Student Access and Course Publication Setting Changes

[SaraSpaniol]

We are switching our Canvas settings at the account level starting Fall 2025 semester and I want to confirm I am understanding all the various term/course dates and restrictions correctly.

Past Settings: courses were synced and automatically published. If instructors did not want students to see course content, they had to unpublish the course and then re-publish content at the start of term. There were no restrictions on student access before or after the term dates.

NEW Settings:courses are synced and automatically published, BUT students cannot access the course until a few days prior to the term start date. Instructors continue to have access whenever the course is synced.

Example: 

Term Runs from	Aug 25, 2025 12:00am	to	Dec 18, 2025 11:59pm
Students can access from	Aug 22, 2025 12:00am	to	Dec 19, 2025 11:59pm
Teachers can access from	whenever	to	Dec 19, 2025 11:59pm
TAs can access from	whenever	to	term end
Designers can access from	whenever	to	term end

In addition, we have checked the following box at the account level:

 Restrict students from accessing courses before start date

My understanding of these settings is as follows (using the dates above):

• Courses appear under "future enrollment" for students until Aug. 22 AND are unable to be viewed until then, even if the course itself is published.
• Beginning Aug. 22, students can view the course but cannot "participate" until the term starts on Aug. 25. Instructors would need to unpublish any information they don't want visible by the 22nd.
• Beginning Aug. 25, students can view AND participate in the course.

MY QUESTION:

Can someone CONFIRM that my understanding of these settings is correct?

Our goal is for students to see a course when they are enrolled but not have access to any content until a couple days prior to the course start. We also want instructors to be able to build/edit their courses without having to worry about students seeing old or outdated information prior to the student access date. I'm unclear how the student access dates and the "restrict access" checkbox work (i.e. do they produce the same or different outcomes?).

Any change will be better than our past process, but I'm trying to limit the workload on my instructors while streamlining appropriate access for students.

Thanks for your help! 

[NoahBoswell]

Hi there @SaraSpaniol ,

I've read through your message a few times just to make sure I had a clear understanding of your set up. When it comes to checking off on the box that restricts students from viewing the course before the start date, this course will not appear in future enrollments, even if restrict students from viewing future enrollments at the root-account level is disabled. However, with the section start and end dates, those are just dates students are able to actually participate in the course (like reply to discussions and submit assignments). If the student accesses the course before the start or after the end date, and the 'restrict students from viewing this course after the start or end date' is not enabled, they will be able to see the course in their future enrollments and will be able to access it from there, as long as the course is published. If the course is unpublished, students will have access to see the course in their future enrollments, but won't be able to actually open it. If that checkbox is enabled, then they will see it in their future enrollments, however won't be able to access the course, regardless of publication status.

Does this make sense? PLEASE ask if you need further clarification or if I didn't explain something well enough!

Noah

[SaraSpaniol]

Thanks for your reply. Why is this so confusing?! 

So, let's say I want to do the following:

• course appears under "future enrollments" for students but is unavailable until student access date
• student access date is a few days prior to term date, allowing student to view (but not participate) in the course
• term date opens the course for participation

I would need to have the student access date and term date set, AND the course would need to be unpublished, correct?

If the course is published, they would be able to see content, and if the "restrict" box is checked, it wouldn't appear to them at all until the term start.

Am I understanding that correctly?

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

I'm always happy to help! And you're right, it absolutely does get confusing because everything is separate but also connects to each other in some way. 

If you would like students to be able to see the courses in their future enrollments, but they won't be able to see it until the term start date, you'd want to ensure the following are enabled / disabled:

1. The Restrict students from viewing future courses in enrollments list at the root-account level is disabled.

2. The Restrict students from viewing course before term start date at the course-level (in course settings) is enabled.

Depending on how your account-settings are configured, teachers may be able to still change these settings for their courses individually. If you'd like a consistent experience for all courses, I recommend going into your Admin at the root-account level, and enabling Restrict students from accessing courses before start date and locking that setting for all sub-accounts. That way, teachers can't change when the students can access the course via the term start date.

Does this make more sense? Please ask if you have any additional questions, we're happy to help you!!
Noah

[SaraSpaniol]

Does the "publish" status matter for #1 and #2 to be true?

Also, are you aware of any way to mass-enable the course level setting, or is that something we will need to train our faculty on? (alternatively, mass-publishing all courses a few days before the term date would I think accomplish the same goal, but I'm not aware of a way to do that either).

I'm trying to figure out what is *least* confusing for students and instructors but it seems those may be mutually exclusive!

[NoahBoswell]

Nope! The publication status does not matter for 1 and 2.

Unfortunately, there is no way to mass-publish all courses at once. That is why I always personally recommend ensuring all the courses are published before the term start date even hits, that way when students do actually get access, the course is there and ready for them, and the teachers don't need to go in and manually publish it later on. If the term start date hits, and the course is still unpublished, then the students will be actively enrolled in the course, but they just won't be able to access it.

[SaraSpaniol]

I think I've talked myself in circles here.

If the following are true (Scenario 1):

• term date is Aug. 25
• student access is Aug. 22
• restrict student access box is NOT checked at the root level
• courses are published

What do students see on August 1st, 23rd, and 25th?

And alternatively, if the following are true (Scenario 2):

• term date is Aug. 25
• student access is Aug. 22
• restrict student access box IS checked at the root level
• courses are published

What is different from Scenario 1?

[NoahBoswell]

I just wanted to confirm -- how are you making it so student access is before the term start date?

[SaraSpaniol]

I *think* I would do that by updated the term settings at the admin level. So the term dates would align with our academic terms but the student access date would be a few days before. My understanding was that this would allow students read-only access to the course until the term date as long as the course was published, but now I'm not so sure!

[NoahBoswell]

Yeah, so to my knowledge you can't grant student's access to the course with the settings you want enabled prior to the term start date. Canvas is very specific about course and term start dates, and so it would take the term start date and that's when it would grant students access.

I was experimenting around with your two scenarios, and honestly, I got similar results. The only difference between scenario 1 and 2, was in scenario 1, the course was a clickable link in the all courses menu under future enrollments, however when I opened the course it said course not available until the term start date. However, with scenario 2, the course was still listed but it wasn't a clickable link.

I also wanted to mention, course publication status does not apply to the future enrollments list. Regardless if the courses are set to published or unpublished, the student will be able to see that course in their future enrollments, as well as their publication status.

View from Scenario 1:

View from Scenario 2:

[SaraSpaniol]

Thank you so much...this is very helpful! 

What, then, does the student access date do in the term settings? 

Either way, I really appreciate your help and think I understand enough to move forward from here. 

[NoahBoswell]

I apologize, I wasn't looking there, only in the course settings... oops. Yeah, the student access date would do exactly what you mentioned.

I'm sorry for the confusion.

[MerrinJayne]

The student how a change of preferred name (gender diverse) and since she has not been able to access.