At Lasell, faculty can access their new course shells as soon as their program director contacts the registrar and tells them, "X faculty is teaching X course." Once the registrar adds that information to Lasell's Student Information System, it automatically goes in to Canvas. After the course ends, teachers will have two months to make any adjustments to their course. After that, the course will remain in their course list, but only as a read-only past enrollment that they can't put on their dashboard. Student access is a little different.

As long as a course is published, students can participate in it 4 weeks before and after the semester. This includes visiting the course, reading the syllabus, and reviewing the pages, modules, and files. They will also be able to participate in online discussions, complete Canvas quizzes/surveys, or submit assignments until a week before the semester begins. That said, students won't see anything at all until you publish the course, so you don't need to worry that they can access materials before you're ready. You can also manage access to individual assignments, module items, and files by unpublishing or publishing them. Finally, publishing a course lets you reach out to students using announcements and the Canvas inbox feature. This way, you can reach out in advance of the semester to check on internships, reach out to capstone students, or just to give your students important information as soon as possible.

You can't personally add users to your course at Lasell, but you can ask the Teaching and Learning center to invite users into your course or to combine course sections. To learn more, visit: