Terms, Courses, and Section Enrollments
This document discusses term, course, and section dates and how they interact with each other in Canvas. This document also discusses options available to extend or limit course access and visibility.
For more information about using these dates, please view the Canvas guides term, course, and section dates lesson and the interactive Student Course Visibility and Participation flowchart.
Term dates, course dates, and section dates have a symbiotic relationship in Canvas. Section dates are set within the course dates, and course dates are set within the term dates.
However, if necessary, you can make modifications for a course or section according to the needs of a course. Canvas includes various combinations of options for course access using terms, courses, and sections. Additionally, options can limit students from participating within specific dates and restrict students from viewing courses before or after course dates.
Term dates, course dates, and section dates can also be added through SIS imports. SIS enrollment CSV files that include start_date and end_date values override term dates, course dates, and section dates.
Term, Course, and Section Scenario
The following scenario describes a typical term, course, and section as they might exist in Canvas and how the different dates affect participation for each user in the course.
An institution creates their SIS import file for Spring Term 2019. Administrators set the term from January 6 until April 27. Administrators retained the default permissions for students to inherit the term start and end dates, and for Teachers, TAs, and Designers to always be able to access courses. Student dates appear as the term dates:
|
Start Date |
End Date |
|
|
Term Dates |
January 6, 2019 |
April 19, 2019 |
|
Student Participation Dates |
January 6, 2019 |
April 19, 2019 |
Professor Smith has decided he doesn’t want students to participate in his Psychology 101 (PSY 101) course until a week after the student start date. He also wants to end the course a week before the end of the term. Perhaps this change is to give him time to explain the course, distribute the syllabus at the beginning of the course, and to close down the course during finals at the end of the term.
Professor Smith opens Course Settings and sets course participation dates:
|
Start Date |
End Date |
|
|
Psychology 101 Course Dates |
January 13, 2019 |
April 13, 2019 |
After meeting with Section B in his class, Professor Smith realizes this section would benefit from extended access to the course beyond the term. He opens and edits section B in his course and sets section override dates:
|
Start Date |
End Date |
|
|
Psychology 101 - Section B Dates |
January 13, 2019 |
April 19, 2019 |
Dates Overview
The following table gives an overview of the various dates in this scenario and how they work together. Shaded rows indicate participation access for each user role. The small x indicates the start or end date as indicated in the term, course, or section settings.
Beginning of the Term
|
January 2019 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
|
Term Date |
x |
|||||||||||||
|
Teacher Participation |
||||||||||||||
|
Student Participation |
|
x |
||||||||||||
|
PSY-101 Course Participation |
x |
|||||||||||||
|
PSY-101 Section B Participation |
x |
Students cannot access any course content until their courses are published. If a course is published before the start date (January 6), they can view course content but cannot participate (such as submitting an assignment or contributing to a discussion topic). On the start date, students can fully participate in the course. This behavior also applies to course participation dates.
Note: Most courses are published automatically on the date the students have access to their courses, but some institutions allow instructors to publish their courses ahead of time or after the term date. If necessary, there is an option at both the account and course levels that restricts students from viewing course content before the start date.
End of Term
|
April 2019 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
|
Term Date |
x |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Teacher Participation |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Student Participation |
x |
|||||||||||||||||
|
PSY-101 Course Participation |
x |
|||||||||||||||||
|
PSY-101 Section B Participation |
x |
Read-only access starts at 12:00 am on the specified date, so the last full day of access is the previous date, as indicated by the shading.
The term date ends at 12:00 am on April 19 (last full day is April 18).
When a term date has concluded, the course is placed in a read-only (archived) state. Read-only means that the course is not available for submitting assignments, posting discussions, uploading files, grading, or any other action-based task within a course.
- Student participation access for the term ends at 12:00 am on April 19 (last full day is April 18). All courses (unless overridden with a course date) are placed in a read-only state for students.
- Participation access for all students in the Psychology 101 course (except for Section B) ends at 12:00 am on April 13 (last full day is April 12). The course is placed in a read-only state for students.
- Participation access for students in Psychology 101 Section B ends at 12:00 am on April 19 (last full day is April 18). The course is placed in a read-only state for students.
Note:
- Most courses are concluded automatically on the last date of the course. If necessary, there is an option at both the account and course levels that restricts students from viewing course content after the course end date.
- Courses and sections that have override dates are not always read only; some overrides may allow students to participate in the course indefinitely.
Last update: 2021-03-18
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