DIID recommends the use of Start Dates to automate and control student access whenever appropriate.

Due Dates can be used to ensure clarity of instructional expectations.

• Note that the use of Due Dates without a corresponding End Date means late work is accepted by default, but helpfully arrives flagged as late.

• Users will be able to helpfully see the title and description of items before the Start Date and after the End Date, but will not be able to access the content item.

Instructors who allow late work should avoid the use of End Dates, since this setting will have to be manually adjusted to allow any student to submit an assignment after the End Date.

Some activities include extra options that allow instructions to make the activity visible but restrict access for the learner to post or submit until a prescribed date. Learn more about this on the discussion and assignment pages.

We recommend viewing your course homepage and course calendar via the 'More Tools' menu from the learner view to see what appears in the course calendar. You can make adjustments to what appears there in the 'Manage Dates' tool in the 'Course Admin' menu.

Selecting Add Dates & Restrictions on any Brightspace Content Item allows instructors access to Release Conditions, or conditionally restrict student access to the item beyond basic calendar criteria.

• Note that release conditions totally hide a content item from students until the corresponding criteria are met.

Release conditions are highly customizable

• Students could be required to view (click on) a specific content topic before gaining access to a quiz,

• Students could be required to post (or reply) to a discussion topic before they could access the next course module, etc.

• Release conditions can also be added to intelligent agents to create email notifications for users.