[ARCHIVED] Student view, as Instructor, for assignments with "not available until" date?

[pabbott]

I have several assignments that I have set "not available until XYZ (date)".  I would like to view them from the students perspective.  When I enter student view, I am denied access becasue it is locked by the instructor.  

I figured I could go in and change the Locked Until date to today - but then I get a message I cannot set the availability date prior to the term start date.

I could go in and alter the change the term start date, but I would rather not have 80 students jumping into the course site yet.  Any solutions/strategies sincerey appreciated!

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @pabbott ...

I can think of a couple suggestions for you:

• Do you have a "sandbox" course in your Canvas environment where you could copy/import those assignments to?  A "sandbox" course is simply a course shell that your school's local Canvas administrator might be able to give you where you can literally play around with the course, try things out, etc. without affecting students.  Since you are the only one that would be enrolled in a "sandbox" course, you could then view your assignments that were copied into that course via Student View to see what they look like.
• Have you ever used your school's "Test" or "Beta" environments?  These are two separate environments that your school would have access to (assuming here that you are using a paid Canvas environment and not the Free For Teachers instance).  You could sign in to "Test" or "Beta", and you would not disturb anything in your school's "Production" environment (which is the environment that you are typically used to logging into on a day-to-day basis).  I always remind people, though, to make sure and log out of "Test" or "Beta" prior to logging back in to "Production".  Here are some helpful Guides on how to access these environments:
  • How do I access the Canvas test environment as an ... - Instructure Community
  • How do I access the Canvas beta environment as an ... - Instructure Community

I hope these resources will be of help to you, Patricia.  Please let Community members know if we can be of further help with this topic...thanks!