Canvas: Managing Student Access to Your Course

Canvas includes several controls that affect when students are enrolled in your course, when they can see course content, and when they can participate. These controls serve different purposes, and changing one can sometimes have unintended effects elsewhere in the course.

For most courses, we recommend leaving the default course access settings in place unless you have a specific reason to change them. This guide explains how the settings work together and which options to consider when you need more control over student access.

Recommended Course Access Settings

For most courses, there is no need to change the default course access settings. The defaults are designed around ASU's standard academic calendar and should work well for most classes. We recommend:

• Leave the roster sync date unchanged. The student enrollment sync date is established when the course shell is requested through the Canvas Enrollment System (CES) and typically occurs about three days before classes begin. There is generally no reason to change it unless your course operates outside the standard semester schedule. For more information, see our guide on Requesting a Course Shell.
• Leave the overall course published. Once the roster sync occurs, students can access useful start-of-term information such as the syllabus, announcements, required materials, and getting-started information.
• Leave Participation set to Term. Canvas uses ASU's established start and end dates for the semester. When Term is selected, the custom Start and End fields are unavailable.
• Manage unfinished or future content at the module level. Leave individual modules unpublished until their content is ready for students, then publish them as appropriate.

Understanding Course Access Settings

Several separate controls work together to determine what students can see and do in your Canvas course:

Roster Sync → Course Publication → Participation → Viewing Restrictions

Understanding the difference between them can help you avoid changing a course-wide setting when a more targeted option would accomplish your goal.

Roster Sync: Who Is Enrolled?

The roster sync determines when officially enrolled students are added to your Canvas course. The sync date is set in the Canvas Enrollment System (CES) rather than in your Canvas course settings.

Once the roster sync occurs, students appear in the People tool and are associated with the Canvas shell. This connection also allows instructors to begin communicating with the enrolled roster through Canvas.

Roster sync and course visibility are separate. A student can be enrolled in an unpublished Canvas course without being able to enter it.

For most courses, we recommend leaving the default roster sync date in CES unchanged.

Course Publication: Is the Course Available?

Publication controls whether enrolled students can access the Canvas course.

ASU Canvas course shells are created in a published state. Once the official roster sync occurs, students can access the published course unless another setting restricts their access.

If you manually unpublish the course, enrolled students cannot access any course content until you manually republish it. This includes the syllabus, announcements, and other introductory materials.

Participation: Can Students Actively Participate?

The Participation setting establishes the broader period during which students can participate in course activities.

For most courses, Participation should remain set to Term. Canvas then uses ASU's established term dates rather than requiring you to enter custom start and end dates.

Participation dates can affect activities such as assignment submissions. Individual assignment dates operate within these broader course or section participation boundaries. A student may therefore be able to see an assignment but be unable to submit it if they are outside the applicable participation period.

Viewing Restrictions: Can Students See the Course Outside the Term?

Viewing and Participating Are Not the Same Thing.

Below the Participation settings, Canvas provides two additional options:

• Restrict students from viewing course before term start date
• Restrict students from viewing course after term end date

These settings control whether students can see the course outside the established term dates. This is separate from whether they can actively participate. For example, students may have read-only access to a published course before or after the participation period unless viewing is restricted. For example:

• If the course is published and both viewing restrictions are unchecked, students can enter and view course material before active participation begins.
• If the course is published and “Restrict students from viewing course before term start date” is checked, students cannot enter the course until the term begins.
• If the course is unpublished, students cannot access it at all, regardless of participation or viewing settings.

Note: In all cases, students cannot see the Canvas course before the roster sync.

Common Course Access Scenarios

I Want to Keep Unfinished or Future Content Hidden

You do not need to unpublish your entire Canvas course simply because some of the course is still under development or because you want students to encounter content in a particular sequence.

We recommend leaving the overall course published and managing content visibility at the module level.

As you prepare for the roster sync, prioritize the materials students will benefit from seeing at the beginning of the course, such as:

• Your syllabus
• Getting-started information
• Required course materials or technology
• “Welcome” or start-of-term announcements
• Introductory course content

Keep unfinished or future modules unpublished and publish them as they become ready or as students progress through the course.

This allows students to access useful information as soon as the official roster sync occurs without exposing unfinished or future course content.

You can manually unpublish the entire course, but this prevents students from accessing anything in it. Canvas will not re-publish your course automatically upon the start date. You must remember to manually publish it later.

For most courses, managing content at the module level provides greater flexibility. For more info, see the Instructure Community guide on How do I publish or unpublish a module as an instructor?.

I Want to Communicate with Students Before Class Begins

Within Canvas, faculty can communicate with students in two ways:

• Canvas Announcements for updates that also become part of the course.
• Canvas Inbox for messages sent directly to enrolled students.

The functionality of these communication tools depends on the status of the course and whether or not the student roster has been synced with the course.

• Before the course sync occurs, students have not yet been associated with the Canvas shell, so neither method will work.
• Once students have synced into a published course, both Announcements and Inbox messages will reach students.
• If students have synced into an unpublished course, Announcements will not be delivered. However, Inbox messages will reach students even though they cannot enter the unpublished course.

For more info, see the Instructure community guides:

• How do I add an announcement in a course?
• How do I use the Inbox?

I Want to Change When Students Can Access or Participate in the Course

Before changing course-level settings, first identify what you're actually trying to control:

• Who is enrolled? → Roster Sync through CES
• Can enrolled students enter the course? → Course Publication
• Can students actively participate? → Participation
• Can students view the course outside the established term dates? → Viewing Restrictions
• Can students see particular course content? → Module or item publication

For most courses, the default course-level settings are appropriate. Custom settings are most useful when your course has a specific scheduling or access requirement that cannot be handled through module, assignment, or other content-level settings.