Can no longer send announcements to a course that finished.. did the functionality move?

[JOSEZAGAL]

I need to send an announcement to all the students in a class that already finished (basically a reminder to for them to pick up final projects). In the past I would just post an announcement at the beginning of the next term - however when I logged in to do this, the button for posting a new announcement was no longer there!

I haven't been able to locate the functionality elsewhere...did it move? What can I do?

Thanks!

[reynlds]

I just checked some of my courses that are outside of course/term dates (but not specifically "concluded", which would remove enrollments) and the functionality to send an Announcement is still there. Browser issue? Clear cache, etc.?

[JOSEZAGAL]

I tried a few things with no luck - but I did check and it is all my older classes that seem affected. How do I check if a class has been specifically "concluded"? (I never do anything special at the end of term on canvas to "close" or "conclude" a class or anything like that, and this time was no different).

[chriscas]

Hi @JOSEZAGAL,

I checked some of our prior-term courses here while acting as a teacher, and I can confirm that the +Announcement button is not there.  I'm fairly sure that your local Canvas team likely changed the way they set up dates for terms in Canvas.  We only allow our teachers full-access to a course for one week after the term ends.  In that time, the +Announcement button does appear to show.  After hat period, the course automatically goes into read-only/soft-conclude mode based on the term settings, and the +Announcement button is gone.

We intentionally have things set up this way to help contain thing within the term and make sure students aren't getting messages from courses they took years ago (this was happening in our past LMSes).  We do allow that one-week period as a compromise for things like you're trying to do though.

Your local Canvas team should be able to control this, so perhaps having a chat with them may get them to alter the settings if this is a new policy they are trying out for the first time.

Good luck, and I do hope this info was helpful!

-Chris

[JOSEZAGAL]

Got it. I'll ask my local team what's up. It would seem they've changed a high-level /overall setting.

Thanks!

[reynlds]

I've been through Canvas up one way and down the other day. I don't see a setting, feature or permission that would control this. I'm still able (as a Teacher) to add Announcements to closed courses in our institution. Best o' luck!