Deadlines and late penalties help keep learners on track with their course schedule and give you more control over how assessments are submitted.

There are 2 types of deadlines on Coursera:

  • Weekly deadlines: Weekly deadlines are the dates that each module in your course should be completed by based on your course’s module scheduling. While weekly deadlines aren't visible to learners, weekly deadlines populate the assignment deadlines for your course (which learners do see).
  • Assignment deadlines: Assignment deadlines are the dates learners should complete specific assignments by to keep up with the course schedule. By default, there's no penalty for submitting an assignment after its deadline, but you can add late penalties if you want (private sessions and degree programs only).

In public course instances, you can't edit deadlines after your course launches because there's no need to. They're set automatically following your module scheduling. Learn more.

Weekly deadlines

Weekly deadlines provide a suggested schedule for your course that's based on your course's module scheduling. By default, each module in your course represents one week's worth of course content, and weekly deadlines are the dates learners should finish each module by. While weekly deadlines aren't visible to learners, weekly deadlines populate the initial assignment deadlines for your course (which learners do see).

In private sessions and degree programs, you can customize weekly deadlines. You may choose to do this for many different reasons, such as if you want to leave more time for discussion or review at the end of a week.

If you edit your course's weekly deadlines, keep the following things in mind:

  • Weekly deadlines must be set between the session start and end dates.
  • Assignment deadlines always take precedence over weekly deadlines. This means that assignment deadlines can be before or after the weekly deadline of the module the assignment belongs to.
  • If you adjust your weekly deadlines and then make changes to your course content (like adding or removing modules), your weekly deadlines will automatically adjust to fit your updated module scheduling. For this reason, we suggest manually editing your weekly deadlines only after your course content is finalized.

Steps to view and edit weekly deadlines

  1. Access the course authoring tool for the course instance you want to work on.
  2. Click the Settings tab.
  3. In the left sidebar, click Session Settings.
  4. Scroll to the Weekly Deadlines section, find the week you want to change the deadline for, and click the calendar icon next to it.
  5. Choose a date and time you want to use for the weekly deadline.
  6. In the left sidebar, click Save.

Assignment deadlines

Assignment deadlines are suggested dates learners should complete specific assignments by to keep up with the course schedule. By default, there aren’t any penalties for missing assignment deadlines, so learners can still access assignments after a deadline passes and finish their work later (unless an item availability window was set to make the item inaccessible after a certain date).

If you edit any assignment deadlines, keep the following things in mind:

  • Assignment deadlines must be set within an item's availability window. Learn more about item availability windows.
  • Assignment deadlines must be set 7 days before the session end date. If you’re unable to set the deadline you want to use because it’s too close to the session end date, you can change the session end date.
  • All times are shown in the time zone you selected in your Coursera account settings. Learners see deadlines in the time zone they selected in their Coursera account settings.

Steps to view and edit assignment deadlines

  1. Access the course authoring tool for the course instance you want to work on.
  2. Click the Settings tab.
  3. In the left sidebar, click Session Settings.
  4. Hover over the graded assignment you want to change the deadline for and click the edit icon.
  5. With the Deadline tab active, set the deadline you want to use. Remember that deadlines must be set within an item's availability window. Learn more.
  6. When you’re done, click Save to apply your changes or Cancel to discard them.
  7. In the left sidebar, click Save to make the changes go live or Cancel to discard them.