Concluded students still able to access group spaces and view active students

[SupportUU]

We have encountered an issue that raises concerns about student privacy and course integrity. When students receive the status "concluded" in a course, they are still able to access access the course in a read-only mode. This is a good feature since they can access course content but cannot interact with the course, receive notifications, etc. If a concluded student were to click on People, they would not see any remaining students in the list.

However, we have recently discovered that students, when accessing previously assigned group spaces, can continued to view the names and profiles of other group members who are still actively enrolled in the course.

This becomes particularly problematic in cases where the concluded students have failed or not completed the course, as it can be a sensitive situation. The ability to access group spaces after course completion may expose them to information about peers still working in the course, which can feel stigmatizing and is potentially a privacy concern.

We have created a case with Instructure to lift the question, but the only way to keep students from viewing student names in the group page currently is to remove the student from the group manually or set an end date on the course, which would keep any students from accessing the course. Neither of these solutions are optimal and I am wondering if others have seen this issue and might have found a better way to allow concluded students to access old courses without being able to view students who are still active in the course?

[dbrace]

Hi @SupportUU,

You have done the right thing by reaching out to Instructure to have them look at this and work on it but I am not sure they will have a "quick" answer.

I am not sure how many other people or institutions have the same setup as you. I mention that because:

1. my institution does not conclude courses
2. my institution does not conclude student enrollments
3. my institution adds dates to every semester course and they are used instead of term dates
4. my institution does not allow students in a course before it starts
5. my institution does not allow students in a course after it ends

Maybe someone else will respond and have thoughts to share.

-Doug

[Gabriel33]

Like @dbrace, I am not familiar with your setup, in the sense of why would a student fails a course before it ends.

Still, have you tried using sections, assigning the "concluded" students to a new "concluded" section, and disabling the ability to interact with users of other sections?

See How do I limit a user to only interact with other ... - Instructure Community - 1211

Note that discussions (and pages) would be viewable by users of all sections, unless the faculty assigns them only to specific sections.

[lbranen-ahumada]

I don't have a solution but I do have a similar question. I am not sure those responding understand that "concluded" just means the student dropped the course. I recently discovered that these students are able to continue to access the course which to me seems odd in itself although you feel this is a good feature. I don't think this should happen. In a face-to-face course, a student who has dropped cannot continue to attend the course at my institution, and audits are not allowed, so why can students "attend" an online course? I am surprised Canvas allows formerly enrolled students to log in to a course. 

[dbrace]

Hi @lbranen-ahumada,

For some clarification, "conclude" is both a course status and an enrollment status:

• for a course
  • How do I conclude a course at the end of a term as an instructor? - Instructure Community - 690
  • Canvas Course States Comparison - Instructure Community - 529363
• for an enrollment
  • How do I conclude an enrollment in a course? - Instructure Community - 744
  • How do I restore a concluded enrollment in a course? - Instructure Community - 930
  • How do I view concluded enrollments in a course? - Instructure Community - 1212
  • Canvas Enrollment Status Comparison - Instructure Community - 387055

In short:

• a manually concluded course removes everyone's access to course (including instructors but not admins) in a read-only state
• a course that is concluded by course end date or term date puts the course in a read-only state
  • student access after it is concluded is controlled by the "Restrict students from viewing course after end date" setting (applied at either the account or course level)
  • teachers continue to have access but they cannot create, edit, or delete anything in the course
• a concluded enrollment for a student allows them to have read-only access to the course

The two "Comparison" links provide more specifics but a general explantion is also provided in the first two "How do I conclude..." links. The second "Comparison" link also describes the other types of enrollments ("active", "inactived", and "deleted") in a course.

As you can probably gather, a concluded course or enrollment can be complicated and should be approached carefully.

I hope this help to explain things a little bit more.

-Doug

[suzanne_pathki1]

Thanks for explaining that. Just to clarify, in Sweden, final course grades are reported to a national system. We want students who have received their grades in a course to be able to access it for a period of time afterwards. This is why we use the concluded status for students. These students should not continue receiving course notices, or participate in the course in any way. Some students may take longer to receive a passing grade, i.e. conduct revisions to an assignment, or re-take an exam and will be active until passing the course.

[lbranen-ahumada]

This makes sense for students who have received their grades in your scenario. My concern is the access to the course by students who withdrew from it. Even if it is read-only, this seems very strange to me. 

[lbranen-ahumada]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the clarification - I will take a look at the links. I think it is safe to assume that the students who were referenced as "concluded" status in the original question had dropped the course, since SupportUU refers to other students in groups who were still "actively enrolled". My main question is why a student who has concluded enrollment by withdrawing from a course should have any further access to the course while it is active (or after).

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

You are welcome, @lbranen-ahumada.

Without knowing the processes used at your institution, there are important but subtle differences for the different enrollment statuses that make it no longer possible for a student to access a course.

At the Canvas Enrollment Status Comparison - Instructure Community - 387055 resource, you will see references to "active" (the student is allowed in the course, depending on the course's settings and its dates), "inactive" (the student is in the "People" area of the course with that notation but the student is not allowed in the course), "deleted" (the student is not in the "People" area of the course), and "concluded" (the student appears in the "View Prior Enrollments" section of the "People" area of the course and continues to receive read-only access to the course, depending on dates and other settings).

My institution only uses: "active", "inactive", and "deleted".

1. we use "inactive" for enrollments where the student has withdrawn or been dropped after the course/section was scheduled to start (because they could have generated activity in the course and we want to preserve access to their data)
2. we used "deleted" for enrollments where the student withdrew or dropped before the course/section was scheduled to start (since they did not get an opportunity to do anything in the course)
3. NOTE: the statues of an enrollment is managed by our data transfers to Canvas and not by teachers (teachers do not have the ability to add people to their course or to change their status to something else)

I have no way of knowing if and how your institution is using the "concluded" enrollment status. If they are, I would recommend that you reach out to your Canvas team to have a conversation with them.

-Doug

[lbranen-ahumada]

I think I have figured out that my institution does not allow instructors to deactivate or delete a student. I looked at how you do that and those options do not show up for me.