[ARCHIVED] Extending participatory access to a term

[wdewysockie]

Hi all,

We are rapidly approaching the end of our very first term after adopting Canvas. So we want to double-check an important point.

Firstly, our courses do not have start and end dates. Neither do the course sections. However, the terms with which the courses are associated have start and end dates (these cannot change for reporting reasons).

Secondly, our understanding is that in this scenario the courses for a given term will conclude on the term's end date. This will result in all users having the ability to enter and view the course but not participate in it.

Finally, here is our question: We are planning to edit the term via the GUI to allow instructors, TAs, and students to access courses at a date later than the official term end date. We are doing this via the following fields:"Students can access from...to," "Teachers can access from...to," and "TAs can access from...to". We will be entering a date in each respective "to" field that is 8 weeks later than the official term end date.

Will this act like a course date override and prevent the course from concluding? Will instructors, TAs, and students have the ability to enter their courses associated with that term after the official term end date and participate (in the case of instructors and TAs, make changes to the courses and enter grades)? This is our understanding but we want to double-check. Many thanks for your help with this!

I'm attaching an image that displays the fields I am talking about

Bill Dewysockie

Learning Systems Administrator

SWBTS

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there,  @wdewysockie ...

One thing you could do on your own if you wanted to test this would be to utilize your school's Canvas "Test" environment.  This is an environment that is separate from your school's "Production" environment (the environment that you normally log in to), and it doesn't affect anything in your "Production" environment.  How do I access the Canvas test environment as an admin?  What you could do in the "Test" environment is to go into your Terms screen and set dates in the past...essentially setting up a scenario where the term end date has already happened...and then you can log in as instructors, TAs, and students in the "test" environment to see if they are able to access (or not access) things they way you want.  Do you think that would be an option for you so you can continue to do some testing on your own to and tweak things as needed?  Just wanted to provide my $0.02 on this for you.

I hope this will be of some help...thanks!  Take care...be well.

[wdewysockie]

Hi Chris,

Many thanks for your quick reply. It is most appreciated.

We created a test term and associated a test course with it. Looks like using the role date fields in a term only grants viewing access beyond the official term end date. We're going another route (based on advice from Canvas Support): We're going to start populating the course date fields (with an end date beyond the official term end date) via the course feed. Then in each course we'll add a check to the "Students can only participate in the course between these dates" checkbox via the API. This will overwrite the term end date.

Too bad we can't simply modify the term end date but that would throw off some third-party reporting.

Thanks again,

Bill