Canvas Access Dates

Canvas access dates differ for instructors and students, and are based the dates that courses are created, as well as term start and end dates. Upcoming UBC term dates are provided at the bottom of this page for your reference.

Start of term course access dates

Instructors and TAs

Instructors and TAs can access their courses as soon as they are created in Canvas. Courses are created automatically approximately two weeks after the UBC course calendar has been published, which occurs several months before the start of term. Learn more about course creation in Canvas.

Please note that for courses to be accessible to instructors and TAs, their teaching appointments need to be recorded by the faculty or department in Scientia or the SISC.

Students

Students can access their Canvas courses on the first day of the term (assuming the course has been published).

End of term course archival dates

Once a course has been concluded in Canvas, it becomes read-only for instructors and can’t be accessed by students. You can view your concluded courses by navigating to your list of Past Enrollments on the All Courses page in Canvas (Courses -> All Courses -> Past Enrollments).

If you’ll be teaching the same course in a future semester, you can copy the concluded course into a new course shell by following these steps. If you need to make changes to an archived course (e.g., to edit a grade), please contact your Instructional Support Unit (UBC Vancouver), the Centre for Teaching and Learning (UBC Okanagan) or the Learning Technology Hub and they will be able to change the end-of-term date for your course.

Term Start and End Dates