Course End Dates and Student Participation

[JillMurrin]

We are new to using an LMS let alone Canvas, but how do most schools do the Course Start and End Dates? We based ours on our semester dates, but grades are due 1 week after the semester end date. Some faculty give assignment extensions, etc., but are students able to still submit assignments if the course end date is December 6 but an extension was given until the 12th?

In our subaccounts, I don't have any restrictions on students accessing the classes after course end date, but one faculty member was not allowed to grant extentions or create an new extra credit assignment due to the course end date.

So long story short, do most schools use course end date to include an extra week past term?

Any advice is appreciated!

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @JillMurrin !

I thought I’d share what my school district tends to do.

When it comes to the course start dates, we restrict students from viewing the course before the course start date. Our director of IT also locked the setting where future enrollments were hidden from students. However, I don’t know of many other schools or organizations do that. I always recommend keeping the enrollments visible just so students can be sure they’re in the right courses and so they can report anything that is incorrect within enough time before the new semester or school year starts, however they won’t be able to actually access the course until the day of, or the day before the first day of school.

When it comes to course end dates, however, we never restrict students from viewing their concluded courses. We find it beneficial for them to be able to access their old courses to access resources that they may need, and things like that in years beyond. However, the courses are concluded usually within a week of the last day of school, but not the day after the last day. This is so teachers can wrap up any grading they may do inside of Canvas as well as share resources to the Canvas Commons for the next school year and stuff like that. But then about 5-10 days after the last day of school, all courses are concluded, but again, are still accessible to all users in the course, regardless of their role they were enrolled with. Once the course is concluded / ended, students cannot submit any assignments or participate in the course the way they’d be able to as if it was active.

I hope this helps you out, and I hope you enjoy using Canvas! It’s a great platform.

All the best,
Noah

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @JillMurrin !

I thought I’d share what my school district tends to do.

When it comes to the course start dates, we restrict students from viewing the course before the course start date. Our director of IT also locked the setting where future enrollments were hidden from students. However, I don’t know of many other schools or organizations do that. I always recommend keeping the enrollments visible just so students can be sure they’re in the right courses and so they can report anything that is incorrect within enough time before the new semester or school year starts, however they won’t be able to actually access the course until the day of, or the day before the first day of school.

When it comes to course end dates, however, we never restrict students from viewing their concluded courses. We find it beneficial for them to be able to access their old courses to access resources that they may need, and things like that in years beyond. However, the courses are concluded usually within a week of the last day of school, but not the day after the last day. This is so teachers can wrap up any grading they may do inside of Canvas as well as share resources to the Canvas Commons for the next school year and stuff like that. But then about 5-10 days after the last day of school, all courses are concluded, but again, are still accessible to all users in the course, regardless of their role they were enrolled with. Once the course is concluded / ended, students cannot submit any assignments or participate in the course the way they’d be able to as if it was active.

I hope this helps you out, and I hope you enjoy using Canvas! It’s a great platform.

All the best,
Noah

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @JillMurrin,

At my institution, which is a two-year public community college, we:

• allow students to see future enrollments
• set the Canvas course shell start dates based on what exists in our SIS
• do not allow students to get into a Canvas course shell before it starts
• set the Canvas course shell dates based on the date that exist in our SIS and add seven days
• do not allow students to get into a Canvas course shell after it closes
• we do not allow faculty to change dates
• our faculty have a form that needs to be submitted that goes to both our Registrar's Office and my Department for when there is a student needs to finish an incomplete (when that form has been submitted, I create a separate section in the course shell and enroll the student into that section of the Canvas course shell)

We have been using Canvas full-time since Summer 2019 and have used this same basic setup (with some minor tweaks to the form for an incomplete). 

I hope you find this helpful.

-Doug

[JillMurrin]

@dbrace @NoahBoswell @jayell thank you all for your responses!

We are a small graduate only school, and have little IT support and no ed tech so I am trying to be the admin as the Registrar!

We currently do not restrict or lock future enrollment from students, but we might need to adjust the shell end dates to accomodate extensions.

@jayell - in your response you said that faculty can still grant extensions or assign deadlines past the course end date, but the reason I posted this was because it was not allowing a faculty member to do so. Any advice there or should I put in a ticket with Canvas?

[dbrace]

You are welcome, @JillMurrin.

Before contacting Canvas Support, I would recommend checking what permissions are set for that role.

In doing that, you may want/need to refer to what is below.

What user roles and permissions are available in Canvas? - Instructure Community - 102

Canvas Course Role Permissions - Instructure Community - 387080

How do I set details for an account? - Instructure Community - 194 (check the "View Restriction Settings" section for "Don't let teachers modify course availability dates")

I hope those help you.

-Doug

[NoahBoswell]

@JillMurrin You're very welcome, always happy to help out!

I also wanted to say, I'm almost positive that you're unable to grant extensions past the course end date, especially when it comes to a specific section, so that information that was provided to you is most likely incorrect.

One of the only ways (at least that I am aware of) is to change the user's course section and make that course section end at a later date. However, depending on how you have things set-up, and if you use a SIS, that might not be possible.

Always feel free to come back with any additional questions -- we're happy to help!

[dbrace]

That (creating a separate section within the course) is exactly what I do for my institution.

-Doug