[ARCHIVED] Restricting Instructors from Changing Course Start/End Date

[laurenhammer]

We are having issues with instructors changing the course start/end date (How do I change the start and end dates for a course?) which is in turn causing issues with student access to the course. Is there a way to restrict instructors from changing those dates in their courses from the account level? We use SIS integration to populate those dates into the courses, but since they are able to be edited by instructors, we cannot stop them from changing them.

[dicksonl]

A workaround is to use javascript to hide the course start and end date boxes from the Course Details screen. There's an idea open for voting right now that you might want to check out: ​

[ChrisMedina]

that works well in a course but I have found that they can also set the dates in a course copy or import. these settings make our admin global settings worthless and causes issues.  I have yet to find a JS code to block that. we shouldn't have to rely of coding canvas to prevent things it should not be doing. 

I wish Instructure would fix this.

[millerjm]

We have this blocked in our JS, but the dates can still be added by instructors in the following ways:    

• Import Content -> Copy Course -> Adjust Dates
• Import Content -> Copy Course -> Not removing dates (if dates already exist)
• When course is published, Start Date is populated with the published date/time
• When instructors have JS blocked on their browser

This date should not populate when a course is imported, nor when a course is published.  These are functions that need to be controlled by permissions at the admin level.  This causes nothing but problems for us. 

We also have to regularly run a script to check every single course in a term and remove the course start/end dates and the checkbox under end date to restrict student participation to dates.  Otherwise, when the course is published if that checkbox is accidentally pressed, students have instant access to it.  We do not populate course start/end dates in any SIS-created courses- we use term dates and then section dates if we have any oddly dated courses.  

We do not want Instructors to modify with many of the settings,  and granular permissions need to be added in order to make Canvas secure.  

See https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Admin-Control-to-Lock-Course-Starts-and-Ends-D... which has not been completed or put on the road map.  I think it's open for voting. 

[chriscas]

We do something very similar here, running a script to catch things instructors modified that we do not want them to.  We also use term dates to let students access courses early (if the instructor published the course), but we find populating the course dates as well (without enabling the override otion) prevents some of the other undesired date fill-in (from imports, for example).  All of this javascript and scheduled scripts shouldn't be necessary if Instructure would just address the root problem and add lockdowns/permissions for admins to set.  I'd be happy to share my javascript which changes what's shown in the course settings page or my python script that crawls through all courses and resets options if they somehow are changed by teachers or admins.

-Chris

[raj_veeravalli]

Another similar solution here. We have a system that has authoritative information about course dates and more. We run several python scripts to re-apply settings that we cannot lockdown via built-in functionality inside Canvas. When we detect modifications that we direct those through relevant channels.

[s_j_beale]

Looking for a similar fix here. Teachers with good intentions changing end dates can cause chaos.