[Course Settings] Student View-Only Period for Terms

[jason_hill]

   

  Idea open for vote Wed. November 2, 2016 - Wed. February 1, 2017  Learn more about voting...

As a Canvas Admin, I would like to enable students to view their courses for a specified period prior to the term start date and for a specified period after the term end date. This view-only period would work much like the Grading Periods established for Teachers. An admin would create a Student View-Only Period (probably a date range that precedes and extends beyond a term's start/end dates), and then 'attach' a specific term to the Student View-Only Period. (See Attachment)

Prior to the Term Start Date

During the timeframe that precedes the semester, students would only be able to view the course content including the syllabus, calendar, published assignments/modules, embedded eBooks, and announcements from the instructor. Students would not be able to submit work for assignments, take quizzes, or participate in discussion boards.

After the Term End Date

During the timeframe after the semester ends, students would only be able to view the course content including the syllabus, calendar, published assignments/modules, embedded eBooks, announcements from the instructor, and final grades including grades for final submissions and final exams. Students would not be able to submit work for assignments, take quizzes, or participate in discussion boards.

The only current method to enable students to have view-only access for courses is all or nothing. An institution can choose not to enable Restrict students from accessing courses before start date and Restrict students from accessing courses after end date; but these settings apply to all courses in the future and all courses in the past, regardless of the semester in which the courses took place.

This Student View-Only Period would allow students to see their eBooks prior to the course start date and get a jump start on the reading if they chose to do so, and it would allow students to see their final grades and submission comments from the instructor after the course ends without turning on all other courses and without allowing students to participate in courses outside an institution's official course start/end dates.

[afurr0026]

Problem statement:

Currently, when a course concludes, students are unable to view their gradebooks unless the option to allow students to view the course after the end date is checked in the Admin settings. For institutions that do not allow students to view a course after the end date, this new option would allow students to view grades that may not have been entered until the last day/week of the course. This would allow students to view their gradebooks without having to contact instructors and request information about their final assessment grades. With this option only the gradebook would be visible, and students may not be able to access any course content/submissions. Settings should be provided to allow admins to enter a specific window of time that a gradebook would be visible to students after a course ends.

Proposed solution:

Admin > Settings > Settings tab > option for Allow gradebooks to be viewed by students after course end date. When this option is checked, a drop-down menu would become available allowing admins to enter the number of days students would be able to view a gradebook after the course end date. Students would access gradebooks by clicking on View Grades on the Dashboard. A new field should be added, "Past Courses" which would contain course links to locked-down gradebooks.

User role(s):

admin