Understanding Student Course Access in Canvas
All official IC courses are assigned a Term start and end date. By default, these are used as the “course participation dates” in your Canvas course.
When you publish your course before any given term, students will have:
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Access to all the published materials
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Ability to participate in course activities such as submitting assignments, discussions, etc.
After the term has concluded, the course automatically goes into “read-only mode” - meaning that students will still have access to all published materials and files but lose the ability to participate in course activities. Instructors are no longer able to create or edit assignments, post or edit grades, or create any new course content.
If the term end date has passed and you still need to submit final grades, you will need to submit a request to re-open the course for editing. To change the settings on student access for a past course, you can either file a service ticket with the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Technology (CIE) department (allow 72 hours) or reach out to Canvas Support directly through the Help link in Canvas Global Navigation for 24/7, 365 assistance and support.
Customizing Access to Your Canvas Course
Although the default access settings may be adequate for some instructors, there are also several reasons for editing student access. These include:
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Restricting access to your course before the term begins
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Restrict any access to your course after the term ends
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An extension or incomplete, allowing students to submit work or take an assessment after the term ends
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Allowing students early access to a course
The following article will address changing the student access settings to your course before and after term end dates, as well as customizing the start and end dates of your course.
Restricting Student Access
Use this option if you want to restrict access from students completely before or after the course participation dates. It will hide your course from students completely - students will not be able to access the course and will not see the course on their course dashboard, even if it is published.
To restrict student access to your course:
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Go to the Settings > Course Details section.
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Select “Restrict student access to this course before term start date” and/or “Restrict student access to this course after term end date.”
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Scroll down and Save your changes.
Remember that by default, these boxes are unchecked, allowing students to view their past courses in read-only mode.
Note: Instructors can only edit student access privileges prior to the end of the term or course. When the term or course end date passes, these checkboxes are grayed out and cannot be changed. See below for instructions on requesting assistance if the course has already closed.
How Can I Open My Course Early or Close It Late to Extend Student Access?
If you need to extend student access to your course beyond the length of the term, you can set your own course end date.
To do this, first you will have to change your Course settings so that your course participation dates are set to be unique to your course, as opposed to pulling from the term dates by default.
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Go to Settings > Course Details
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From the ‘Participation’ drop down select “Course.” Now edit the participation dates to your specifications. If course dates are left blank, students can participate in the course indefinitely. Remember, participation means students can submit or re-submit work, participate in discussions, and potentially change work after the term has ended, so be cautious when granting this privilege. Courses in a concluded 'read-only' state still allow students to view their old submissions and content without altering or adding data.
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Scroll down and Save your changes.
Help! The Term Ended and I Need to Restrict/Enable Student Access to My Course!
If the term or course end date passes and the course transitions to read-only mode, you will need to submit a request to re-open the course for editing.
To change the settings on student access for a past course, you can either file a service ticket with the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Technologies (allow 72 hours) or reach out to Canvas Support directly through the Help link in Canvas Global Navigation for 24/7, 365 assistance and support.
Additional Resources:
How do I change the start and end dates for a course?
How do term dates, course dates, and section dates work in Canvas?