Extension requests

A prototype of the assessment-extension system I wish ANU had. You sign in with your UID, say once whether you’re a student, course staff, or both, and then there are two things to do: change your details, or ask for more time. There are three routes to more time, and each one says up front what it needs, who decides it, and which clause of the ANU procedure it rests on:

• Automatic Short Extension: under 3 working days, before the due date. Pick the course and assignment and it’s granted on the spot, with the new due date shown straight away.
• Short Extension: under 10 working days, before the due date. A note to course staff and supporting documents. Decided by course staff, so it warns you not to upload confidential medical documents.
• Extenuating Circumstances Application: 10 or more working days, or the due date has passed. Goes to a separate CENTRAL account only, may hold confidential medical evidence, and quotes the procedure’s higher bar, including that colds and mild illness don’t qualify.

Exams are split the way ANU splits them: centrally run exams in the exam block can only go through an ECA, while exams a course, school or college runs itself go through the normal extensions. Other alternative coursework arrangements are left to the student and convenor to discuss.

Course staff (for short extensions) and CENTRAL (for ECAs) open each request on its own page. There they see everything the applicant sent and whether the applicant says they have an EAP, and then Accept, Consider or Deny it. The status can’t change without a written response to the applicant, even a one-word one. A denial puts an Appeal button beside it on the student’s homepage. Course extensions are appealable only alongside final course grades, while a denied ECA points to the ANU appeal form, which is due within 10 working days of the result.

Course staff create courses, enter assignments, due dates and assessment types by hand, and add colleagues by UID. Anyone added that way sees the course when they switch to the staff side. Ticking “I have an EAP” adds a Share EAP button to the short extension form: a default 5 working day request, with a note that the EAP has gone to the convenor with a recommendation to approve.

This is a student prototype for COMP4020, not an official ANU system. There are no passwords: the UID is the whole login, as the brief for it asked.

What good looks like here

The real problem with extensions isn’t the form. It’s not knowing which form to use, what counts as evidence, and who will read what you upload. So good here means:

• You never guess the route. The three options sit side by side with their limits, requirements and decider. Past-due assignments can’t be picked for a short extension, and the ECA form nudges you back when a short extension would do.
• Policy is quoted, not paraphrased. Every quote comes verbatim from the Student assessment (coursework) procedure (ANUP_004604, effective 25 Nov 2025) and links back to it. Lengths are in working days because that’s how clause 12 counts them.
• Confidential documents go only where they should. Course staff can’t list, open or download an ECA or its attachments. Only the student and CENTRAL can. This is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the UI.
• It works at any window size, from a phone to a wide desktop, without sideways scrolling. Tables fold into cards on narrow screens.

What the tests in spec/crit7.test.ts enforce: roles persist across logins, the automatic extension is granted and dated correctly, past-due short requests are refused, short requests (with attachments and a shared EAP) reach course staff and persist, ECAs reach CENTRAL and never course staff, no status changes without a written response, denials show an Appeal button leading to the right appeal message, centrally run exams are refused as short extensions while course-run exams aren’t, added staff UIDs see their course, the cold/mild-illness exclusion is quoted, and every signed-in page passes the axe accessibility floor.

What’s left to judgement: whether the wording is clear enough for a stressed student at 11 pm, and whether the three-way split really matches how people think about their situation.

Not built: real authentication, email notifications, public holidays in the working-day count, the “marked assessment return date” limit from clause 12, and syncing EAPs from Access and Inclusion (the checkbox stands in for it).