Terms in Canvas
Terms determine the dates for when a course will start and end.
- PowerSchool courses: Terms are automatically assigned by PowerSchool and cannot be changed. Terms can be based on a quarter, semester, or year.
- Manual courses: All manual courses are assigned to a default term which has no start or end date.
Beginning of Term - PowerSchool Courses
- Teachers can access a course as soon as it is created in Canvas.
- Students cannot access a course until the term start date. The course must also be published by the teacher.
- Import content from a previous term course into the current term course. Directions for this process can be found at https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2685.
- Update the syllabus, course content, quizzes and due dates if needed.
End of Term - PowerSchool Courses (Concluded Courses)
- A course will be concluded at the end of a term. This will put the entire course in a read-only state for all user roles except teacher.
- The teacher role has an extra 7 days before the course will conclude for them. This allows teachers time to finish any necessary grading in Canvas.
- No grading will be allowed after the course is concluded.
- Teachers can download a .csv file of the gradebook for backup purposes.
- Concluded courses can be found by staff and students by clicking Courses > All Courses. The scroll down to Past Enrollments.
Missing Course Content
When a course term has ended, it can appear that content is missing. This can often happen by looking for content in a current term course when the content actually resides in a course where the term end date has already passed. To find missing content:
- Log into Canvas at http://wcpss.instructure.com.
- Click Courses > All Courses.
- Look under Past Enrollments at the bottom of the page for past term courses.
- Open the past term courses until the missing content is found. All content in the course will be in a read-only state.
- If the content is needed, the teacher can import content from a previous term course into the current term course. Directions for this process can be found at https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2685.
Teacher Leaving Before End of Term
When a teacher leaves before the end of a term, their active Canvas courses do not disappear but are simply left without a teacher. To continue instruction, one of the following should happen:
- Teacher leaving should manually enroll another teacher before leaving.
- Canvas School Admin should manually enroll another teacher.
- A teacher should be added as "lead-teacher" in PowerSchool. That teacher will have access to the Canvas course the next day.