Course tokens overview
Overview
Course tokens give each student a spendable budget that gates specific actions in your course. Instead of a hard cutoff, you let students spend tokens to do something that would otherwise be blocked — for example, submitting an assignment after its due date or requesting a resubmission.
Course tokens are available only when the Course Tokens feature is enabled for your course and you turn on Enable course tokens in settings.
How it works
- Each student has a token pool with a starting balance and a maximum balance.
- You configure Defaults (budget, refresh policy, optional spend limit by time period) and add Opportunities that say which actions cost tokens and how many.
- When a student performs a gated action, the cost is deducted from their balance. The action is allowed only if they have enough tokens and have not exceeded any per-opportunity or period limits.
- Optionally, balances refresh on a schedule (every N days/weeks/months, or on specific dates).
What students can spend tokens on today
| Opportunity | What it unlocks | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Late Submission | Submit an assignment after its due date | Can escalate per day late; scoped to assignment types you choose |
| Resubmission | Resubmit work so it can be reassessed | Scoped to assignment types you choose |
When you add an opportunity, the type picker also lists additional opportunity types as COMING SOON (disabled). Those types are not available to configure or spend today. Spend limit by time period is configured under Defaults, not as a selectable opportunity.
Token cost escalation
A Late Submission opportunity can increase its cost for each day an action is late. For example, a rule with a base cost of 2 and a daily increase of +1 charges:
| Days late | Token cost |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | 2 |
| 2 | 3 |
| 5 | 7 |
The cost a student is charged is computed on the server when they spend, and matches what is shown in their token panel.
Spend limit by time period
Under Defaults, you can cap how many tokens students may spend (not earn) per calendar day, week, or month. Period boundaries use the course's timezone (see below). When a student hits the cap, further spends in that period are rejected until the next period starts.
Course timezone
When a course is created, TeachFront records a timezone for calendar-bound token behavior (refresh dates and spend-period windows). Courses created before this field existed may fall back to a default timezone at read time. There is no course-settings control to change the timezone after creation in the current release.
When course tokens are off
Turn off Enable course tokens in settings to disable the feature for the course. While disabled:
- Students cannot spend tokens (the server rejects all spends).
- Defaults and opportunity controls are read-only in the settings UI until you turn the feature back on.
- The Course tokens navigation item is hidden from students when tokens are inactive for the course.
Per-opportunity limits and matching
- Each opportunity applies to one or more assignment types. An assignment may have multiple types; TeachFront matches opportunities whose type sets overlap the assignment's types.
- If more than one enabled opportunity of the same category could apply, the strictest rule wins (higher token cost; on a tie, the lower per-term maximum).
- Per-opportunity max spend per term caps are evaluated separately for each configured opportunity.
The Late Submission configure modal includes Also accept reassessments late. Saving this setting is supported, but spend enforcement for late reassessments is not applied in the current release. Do not rely on this toggle to gate reassessment spends until a future update documents otherwise.
Enforcement and safety
- A student can never spend below zero, and can never exceed an opportunity's per-term maximum or the course spend-period cap.
- You can never push a student above the rule set's maximum balance when granting tokens.
- Every instructor token grant is recorded in an audit history (who granted, how many, when). See Manage student tokens.
- Balance changes appear live for students and on your roster dashboard — no refresh needed.
Next steps
- Configure course tokens — set Defaults, refresh policy, spend limits, and Opportunities.
- Manage student tokens — view balances, grant tokens, and review usage history.
How the pieces fit together
How live updates work
