Students requesting access to closed courses

BryanBlount

Question for the community:

If a student requests access to a closed course to access materials for future reference and as supporting text in future courses, how does your institution handle these requests (if allowed at all)?

 

Bryan Blount

Director of Digital Solutions

Wake Forest University 

School of Professional Studies

Chris_Hofer

Hi @BryanBlount ...

As a former Canvas administrator, I don't recall that we got many requests like this (probably less that 5-10 at most???).  But, I do know that from time to time, we did have instructors come to my department asking for a student to get extended time beyond the published end date of the course because the student received an "incomplete" for the course.  In these cases, instead of opening up the course for the entire class by changing the end date in course "Settings", we were able to extend the course just for one student.  Here are the steps we took as administrators:

1. Go to course "Settings" >> "Sections" tab.
2. In the "Add a New Section" textbox, create a new section, and click on the "+ Sections" button.  For example, we just called it "Extension".  The new section you create will be displayed under "Course Sections".
3. Click on the name of the new section you created.
4. Click on the "Edit Section" button.
5. In the "Starts" and "Ends" boxes, enter in the dates that you want your student(s) to have extra time in the course.
6. Make sure to check the box for "Students can only participate in the course between these dates".
7. Click "Update Section".
8. Go to the "People" page of the course.
9. Click the three dot kebab icon to the right of the student name, and choose "Edit Sections".
10. Click on the browse link to add the new section that you created to the student.  Your student will now be enrolled in the original section as well as your "Extension" section (or whatever you named it).
11. IMPORTANT: For our case, since the instructor was also working with the student during this extended period of time, we also repeated steps 8-10 for the instructor of the course, too...so the instructor was also able to access the course.

I know our situation may not be exactly what you are asking about...but I think our process might be a good example for you to consider for how you do things at your school...for what it's worth.  Hopefully it will spark some ideas for you.  Good luck!