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CANVAS - Setting Course Availability & Visibility

This document contains information for UW-Parkside instructors on how to publish a course, set course start and end dates, and how to restrict student access to a course before or after start/end dates.
  • If a course Start Date is not set, once the course is published it becomes available to students. 
  • If a course End Date is not set, the course will remain available to the students for 60 days after the course end date listed in Solar.
See the following document for more information: Managing Course Access and Publishing Dates
How to publish a Canvas course

Publish Course
In the Sidebar of your course, click the Publish button. Note: On smaller screens, the Sidebar displays beneath Course Home Page content.



View Confirmation

A message will appear at the top of your screen confirming the publishing of your course.



Unpublish Course
If you need to unpublish your course, click the Unpublish button in the sidebar. Note: Once your course contains a graded submission, you can no longer unpublish your course.

How to set course start and end dates

In Course Navigation, click on Settings.
Click on the Course Details tab.



Set Start Date 
Click the Starts calendar icon [1]. Select a start date for the course [2].



Set End Date
Click the Ends calendar icon [1]. Select an end date for the course [2].



Note: In your end date, if you do not set a time, or you set the end time to midnight, a warning icon displays notifying you that the date prior to the set end date will be the last available day in the course. For instance, if the course were set to end January 13, the last full available date for the course would be January 12.

Limit Student Participation
If you do not want to let students participate in the course outside of the course dates, select the Students can only participate in the course between these dates checkbox. Selecting this checkbox creates a course override and overrides the term dates. Students will only be able to participate in the course between the course dates, and the course will be in a read-only state outside the course dates.



How to restrict student access to a course before or after the course start/end dates

When a student enrolls in a future course offering, the course displays in the Future Enrollments section in the student's Courses list.
**Once a course is published, the students enrolled in the course will be able to view the course content.**

  • Restrict students from viewing course before start date: To restrict students from viewing course content before the start date, even if the course is published,  course instructor can enable the "Restrict students from viewing course before start date" option. Course dates override term dates. [Note: Course start date must be set by the instructor in order to apply this setting.]
  • Restrict students from viewing course after end date: To restrict students from viewing the course after the semester is over, the course instructor can enable the "Restrict students from viewing course after end date option". [Note: Course start/end dates must be set by the instructor in order to apply this setting.]
 
This table contains a general setting recommendation

Light Bulb 		  A general recommendation for course visibility settings is to check the box to “Restrict students from viewing course before start date.” This will ensure that your students will not be able to see course materials before the course is properly prepared!


Keywordscanvas, publish, course, settings, dates, restrict, instructor, student, semester, canvasinstructor,   Doc ID97879
OwnerLinda W.GroupUW Parkside
Created2020-02-12 11:39 CSTUpdated2023-08-08 11:03 CST
SitesUW Parkside
Feedback  17   0      
Learning Technology