Courses default to Term participation, meaning students can access the course as soon as it’s published and will have “read-only” access after the term ends as long as they maintain UWEC credentials. This guide explains how to adjust course availability dates in Canvas and clarifies how publish status affects student access. Note that publish status overrides any date settings—an unpublished course remains invisible to students regardless of the dates.
View/Adjust Dates
You can change the default dates to remove access completely after the semester ends.
- Go to the Settings tab of your course.
- Change the Participation drop-down from Term to Course.
- Enter a Start and End Date and select both checkboxes.
IMPORTANT: If you leave the end date blank, students will have access to the course as long as they maintain UWEC credentials. - Scroll to the bottom and select Update Course Details.