Understanding Canvas Term Dates
Beginning in Fall 2025, we're implementing changes to the Canvas term dates to improve your Canvas experience and align with educational best practices. These updates will provide more control over your course content and a better structure for course creation.
Common Terminology
Because the Canvas and academic terminology can differ and cause confusion, we’ve put together a list of common terminology used throughout these Canvas support guides. If you have any questions or need further clarification, please contact the Thorpe Center.
Academic Term Start: the beginning of the IWU term based on the academic calendar.
Academic Term End: the end of the IWU term based on the academic calendar.
Canvas Course Dates: separate course dates that can be set within Canvas and will override the Canvas term dates. These are primarily used to further restrict student access at the beginning of a term or extend the course at the end of a term to account for incompletes.
Canvas Section Dates: separate section dates that can be set within Canvas allowing instructors to set different start and end dates for different sections while maintaining a common set of content and assignments. These dates override Canvas course and term dates and should only be used after consulting with the Instructional Design Team.
Canvas Term Start: the date in Canvas when courses are available for students to participate in the course content.
Canvas Term End: the date in Canvas when courses become read-only for instructors and students.
Frequently Asked Questions
Term dates in Canvas will roughly follow the academic calendar, with a grace period at the start and end of the term. In general:
- Canvas Start of Term: The Friday prior to the official term start date per the IWU Academic Calendar.
- Canvas End of Term: One day after the end of the grading period for that term, rounded to the nearest business day.
Term dates as applied to upcoming terms are as follows:
| Term | Semester Start | Canvas Start | Semester End | Canvas End |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2025 | Aug. 25 | Aug. 22 | Dec. 18 | Dec. 19 |
| Spring 2026 | Jan. 7 | Jan. 2 | May 5 | May 6 |
| Summer 2026 | May 4 | May 1 | Aug. 28 | Aug. 29 |
| Fall 2026 | Aug. 24 | Aug. 21 | Dec. 17 | Dec. 17 |
| Spring 2027 | Jan. 6 | Jan. 1 | May 4 | May 5 |
Best practice is to use term dates to control course access. In addition, there are several benefits to having scheduled Canvas term start and end dates, including:
- Greater control over when students access course materials
- Protection of faculty work through Sandbox Course development
- Consistent, predictable timeline for course creation
- Easier access to current courses by streamlining the Canvas Dashboard
Upon course completion, you can then export your materials into a Sandbox course so that you have the most up to date content for your course the next time it is offered.
Note: Courses cannot be saved indefinitely in Canvas, and faculty are responsible for backing up their course content either by exporting their course or moving the materials into a Sandbox Course.
While all courses will initially be created with term dates as the default, course instructors may choose to use a different set of dates, or no dates at all. This is done by changing the course settings from term dates to course dates.
- Enter the course at any time prior to the set term date end.
- Go to the course’s settings page.
- Use the Participation drop-down list and select “Course” next to Participant options.
- Use the Start and End calendar fields to select an alternative set of dates. You may also leave any of the calendar fields blank to have a course with no dates at all, no start date, or no end date.
- You may optionally use the “Restrict students from viewing” check boxes to control whether or not students can see your course content either before or after your new set of course dates.
- Click the “Update Course Details” button at the bottom of the page.
In general, courses will be concluded automatically when grades are due for the term. Concluding a course does the following:
- Prevents students from accessing quizzes and submitting course activities after the course ends.
- Improves Dashboard management by removing completed courses to the Past Enrollments section.
- Allows Instructors and students to retain course materials.
Once a course has concluded, access for Instructors and Students is limited to “Read Only” status. This means a course is no longer available for submitting assignments, posting discussions, uploading files, grading, or any other action-based task within the course.
Note: Exceptions can be made to the Course end Date (i.e. a student is taking an incomplete). Please contact the Thorpe Center for further guidance if you need to extend your course beyond the grading period.
Courses in terms prior to the current semester will no longer appear on your Canvas Dashboard. Your Canvas Dashboard will now only display your current and future courses. Sandbox Courses and other courses not tied to the registrar or semester (e.g. organization, event, or a program courses designed without term dates) will remain on the Dashboard.
You can also “Favorite” courses so that they appear on your Dashboard.
- When you "star" or favorite a course, Canvas will display only your “favorited” courses on your Canvas Dashboard, regardless of the course's term dates.
- To remove a course from your Dashboard after the term ends, simply click the "star" icon in your "All Courses" list to unfavorite it.
- Concluded courses that are not “favorited” will be listed under "Past Enrollments" in "Courses > All Courses."
When past courses no longer appear on your Canvas Dashboard, you can continue to access them through the list of “All Courses” in your Canvas account.
- Scroll to the bottom of the “All Courses” page to find the section titled “Past Enrollments.”
- All the courses from past terms should be displayed here. Click the course name to access the course.
You may also consider bookmarking courses from past terms in your browser for easier access.