Course Availability
Before the Term
New course sites are created for every class long before the semester starts, but an instructor will not have access to their course until they are listed in Banner as the instructor for that section (this timeline can vary by department). Typically the soonest you will be able to access your assigned summer and fall courses 9 weeks before summer semester begins, and you will be able to access your spring courses 9 weeks before spring begins. At that point, you can begin adding content to your Canvas course. Lastly, when students register for the course, they will be auto-enrolled or added as students into the Canvas shell.
These time frames can change due to updates to SLCC policy and state regulations. When that happens we will inform you well ahead of time what those expectations will be.
During the Term
Just because you see the Canvas course does not mean your students see it. By default, a course site is unpublished (unavailable) until the start of the term and it is up to the instructor to publish it (i.e., make it available). Once a course is accessible to the instructor, however, the instructor can change a setting in the course to allow students to access it earlier if needed. For more information, see: How do I publish a course?
After the Term
After the school term has ended, Canvas course sites are not archived but are available indefinitely. This serves as a stored record of course evidence. By default, each Canvas course has term start and end dates within the course settings. Outside that date range, most functions are limited to “view only.” Some components are not easily accessible after the term end date (grades, group pages, etc.) To help manage and keep course sites from continuing to build up within your course list, especially classes which are taught semester after semester, Canvas removes teachers periodically from courses that are a year old.
Exceptions
Accessing closed courses
Course shells that have been created by request are always accessible to those who requested them and those who have been added manually, regardless of term starting and ending dates.
Extending course dates
As an instructor, you have can adjust the course dates once the course has begun, to allow some flexibility with your schedule (and your students' schedule). Sometimes you may need to extend the course end date to allow a few more submissions at the end of the term. It is important to note that you are only able to do this while the course is still live, as you will not be able to change the course dates once the end date of the course has passed, so any changes must take place before it ends. Please see How do I change the start and end dates for a course? for more information.
Course Creation
There are a couple of ways that courses are created in Canvas: automatically and by request. Here is a brief explanation of each:
Automatic
When a course is assigned a CRN in Banner it gets a Canvas course site prior to the start of the semester. This site is sometimes called a “shell” because the site is empty until you add content. Content is added by importing, uploading, or creating the content within the course site. It’s important that every course taught at SLCC has a Canvas site so that students can access (at a minimum) the course syllabus and current grade book.
By Request
As a faculty member, you can also request additional Canvas courses, called development (DEV) courses. DEV courses contain all of the same features as a Canvas course, but they never contain students and never go live. The DEV courses act like a sandbox where instructors can experiment with features or store course content for an upcoming term. You can build out content in a DEV course and then transfer it to your live Canvas course. We encourage instructors who want to prepare materials in advance to request one.
For instructions for requesting a DEV course, use the Canvas Course Request Form.