How to Extend a Canvas Course for Individual Student(s)

If you’d like to extend access to a Canvas course for just one or a few students rather than for all students in the course, please use the following steps.

Walk-through of how to extend a Canvas course (4 min. video)

Please note that students can only access Canvas during quarters they are actively taking classes. If you will be granting a student an incomplete, check with them that they will be taking classes next quarter. If they will not, contact IT or eLearning to have them set the student's account to stay active!

  1. Edit the Course Participation Dates
    1. Navigate to the Canvas course that you need to give the student(s) extended access to
    2. Go to Settings, located on the course’s left navigation menu
    3. In Settings, scroll down to Participation
    4. In Participation, select Course from the drop-down menu if it is not already selected
    5. In Participation, set the End date to the desired date for students with an incomplete to be able to access the course until
      1. If the course end date has already passed, you will need to contact eLearning to change the end date for you.
    6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Update Course Details
  2. Manually Create a New Section in the Canvas Course
    1. In the Settings, go to Sections, located at the top of the page
    2. Under Add a New Section, type in what you would like to name the new section then select the + Section button
      1. We recommend naming the section “Incomplete” or something similar
  3. Edit the End Dates for Pre-Existing Sections
    1. While still in the Sections, click on the name of one of the sections in your course. Select any section that is not the Incomplete section
    2. Once redirected to the page showing that section's enrollments, select Edit Section on the right side
    3. In the boxes that appear, select the box the says Ends and input the original course end date. Generally, this will be the last day of the quarter the course was originally offered; it is not the same date that you are providing the Incomplete access through
    4. Select Update Section
    5. Repeat this process for all sections of the course that have students in them, except for your new Incomplete section
  4. Add the Student(s) and Instructor to the New Section
    1. Go to People in the course and find the student(s) you need to provide extended access for
    2. Click on the three vertical dots on the right end of their row and select Edit Sections
    3. Type in or browse for the name of your new section
    4. Select Update
    5. Find yourself/other instructor in the people tab and complete steps the above steps to add them to the section
      1. You do not need to remove yourself or the student(s) from the original course section

Notes

  • If the course/quarter has already concluded, you will not be able to do this process. In that case, please contact the eLearning team and we will assist
  • If the student has assignments to complete that you set up to only be available until a certain date, you will need to edit the details for that assignment for the student(s) to access it
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For instructors to request a canvas shell to be reopened by eLearning.