Access to Material Post Graduation

Question

Will I still be able to access my course material, after I am no longer enrolled as an active student at the school I am currently attending?

SusanNiemeyer · Answer

At my community college, students automatically lose access to all of their Canvas courses one week after each semester ends.

When you are enrolling in a course, you are actually paying for a learning experience. If you take, for example, Math 101 in Fall 2022, you can't just keep showing up for Math 101 classes in Spring 2023. This is true whether you are taking Math 101 online or in-person. Therefore, I would advise you to save all of your own work before you lose access to it.

However, you should check with your professor about downloading the materials that he or she has created for the course. Some professors will specifically state that students are not allowed to do this in their syllabus. Even if there is no such statement in your syllabus, I would suggest that you make an inquiry.

D_Snow · Answer

I wish I could give you a definitive answer, but it depends on the policies at your institution. At my current school, there's a buffer of a few years before students lose all access to previous courses. However, instructors can also choose to revoke student access at the end of each semester, and some do.

To be safe, I would recommend downloading, saving, or otherwise backing up anything you don't want to lose, like your own work, interesting articles, useful resources, etc. (Edit to add: as @SusenNiemeyer stated below, please check with your instructor before downloading their materials.)