Courses are automatically created in Canvas for each semester. As part of this process there are default setting applied to each course.
Term and Course Dates
Instructors can modify students’ access to a course in the following ways from the Settings page of a course. Early access is limited to when enrollments are added to Canvas from Peoplesoft. (For Spring 2024, this was January 16, 2024.)
- Students can be provided early “read-only” access by deselecting Restrict students from viewing this course before start date. (Early access is limited by enrollment syncing.)
- To provide students early access to participate in a course, change Participation from Term to Course and enter a new Starts date. (Early access is limited by enrollment syncing.)
- You can restrict student “read-only” access to a course after its completion by selecting Restrict students from viewing this course after end date.
Canvas term dates define the dates during which students will be able to access a course that runs during a specific term.
- The term start date is set to a date a few days before when instruction begins for a given term. Please see key academic dates for Cornell at: https://registrar.cornell.edu/Calendar/.
- For example, Spring 2024 instruction began on Monday, January 22, 2024. So, the Canvas term start date for all Spring 2023 courses was Friday, January 29, 2024.
- The term end date is set to four weeks after the last scheduled exam of the semester. Students can actively participate in a course (submit open assignments, post to open discussions, etc.) until this date.
- For example, Fall 2020 courses were available until Jan. 22, 2021.
- After the term end date, a course’s status changes to Complete and it will remain available to students in a “read-only” state.
Storage Limits
The following storage limits apply to all courses:
- File storage is limited to 3 GB. (Most users who reach this limit are trying to add videos directly to a Canvas course. To add videos without affecting course storage limits, see Getting Started with Panopto.)
- Personal file storage is limited to 100 MB. See How do I view my user files as a student? for information on viewing and managing your personal files.
Grade Visibility
By default, grades for assignments, quizzes, and discussions in Canvas are hidden. Submitting the grade to the Gradebook is not enough to make the grades or associated feedback available to students. This is because the Grade Posting Policy for each course is set to Manual. You can learn how to change the Grade Posting Policy for a single activity or the entire course, as well as how to post a submitted grade, at Getting Started in the Gradebook.
Default Assignment Due Time
The default due time for assignments utilizing the Due Date setting is 5:00pm. This can be changed from the Settings page of any course, but will not retroactively affect already created assignments.
