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.