After the semester ends, your Canvas course typically transitions into a read-only state. Here’s what happens:
Course Access
As an instructor, you will still have access to your course materials, grades, and student submissions but can no longer make changes to the course (e.g., edit assignments, add new materials).
Student Access
Students will lose active access to the course such as the ability to submit assignments or participate in discussions. However, they may retain view-only access to the course content to review materials and feedback if the instructor approves.
Gradebook
As an instructor, you’ll still have access to the gradebook for reference or exporting grades if needed but please ensure grades are finalized before the course end date.
Archiving
The course will remain in your Canvas account as part of past enrollments and can be copied into a new course shell for future terms. The past courses can be found under Courses on the left-side menu of your Canvas dashboard.
Exporting Data
You may want to export grades, submissions, or course content for personal records before the course transitions to read-only.
Duration of Access
Instructors can find the course duration in Settings under the Course Details tab, where the Starts and Ends fields display the course's start and end dates.
