Course Dates

For Incomplete Grades - Extending Canvas Dates

If you have a student who has been granted an "Incomplete" grade (formerly known as "Report Delay") by the Associate Provost's Office, you will need to extend the date of your course on Canvas to allow the student enough time to submit the assignment plus enough time for you to grade the assignment.

Follow these steps:

• Go to the course on Canvas and click "Settings" in the left menu

• Change the "Participation" option to "Course"

• Enter a new "End" date

• Click the red "Update Course Details" button at the bottom of the page

When is a Course Visible?

There are two settings which control when a course is becomes visible: (1) The Start/End dates in "Settings" and (2) whether the course is "published"

• Before the Start Date - Teachers and TAs can view and modify the course, students have no access

• After the Start Date, but not yet published - Teachers and TAs can view and modify the course, students have no access (same as above)

• After the Start Date, course published - Everyone can view, modify, and participate in the course.

Note: Any emails sent to the class through the "Inbox" Conversations or the Canvas Announcements feature will not go out to students unless it is after the Start Date, and the course has been published.

Then, at the end of the semester:

• After "Term Closes" Date - students can view but not participate (Unless the "Restrict students from viewing course after term end date" setting has been checked in the Settings, then they can't.); teachers and TA still have full access.

• After Teacher/TA Access Date - Teachers and TAs can view but not change anything, including grades (course becomes read-only).

If teachers needs more time to access a class, they can change the End date, but this change has to happen before they lose access.

Courses from past semesters no longer appear on a user's Dashboard, but can always be accessed at "Courses / All Courses" in the left menu.

Upcoming Dates at Biola

Spring 2024 - Default Dates

Term opened for students on Dec 31, 2023 (one week before term began)

Term closes on May 4, 2024 (Teacher / TA Access ends on May 18, 2024, end of the week after grades are due)

Summer 2024 - Default Dates

Term opens for students on April 29, 2024 (one week before term begins)

Term closes on Aug 17, 2024 (Teacher / TA Access ends on Aug 31, 2024, end of the week after grades are due)

Fall 2024 - Default Dates

Term opens for students on August 26, 2024 (one week before term began)

Term closes on December 21, 2024 (Teacher / TA Access ends on Jan 13, 2025, one week after grades are due)

Setting Course Participation Dates

For the majority of courses on Canvas, these instructions can be ignored. The dates for most classes follow the dates for the semester set by the Registrar's Office. However, if you need your students or TAs to have access before a semester begins or after a semester ends for some reason, here's how to change the dates.

Note: Students won't have access to your class until you publish it, no matter what the Course Dates are. See the bottom of the page called Setting up Your Course for details about publishing your course.

To set the course dates:

1. Go to the course and click "Settings" in left navigation of a course

2. Change the "Participation" option from "Term" to "Course" – this instructs Canvas to use dates specific to the course rather than the default term dates.

3. Enter dates for "Start" and/or "End" (note that the default time is 12:01am of that day)

4. Click the red Update Course Details button at the bottom.

Note: Instructors can only change the dates of a current or future course: if the course has already ended, you will need to email the Canvas Administrator to have the dates changed.

For more details, see the official Canvas instructions here: Changing Start & End Dates. In rare cases, you may need to change the date for just one section and not the other, of a cross-listed course. To do that, see the official Canvas instructions here: Editing Section Details.

Details: Term Dates, Course Dates, and Section Dates

The "term" dates follow the official beginning and end of the semester (usually one week before the first day of class to the day grades are due). The term dates can be superseded by the course dates which in turn can be superseded by the section dates. On Canvas, the "course" contains all the content and the "section" is a list of users who have access to that content. (The majority of courses have one section with all the students. The exceptions are cross-listed classes or combined sections.)

For more detail about how all of these dates work together, see Canvas' official documentation on Course Dates and Section Dates.

Details: End of the Semester - Student & TA Access

At the end of the semester, your course will become "read-only" for students and for TAs. They will be able to view the course and their grades but will not be able to upload anything new or submit any assignments. However, you can override this by changing the Course Dates as described above.

After the end of the semester, when the course is in this "read-only" state, it will disappear from your shortcut list in the "Courses" menu. However, you (and students) can still view it (and other past semesters) by clicking "View All" in the "Courses" menu.

If you wish to prevent students from viewing the class content, their grades, and your comments on their assignments, you can hide the class by going to "Settings" and checking the box that says "Restrict students from viewing this course after end date." We generally recommend against this.