Topic administration – dates and times in FLO

Students will access FLO from different time zones. Settings inside FLO and on user's personal devices will affect how dates and times display in FLO.


Where is the date and time displayed in FLO?

Time is displayed in many locations in FLO:

  • Timeline block – a centralised place for students to see upcoming due dates
  • Calendar – a centralised place where all dates and events in a topic are collected/recorded
  • Activity index pages – accessed from the activities block and the topic management panel, the activity index pages contain a variety of information depending on the tool you are looking at, such as due dates, number of attempts/submissions, unread posts, etc.
  • Activity settings – for example, assignment due dates, quiz times, restrict access by date/time
  • Text-based content – for example, within lecture recording links, documents, pages and descriptions
  • The interface of the activity – for example, scheduler, attendance, forums
  • Blocks – eg. Clock block, upcoming events block, activities block

How is the time displayed in FLO?

FLO displays dates and times based on the time zone setting in each user's profile preferences. All user's initial FLO time zone is set to server time, which is the current time in Adelaide, South Australia. Server time automatically adjusts for Adelaide Daylight Saving Time. 

Users can choose to set a different time zone in their profile preferences. FLO will then display most times and dates converted to their chosen time zone, with a few notable exceptions. These exceptions are listed below.

Note: FLO's time zone settings do automatically update with your device's settings.

Individual tools and activities in FLO will display times:

  • as the time in Adelaide
  • converted to the time zone in a user's preferences
  • converted to the time zone on the user's device.

Individual tools and activities in FLO may obtain the current time from one of three sources.

Time displayed
Tool
Adelaide time (server time)
Clock block*, Assignment extension requests, Lecture recordings, Statement of Assessment Methods (SAMs), Turnitin feedback studio (similarity reports)
Converted to the time zone in a user's profile preferences Active quiz, Assignment, Attendance iconAttendance, Calendar, Chat, Choice, Database, Dialogue iconDialogue, Feedback, Forum, Glossary, Group self-selection iconGroup self-selection, Lesson, OU blog, Quiz, Scheduler, Self and Peer Assessment, Turnitin draft tool, Wiki iconWiki

Restrict access settings by date/time
Dates entered into the topic calendar
Converted to the time zone on the user's device Clock block*, Collaborate

*A block you can add to your site that shows all users both Adelaide time and their local time.

Third-party sites (e.g. KuraCloud, Mobius, textbook publishers) are dependent on the publisher and may vary.

Tip: Be aware that FLO displays and operates within most FLO tools as a 24-hour clock for staff when setting dates and times, and displays as a 12-hour clock to students.

Tip: You can also manually add key dates to the calendar , for example, you could add Collaborate session times as an important additional support for students in different time zones.

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