How To Prepare Your Canvas Course For a Student With An Incomplete

Before the end of the term, an instructor can configure their course to allow a student taking an incomplete continual access to the Canvas course. The steps include:

  1. Add a new section to the course
  2. Edit the section settings with start/end dates
  3. Add student to the section
  4. Add instructor to the section
  5. Edit assignment availability dates (if applicable)

Add a new section

  1. Click on 'Settings'
  2. Select the 'Sections' tab
  3. Enter the name of the section you wish to create
  4. Click 'Add Section
Add a new section

Edit the section to add start/end dates

  1. Click on the title of the section you just created.
Edit the section to add start/end dates

2. Click the 'Edit Section' button

Menu item "Edit Section" in Canvas highlighted with arrow pointing to it

3. Enter the start date. The start date is the first day the student will have be able to participate in the course.

4. Enter the end date. The end date is the last day the student will be able to participate in the course.

5. Click 'Update Section'

Start and End fields, Update Section items with corresponding step numbers

Add student and instructor to new section

  1. Click on 'People' in the course navigation
  2. Click the gear icon at the far right of the student/teacher you wish to add to the section
  3. Select 'Edit Sections' for the student/teacher

NOTE: If you forget to add yourself to the section, you will not be able to grade the student submissions.

Add student and instructor to new section

4. Start typing the name of the section and it will auto-populate below

5. OR click on the book icon and locate the section

6. Click on the correct section you wish to add the student/teacher to.

7. Click 'Update'

Steps 4 through 7 highlighted in Canvas

Confirm enrollment in new section

From the People page you should see the student and instructor added to the new section.

Confirm enrollment in new section

Accept invitation to new section

Both student and instructor will need to accept the invitation to the new section in order to participate

Accept invitation to new section

Edit assignment availability dates (if applicable)

If you have set availability dates for assignments and quizzes, you will need to edit/remove those dates so the student can participate in the activity.

  1. Click 'Edit'
  2. Add new dates or remove the dates completely.

NOTE: The course is already concluded for the rest of the class, so no one else will be able to access these assignments.

Edit assignment availability dates (if applicable)

Tags & Topics