of course, once you hit the DIS classes that changes.

 

Average time turn around for all my DL papers were close to 4 weeks.
I think any less than that, may possible but not sure if supervisor has gone throught the paper well considering amount of reading invloved and papers presented as in number of student.

 

The schools for which I teach require that the instructor respond to student questions within 24 to 48 hours. These schools also require that a teacher should have the paper graded within 4 to 7 days.

 

Good question. The instructor should have set expectations with you or there is University policy as a backup. If neither your expectations or University policy are being met, it is too long. I personally respond to students within 24 hours to at least acknowledge their paper submission and set expectations, even if I'm going to delay them. Does that help?

 

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I think under a week, but I have an AWFUL teacher (she's the flippin dept head to boot) who has our papers for no less than 3 weeks. Honest to goodness, I had a lab sit ungraded for 5 weeks earlier this semester. The PROBLEM is that I made a structural error in the way I laid out my lab report, and since we turn in labs every week, I was docked on the 5 labs that followed because I didn't have the information necessary to make the change she wanted. It's unacceptable. Right now, I have 7 outstanding assignments from her and I take my final tomorrow. <grrrrr> About once per month she sends out an "urgent" email telling us about something personal that is causing the grade delay. One week she said her dog got eaten by a bear.

 

I think AMU has 4 days or so to return assignments. That allows us to learn from the feedback for future weeks. 24 hours is way too soon and 4 weeks is insane!

As for the woman who had a dog eaten by a bear, I'd complain to her boss. To get docked for 5 weeks of labs because she was too busy to grade them in a timely fashion isn't fair. If your grade is on the bubble at the end of the semester, I'd fight for the points. We are in college to make mistakes and learn from them. She isn't doing her job.

 

Yes, exactly why I'm asking. You need a fairly quick turnaround time so you can make changes to the next assignment. Otherwise, the DL instructor is not really helping much.

I'm sorry about that person's dog, I can imagine how awful that would be, so I don't mean to make light of it. But doesn't that sound almost like "my dog ate my homework"?

 

Yes, it does help, thank you. So you give students an ETA on the return of their papers? That's fabulous!

 

Yea, I agree Maniac. I don't know what kind of workload gets piled onto DL instructors, but you would think it should be about the same amount of turnaround time as B&M. Actually, I would think it should be quicker because that's the only contact we really have with them.

 

The dog /bear explanation is so farfetched that it’s perhaps true … yet still inexcusable regarding the professor’s responsibility to her students.

 

Your teacher told a fib

I remember you saying you were taking your class from Ocean county college. So I decided to check the papers. The only report of a bear eating a dog was 2 hours away from OCC. Unless she has a long commute and your teacher is named Marian Szal (this name is not listed in the OCC Science faculty) she told a lie.

Bear are often seen in central to north jersey, but very rarely in South Jersey. I am sure if a bear ate a dog it would make the paper down there. Is this the same teacher that wanted baked goods for extra credit? I think once you are finished with her class you should complaine to the College President this is not the kind of person any college should have as a public representative.

I have had DL courses where teacher took 2-3 weeks to grade papers, I think that is too long. We do not get the face to face feedback we need papers/assignments graded so we have some idea how we are doing. I find it especially important with the first assignment which we need to understand teacher expectations.

I also think a quick 3-4 sentence response to; a bi-weekly written assignment, 7 page paper with 8 citations is a little short. I got an 88 on the paper and this was the longest response I got for any of the 6 papers(at least twice as long as the next.

A few comments on your answers:
1. in 1 you should have provided a few statistics to support your answer. It's true, we have not run out of resources, yet. What do you think the future will hold, in that regard? There is alot of speculation about population growth but, you should have provided some data on the growth rates in developing countries as opposed to the more developed countries.
In 2 you indicate that the China program did not work. You should have provided some statistics here as well. Your answer to 3 was fine.

This mentor also took forever to grade Discussions and made only one short comment on all 6 of those. This is also a department head.

I admit I only have about 80-90 students in the four classes I teach in middle school, but my students expect test grades in 1-2 days and at least some feedback on other assignments within 2 days.

 

LOL, this is NOT the same teacher I posted about the extra credit- but yes, she is from Ocean. She is the head of the science dept. Makes me wonder......

 

I teach middle school too, so it's not the same here either, but I try to do a 2 day turnaround on everything my students do. Sometimes I'm not that quick but they need the feedback to improve. Cookderosa, I agree with Lindagerr, you should complain. But wait until you get a grade in the class so there is no temptation for retaliation from your instructor. I've had a couple of lame instructors when I went to community college, but not as bad as that.

 

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LOL!!! Too funny!! (and yes, my time at Ocean is coming to an end- I'm doing a summer session and then I'm moving on)

 

You are one of the truly great poets of our time. I'm in awe.

 

Hey listen, my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, my mother returned to the hospital and was admitted with health issues, my brother-in-law went into a coma due to pancreatic cancer (spelling is probably wrong) and my wife and I were having issues and fighting ever night until 3AM (this never happened in almost 20 years of marriage) due to the stress. Thsi was all in a 1 month period. The whole time I never missed a day of teaching or responding to students...bear ate my dog - who cares!

 

Holy cow! I pray you are doing better now.