Looking for Info on Concluding Courses

kmay
Community Participant

I am doing some research on the best options for limiting access to courses at the end of the term for both faculty and students. Right now we are using course end dates that are set 2 weeks after the actual term and course end dates in our SIS. With Academic Services wanting grades in the SIS as soon as possible after they are due, that 2 week time frame is causing some monumental headaches. We pull, faculty still have access and make changes, we pull again, and round and round.

At the same time, students need to be able to see grades and submissions after the course ends in case of grade disputes. So we are looking at setting the course end dates for midnight the day grades are due from faculty and clearing the check box for the "Restrict student access after the course end date" setting for our main account. Our hope is that faculty will have the opportunity to enter the grades, we will be able to pull grades the day after the course end date, and students and faculty will be able to view the course for as long as they need.

Hunting around on the community, I have found a few different things about what it means to conclude a course. It is clear that the intention is that the course becomes view only for faculty and students. Faculty can't change grades and students cant interact with discussion and assignment items. I also saw a couple of items here that indicate that a concluded course does still allow some interaction with integration items and that faculty have some problems accessing items they have incorporated into the course.

For discussion: what have you found to be the benefits and pitfalls of concluding courses and allowing student access after? What have you seen in your environments that might cause you to go a different route? What have you chosen, settings wise, for your end of term? And finally, what really happens when a course is concluded, are there artifacts that students can access that they shouldn't, do faculty have problems accessing things that they should? Final question, if students have access to view after a course is concluded, how does that impact activity logging for reporting purposes?