As an instructor, you can manage the details in a Canvas course.

By default, courses inherit term dates set for your entire institution. However, as an instructor, you may need to change the start and end dates for your course. Dates can be shorter than the term dates or overlap the term dates.

Adding course dates automatically creates an override for term dates. Entering an end date in the course will tell Canvas to conclude the course on the entered date. When the course is concluded, the course is removed from the Dashboard, and in the Courses list, the course will be moved to the Past Enrollments section.

Additionally, you can also set whether or not students can only participate in the course during the specified course dates. Participation means that students can submit assignments, post discussions, upload files, or take part in any other action-based task within a course. If your require students to only be able to participate during the course dates, they can accept the course invitation, access the course, and look at content, but they cannot fully participate until the first day of the course. When the course is concluded, the course is placed in a read-only state.

If you do not want students to be able to view any content in your course until the course start date, Course Settings also allows you to restrict students from being able to access content. You can also choose to restrict all access to your course after the course has concluded. Learn how to restrict course access.

If your institution is using a student information system (SIS) for grading purposes, you can set up a graded discussion to be sent back to the SIS. However, you must first specify which graded discussion(s) in the course should be sent to your SIS as part of the grade publishing process. Each graded discussion must be modified individually. However, your institution may have already enabled an option for all graded discussions to be configured for your SIS.

Once a graded discussion is set up to be sent to your SIS, the Assignment Index Page lets you enable or disable a graded discussion by clicking the SIS sync icon next to the graded discussion.

Each SIS requires specific setup procedures to properly post grades for graded discussions. Depending on how graded discussions are assigned to students, some discussions may not be supported. For details and and troubleshooting tips, view the appropriate help document for your SIS integration:

• Instructor Help: Canvas and PowerSchool (this integration requires the Post Grades to SIS feature option)
• Instructor Help: Canvas and Skyward

Note: The Banner integration does not require any assignment setup and only pulls total grades from the Gradebook.

You can use the Gradebook to send messages to your students. Message subjects are filtered based on specific assignment categories:

• Haven't submitted yet—students who haven't submitted the assignment. This category does not include students who have been manually awarded a grade, even if they did not submit the assignment. Once a grade has been awarded for an assignment (either automatically or manually), Canvas no longer verifies actual submissions.
• Haven't been graded—students whose assignments have not yet been graded (submitted or unsubmitted).
• Scored less than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment less than X number of points.
• Scored more than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment more than X number of points.  

Although one message most likely will be sent to multiple students at the same time, each student will receive an individual message.