Time Zone Not Working

[emmabrouwer]

I am an instructor in New Zealand, administering courses in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The canvas account level time zone is set to New Zealand. I am setting up courses for both NZ and London time zones.

The course time zones have both been set to the relevant time zones in the course settings. 

Assignments should be due Saturday 5pm in the correct time zone. However, when I set up courses for the UK, the time zone still shows as the NZ time to students in the UK. If I set the due-date time as 5pm, it defaults to 5pm NZ time, (my account settings) even though the course time is UK. If I set the due date time as NZ's equivalent of the UK's 5pm (i.e. 6am the next morning) it still shows to the UK students as 6am NZ time, even though they have their accounts set to UK time. While this does work out to be the correct due time, the 6am number is confusing students.

How do I resolve this?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi Emma,

I'm not a super expert on timezones in Canvas, but here's my understanding of how they work...

If the user has a time zone set in their profile, it will be used for all date displays and entries.  If they do not, the course setting would be used.  If the course doesn't have a setting, then the account setting would be used.  So essentially if you have your time zone set, you'd enter all of the due dates for that time zone.

Students would see the corresponding dates for whatever time zone they have set up.  If they put their mouse cursor on the time, they'll also see the course time info pop up as well if it's different from their own time zone.

Hope this helps!

-Chris

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi Emma,

I'm not a super expert on timezones in Canvas, but here's my understanding of how they work...

If the user has a time zone set in their profile, it will be used for all date displays and entries.  If they do not, the course setting would be used.  If the course doesn't have a setting, then the account setting would be used.  So essentially if you have your time zone set, you'd enter all of the due dates for that time zone.

Students would see the corresponding dates for whatever time zone they have set up.  If they put their mouse cursor on the time, they'll also see the course time info pop up as well if it's different from their own time zone.

Hope this helps!

-Chris

[emmabrouwer]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response.

Does that mean, if I have my own time zone set to Auckland, and the course time is set to London, that any due dates I enter into the course will always enter as Auckland time (overriding the course timezone)? 

I want to enter them as London time. 

Thanks,
Emma

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @emmabrouwer ...

These are the two Guides for setting time zones at the course level and the user account level:

• How do I set a time zone for a course? - Instructure Community - 1295 (canvaslms.com)
• How do I set a time zone in my user account as an ... - Instructure Community - 1227 (canvaslms.com)

If you were also a Canvas administrator, there's a time zone that can be set for the overall Canvas account:

• How do I set details for an account? - Instructure Community - 194 (canvaslms.com)

I hope these Guides will help in some way.

[chriscas]

Hi @emmabrouwer,

Sorry for the late reply on this.  To answer your question, yes, my understanding is that if you have the time zone set as Auckland un your user profile, all of the dates/times you enter would be Auckland time.

-Chris