Unlock or relock your Canvas course after the term ends

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Overview

After a Canvas course's term has ended, the course becomes read-only for enrolled students. Instructors can no longer add or remove members using the People tool, send messages to students in the course, or edit course content. As an instructor, to perform these functions after the term has ended, use the Unlock Course button to reopen the course. You can later relock the course using the Lock Course button.

Note:
The Unlock Course/Lock Course button only appears if the course is listed under "Past Enrollments" on your personal "All Courses" page. If the course appears in the list of active courses (above "Past Enrollments"), you can control access to the course by setting an override course start date and end date in Settings. For more, see How do I change the start and end dates for a course? in the Canvas Guides.

Unlock a course

To unlock a Canvas course after the term has ended:

  1. Navigate to the course you want to unlock, and from the course navigation menu, select Settings.
  2. In the sidebar of the "Settings" screen, click Unlock Course:
    Unlock Course button from course's Settings page in Canvas
  3. After the page automatically refreshes, your course will be unlocked, and the course end date will be set to one month from the current date. If you're satisfied with this end date, you don't need to take further action.
  4. If you want the course to remain open for a longer or shorter period of time, in the "Ends:" field, revise the course end date, and then click Update Course Details to save your changes.

You should now be able to make changes throughout your course. The course will now appear above the "Past Enrollments" heading on your personal "All Courses" page.

Relock a course

To relock a course you have previously unlocked:

  1. Navigate to the course you want to lock, and from the course navigation menu, select Settings.
  2. In the sidebar of the "Settings" screen, click Lock Course:
    Lock Course button from course's Settings page in Canvas
  3. After the page automatically refreshes, your course will be locked and the course end date will be blank.

The course will now appear under the "Past Enrollments" heading on your personal "All Courses" page.

This is document anzm in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2021-09-20 16:30:47.