Verify activities and content in the course are published.
Verify dates. Due dates are added to the calendar and the syllabus and serve as reminders to students. “Available from” and “Until” dates will unlock and lock the activity.
Verify instructions are accurate and well formatted.
Customize course navigation links. Keep only the links that are necessary. For example, in most cases the following should be hidden: Files, Pages, Outcomes, Conferences, and Collaborations. If using Modules you can hide even more links to simplify navigation for students. See: How to Reorder and Hide Course Navigation Links.
Verify Modules are logically ordered and published, if using them.
Verify Module “Lock until” dates are correct, if using them. See: How to Lock a Module.
Publish your course when you are ready for students to have access to it. This typically is on the morning of or before the official course start date. See: How do I publish a course? NOTE: Some faculty like to publish their courses well in advance of the start date, but only publish a handful of elements of the course (such as the syllabus). This allows enrolled students to “preview” the class.
Especially for online and hybrid classes, send an email to your students through your SURF Roster telling them how to access your course in Canvas.
Cautions
Canvas email (Inbox/Conversation) messages will not be sent out if the course is unpublished. Send class messages from your SURF Roster instead, prior to publishing the course.
Pay attention to the time stamp on anything you have placed a date on. 12:00 means the very first minute of the selected day. For end dates, it is often best to choose 11:59 PM to ensure you are setting it up on the correct date.
The following will help instructors understand how the end of semester is handled in Canvas, and how to update related Canvas course settings if necessary. By default, students who complete a class continue to have read-only access to the concluded class’s course materials, discussions, and grades. If you wish to restrict concluded class access, you must change the class settings before the end of the term, or get a Canvas administrator to help you after the end of the term.
Everything below applies to typical term-based Canvas classes. Canvas sandbox classes and Canvas shells used for organizations, departments, groups, etc. are not tied to any particular terms and thus remain available indefinitely.
Closing your Course
There is nothing you have to do to close your Canvas course; at the term end date (see below), your course will be set to Concluded status and moved onto the Past Enrollments course list for you and your students. By default you and your students will continue to have read-only access to the course.
Canvas Term End Dates
Semester
Date
Time
Spring 2026
June 8
12 am
Summer 2026
August 12
12 am
Fall 2026
Dec 31
12 am
Concluded Course Access
For both instructors and students, concluded courses can be found by clicking Courses in the main Canvas menu, then the All Courses link. Concluded courses are listed there under Past Enrollments. Concluded courses may notbe moved back onto the Dashboard – they must be accessed in this way.
Instructorscan perform the following actions with a concluded course
Access material using visible navigation links (any links that were hidden from students will be hidden in concluded courses)
Instructorscannot perform the following actions within a concluded course (do these before the end of the term!)
Edit course content
Edit Grades
View/download Analytics
View/download Item Analysis within Quizzes
Send a message to the class within Canvas
Change class access settings
Change class navigation
Studentscan perform the following actions by default within a concluded course
View Grades
View course content
View Discussions and Assignments
Send a message to the instructor
Students cannot perform the following actions within a concluded course
View Quiz questions and answers
Submit discussions, assignments, quizzes, and other course activities
Restricting Students from Viewing Some or All of a Completed Course
As described above, by default in Canvas, students have ongoing read-only access to course content in Canvas after the term ends. This can be a great feature, allowing students to review key learning resources from previous semesters. If, however, you wish to limit this access, follow one of the methods below before the end of the term. (If you need to make these changes to a course that is already concluded, contact Karen Turpin for assistance at [email protected])
Method 1: Hide Course Navigation menu links
If an instructor would like to limit access to major areas of course content, one method is to hide Navigation menu links. Note that if Navigation menu links are hidden, the instructor will also be unable to access them after the course concludes. This may be appropriate if you would like to leave Grades available to students, yet close off certain course content. The instructor may copy the course into another course to regain access to hidden menu items.
How to hide Course Navigation menu links
Click Settings in the Canvas course menu
Click Navigation in the tabs at the top.
Drag and drop the menu items from the top (viewable) area to the bottom (hidden) area or click the gear icon to the right of the menu item and select disable.
Click the Save button.
Method 2: Hide select course content
For more fine-grained control, certain course content such as files, pages, modules, or module items (but not assignments or discussions where students have participated) may be unpublished. As with hidden Navigation menu links, unpublished items are also inaccessible to the instructor after the course concludes.
If you wish to hide course items where students have participated, such as discussions or assignments, you cannot unpublish those. But there is a trick: simply set the availability date to sometime far in the future.
These options may be useful if you want students to be able to access most course content, but have select content that you prefer not to be accessed/shared in the future. The instructor may copy the course into a current course to be able to revisit/reuse hidden content.
Method 3: Restrict students from accessing entire course after term end date
The term end date is the final date in the current semester as listed in the table above. If an instructor would prefer the entire course and its course materials not be visible to students after the term end date:
Click Settings in the Canvas course menu.
For Participation: Select Term (this should be selected by default)
3. Select the checkbox for ‘Restrict students from viewing course after term end date‘.
5. Click the Update Course Details button at the bottom of the settings page.
This option will completely remove the course from the student’s view in Past Enrollments after the end term date passes. Students will not see the course and will have no access to course materials or grades. Instructors will continue to be able to access the course in Past Enrollments.
Resolving Incompletes
If you have assigned a student an incomplete ‘I‘ grade for the semester, contact Karen Turpin at [email protected] or as soon as the paperwork is complete with Admissions and Records. Karen will create a new Canvas course section based on the original course. This new section will allow the student access to the course with the ability to submit work, and will give you access to grade the student’s work, for the time allowable by the Office of Admissions and Records.
Working with Concluded Courses to Build New Courses
As noted above, you may always export a concluded course for import back into Canvas (Text instructions), or use a concluded course as the source for copying into a new course (Text instructions). If you wish to update the content of a concluded course for use in the future, but you do not have a current term course in which to do that, you may wish to request a Sandbox course to copy into and work with, since you cannot edit a concluded course directly.
Teaching a short course and/or need to close your course prior to the official term end date?
You can manually end your course by updating the course end date. This will disable the ability for students to submit any more work, and, if you select the setting enabling students to view the course after the end date, will move the course off of the students’ Canvas dashboard and into the Past Enrollments area. If you do not enable that access for students, the course will disappear from their Canvas altogether.
To change the Course Start and/or End Date
Click Settings in the Canvas course menu.
2. For Participation: Select Course
3. Change the Course Start and End Dates to reflect when you want students to have full access to the course.
4. If desired, select the checkboxes for ‘Restrict students from viewing course before course start date’ and/or ‘Restrict students from viewing course after the course end date’.
In the example below, students will not be able to participate in the course, even if it is published, until Jan 16 at 12 pm. The students will no longer be able to participate in the course after May 30 at 12 pm and the course will not be available to students for viewing.
Students and Instructors are automatically enrolled from SURF to your Canvas course several times a day.
For the roles called out below, follow the specified directions to have the user enrolled within your course with the appropriate role.
Faculty Evaluator: Work with your dean when you need to provide access to a peer, your chair, etc. to conduct an evaluation. Approved evaluators are handled by your dean through the Office of Instruction’s procedures. The evaluator will be added on SURF and uploaded to Canvas for the allowable period of time. During that time, the evaluator will have the ‘Evaluator’ Canvas role. The Evaluator Canvas role has the same permissions as the student role.
The Learning Centers (TLC) ASIC, STEMLC, & Writing Center: Contact Amy Paopao at (760) 757-2121 ext. 6389 or [email protected]. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘TLC Staff ‘ Canvas role.
Community Education Student: Contact Karen Turpin at [email protected]. Include the confirmation of student enrollment through community education. On the People roster, within Canvas, the user will be assigned the ‘Student Other’Canvas role.
Substitute Instructors, & TAs: Work with your dean to provide access to Canvas for the substitute instructor or TA. Approved substitute instructors and TAs are handled by your dean through the Office of Instruction’s procedures. The substitute instructor or TA will be added on SURF and uploaded to Canvas for the allowable period of time. During that time, the substitute instructor will have the ‘Teacher’ Canvas role and the TA will have the ‘TA’ Canvas role.
TidyUP is available within a Canvas course to help quickly identify and clean up course content. Identifying and deleting extra files, folders, pages, or assignments that are no longer in use will make your course easier to manage and more usable for everyone.
Note: TidyUp does not identify files that are being used in Question Banks
Enable the TidyUp tool in a Canvas course
Start within your Canvas course, click on Settings at the bottom of the course navigation menu.
Click on the Navigation tab.
3. Click on the 3 dots to the right of TidyUp.
4. Select + Enable.
5. Click Save.
The TidyUP tool will now be available on your course navigation menu near the bottom of the list.
6. Click the TidyUP link.
7. Click the Authorize button the first time you launch the tool.
You are now ready to use the TidyUp tool. Click the Scan Course button to get started.
DesignPLUS is a user-friendly Canvas plug-in that helps you build polished, engaging, and accessible courses efficiently. DesignPLUS is licensed for all faculty at MiraCosta College using Canvas.
DesignPLUS includes four primary tools:
Sidebar – a suite of rich content editor tools that help you create organized, accessible, engaging, and visually polished content in Canvas with ease.
QuickStart Wizard – design tools available when you are editing new content in Canvas (a new page, assignment, discussion, etc) to quickly add visual design elements or adopt existing templates.
Cidi Labs Multi-Tool – a time-saving tool that lets you quickly set up an engaging home page and create accessible templates for reuse across Canvas. It also can help you quickly build repeatable, consistent module structures. You can also adjust due dates and delay announcements using this tool.
Upload/Embed Image Tool – a tool that enables you to discover, add, edit, and place course images in Canvas
DesignPLUS Sidebar
When you are editing Canvas content, select the sidebar icon at top right to launch the Sidebar tool, which will then appear on the right. The Sidebar tool includes many enhancements to the Rich Content Editor in Canvas, enabling you to easily add a variety of attractive and engaging content elements.
Getting Started with the Sidebar
Learn more about the DesignPLUS Sidebar (Tap to open a list of resources).
The QuickStart Wizard button appears when you open a new page, assignment, or syllabus for editing. Activating the Wizard gives you access to templates for the entire page, or pre-defined content blocks of different types to help you customize the page.
Getting Started with the QuickStart Wizard
Cidi Labs Multi-Tool
The Cidi Labs Multi-Tool shows up in the left course navigation menu of your Canvas course. You will be asked to authorize Cidi Labs to access your Canvas account. Once the Multi-Tool is set up, you can select from a variety of tools to help rapidly develop and update your courses. Watch the Multi-Tool orientation video to learn more about what it can do for you.
This tool enables you to manage course images directly in Canvas. Upload, crop, resize, and embed images anywhere in your course, or quickly add free, high-quality images from Pexels and Unsplash. To access the Upload/Embed Image (U/EI) tool, go to apps through the Rich Content Editor (RCE). The first time you access the tool, you will be asked to authorize Cidilabs to access Canvas so this tool is available for you. Watch the Upload/Embed Image orientation video to learn how this tool works.
