Will unlocked course automatically relock?

[JeffMartin]

Recently I was asked to unlock a course from a year ago to allow a student to complete the course. I unlocked the course and set the end date to the requested date. Will the course automatically relock when this date passes or will I need to go in and manually relock the course?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @JeffMartin ...

How are you re-opening your course?  Are you changing the start/end date on your course "Settings" page?  If so, it's possible to only open the course for specific students in your course...by adding a Section to your course and then setting the dates for that section.  Then, you'd enroll the student and you in that section.  I found a past discussion that details this a little bit more... Solved: Extending Course Access for Single Student for Inc... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com....

Hope this will help a bit.

[JeffMartin]

Hello @Chris_Hofer

I will have to look into this. I don't enroll students or faculty into the courses, that happens through another office. I am concerned that if I did this it would not connect back to the official gradebook / transcript for that student. I will look into it though and see if my admin. privileges will allow me to do this.

Right now I simply unlock the course and change the start / end dates. I was just curious if the course will automatically relock once the new end date passes or if I need to go in and manually lock the course. Thanks.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@JeffMartin ...

So what you are doing by changing the start/end dates on your course "Settings" page is giving all your students in that class extra access to the course, and I'm not sure if that's really what you want or not.  Below those dates, there are options to restrict access before or after those dates that you set, so you could select those options if you wanted.

How do I restrict student access to a course befor... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

If you want to extend the course just for one student, the process is basically this (which your Canvas admin might have to do for you if you are not able to do this yourself):

1. Go to your course "Settings" page.
2. Click on the "Sections" tab.
3. In the "Add a New Section" box, type in a name that you'd like to use for the student...for example, "Extension" (without the quotes).
4. Click on the name of your newly created section under the "Course Sections" heading.
5. Click on the "Edit Section" button.
6. Add dates/times to the "Starts:" and "Ends:" boxes for the dates that you want this student to have additional access.
7. Check the option for "Students can only participate in the course between these dates".
8. Click "Update Section".
9. Go to your "People" page, and click on the three-dot kebab icon to the right of the student's name.
10. Select "Edit Sections".
11. Click the "browse" link, and then select the new section you created earlier.  Click the "Update" button.
12. Repeat steps 9-11 for you as the instructor.

Hope this will be of some help  to you!

[JeffMartin]

Hello @Chris_Hofer 

Thank you for that information. I can do this, you are correct. I will need to check with our IT dept. to make sure that it will not impact the SIS.

I am left wondering though, will the course automatically relock or do I need to go in and manually relock the course when this extended time has ended?

Thanks

[Chris_Hofer]

@JeffMartin ...

I'm not sure what you mean by "manually relock".  Did you review the link I had given you on how to restrict student access before or after course start/end dates?  Also, in Step #7 of my instructions, that option would only allow a given student to access the course between the dates/times that you set for the specific section.

You might want to see if you can meet with a member of your Online Learning / eLearning / Distance Education team to see if they'd be willing to do some testing with you to see exactly what this would look like from a student's perspective.  Maybe they would have a "dummy" student account that they could use to do some testing with you...and extend access in a course for a few days so you could see what this looks like.

Just a thought...hope it helps!

[JeffMartin]

Hello @Chris_Hofer 

Thanks for your insight and directions. I spoke with our IT Admin. and they confirmed that setting up a separate section just for this one student would work. They did go into more detail outlining that I did have to unlock the course, change the course start/end dates, and set the start/end dates for the overall section which contains all students to be outside of the dates so that not all students had access to the course. In the end, I learned a new way to address this issue when it occurs. They also confirmed that the course will automatically lock once the new dates I had set for the course pass. Thanks again for your insight.