[Courses] If empty course end date, then automatically use term end date

[d_j_corbin]

Background and problem

There was a change to the course availability dates in March 2021. At our university we just now discovered 761 old courses that have their own start date, but no end date. This means that these courses are still active after the semester ended and teachers can still publish announcements, add assignments, change course content, etc...

I am sure none of these teachers were aware of this when they set a start date but no end date in the course settings, to open their courses before/after the semester began.

Solution

I suggest that Instructure updates the course availability function so that if the course end date is empty the course will automatically use the standard term end date. The user must be made aware of this when they try to save the course settings without a course end date, so they have the opportunity to add an end date if necessary.

[d_j_corbin]

@KristinL: I like the other proposal https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Ideas/Autofill-course-start-and-end-date-when-participatio... . Using the term's start and end dates when switching to Course will also solve the issue, probably even better than my suggestion.

I assume most instructors want to make small adjustments to the start and end dates, by a few days to a few weeks, and are not looking to keep the course active and visible in everyone's dashboards for 2-3+ semesters. Those who want/need to do so can manually change the end date to much later than the pre-filled end date. Regardless of which proposal you choose, the point is to avoid permanently active courses 🙂