Extending Course Term Dates in Canvas
Introduction
One way Canvas manages course availability is through Terms, which define when a course starts and ends. This controls when students can interact with course content, when they can no access a course, and when courses move off your site Dashboard.
If your course has a non-traditional term (e.g. a Summer Semester course that runs for ten weeks instead of five), you may encounter unexpected errors while building your course. This can include the inability to set Assignment due dates that are past the term end date.
End Dates are Hard Stops
If you use the directions in this article to change your course participation settings from Terms to Course, Canvas will automatically conclude your course the moment the course end date and time you manually set is reached. This means:
Your course will only be accessible to you (and any other course instructor) in a read-only state.
This read-only state will prevent you from adding, editing, or removing course content; entering grades in the Grades area of the course; and entering grades or feedback in SpeedGrader.
Students will no longer have access to your course.
Your course will move from the Dashboard to the All Courses area of Canvas.
If your course auto-concludes, only a site administrator will be able to re-publish the course for you. Please open a support request if you find yourself in this situation.
Step-by-Step
1. Open your course.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the course navigation column on the left, and click Settings.
3. Locate the Participation setting above the Term Start and End dates.
4. Change the Participation setting from "Term" to "Course," then set a new Start and End date.
Please consider setting a date that's at least two days after the date grades are due.