Need a pre-class and post-class landing-page that does not provide access to classroom assignments, etc?

[mangles]

For years I have maintained a separate web presence to provide syllabi and other class information to my students before classes start.

Additionally, students have an issue when a class ends, and it disappears from their Canvas board.

In the latter case, creating an End of Class home page helps, but it still provides them access to the class calendar, and to their To Do list, both of which provide access to class assignments. (This is after removing most items from the navigation menu).

So I am looking for a solution, kind of like creating a sub-section for conveying instructor information for a class that doesn't give classroom access nor interfere with my classroom updates.

In a perfect world, I would also be able to edit upcoming course materials, as I do now before publishing my courses, without the students receiving notifications.

Currently, as I mentioned, I maintain another web presence, but even this has its limits as I have no way from within Canvas to give students the URL or any useful information before I publishing my classes. At best, I edit the course title to provide the start date.

Anyone else have this concern and/or ideas for addressing it. Seems like the folks from Canvas would have a pre and post class landing-page solution, but I haven't found it.

~mike

[LyndseyMartin]

Hello @mangles !

For a pre-class landing page, here's my thoughts for a work-around: 

• I would unpublish everything in the modules. If an assignment is not published, it will not show up for students regardless of whether or not you've set a due date. 
• I would use the Home Page of the course. This streamlines for the students where they have to go to get information. 
• Then you can publish your modules. You can either bulk publish them, or using the module release tool, you can choose to release them based on the date. Information on how to open and lock modules can be found here at this guide. 

I hope this helps! Best wishes for a successful year! 

[mangles]

Lyndsey

Thank you for taking the time to reply. While I have created separate landing pages that I set as my homepage, I have found it difficult to hide assignments from students when I try to use a pre or post class landing page. The 'To Do' page provides assignment access no matter what I do in the post class situation. While I have not tried to unpublish assignments, which I do not believe can be done after a student submits an assignment, I will try this next semester before my classes commence.

This last semester I removed everything from the navigation menu, but as I mentioned, the 'To do' list provided assignment access that I could not prevent.

~mike angles

[LyndseyMartin · Accepted solution]

You're right in saying that an assignment can't be unpublished after a student submits to it- my plan does require doing that ahead of time! You can also set assignment availability dates. To do that, go to Assignments, then click on the 3 dot kebob on the right side, and then choose "Edit Assignment Dates." 

From there, you can set an "Available From" date, which means that is the first date/time that a student will be able to see the assignment. 

Hope that helps! 

[mangles]

Lyndsey

Thank you. Over the years I have developed the habit (bad?) of not setting available and until dates as my assignment release as the modules open up. And I do believe you have solved this issue for me.  Thank you.

~mike angles