What do they do?

The Settings for your Canvas course allow you to customize several details concerning the administration and behavior of your course. These actions include:

Setting the default start and end dates of your course
Controlling when students can view and interact with content in your course
Establishing a grading scheme for your course
Managing how certain objects will appear on the Home page, or in Grades

For example, many instructors are surprised to learn that students can view published content in a course BEFORE the "start date" for that course. To alter this behavior, one or more of the settings shown below will need to managed. These options are found in Settings.

The screenshot below shows that the instructor chose to "restrict students from viewing the course before the start date" (as indicated by the blue checkmark).

Highlighted in the red box is the option to restrict students from participating (i.e. posting to a discussion forum) between the start and end dates.

How Do I ...?

Refer to this Canvas guide, to learn how to access and manage your course settings.

Best Practices

The default "Start" and "End" dates for any course are set by the Registrar's Office.
Set a "Grading Scheme" as soon as is reasonable. This will serve as the scale that will show students what grade they are currently receiving in the course.
Don't overlook the "More options" hyperlink at the bottom of the Settings page.

Example Use Case

You need to set up a grading scheme for your course. This scheme will inform the students as to their current grade, and will be used at the end of the semester to generate a final grade for submission into Faculty Center.

Here's how to do it:

Go to your course and click on Settings.
About half way down the list of options, place a check mark in the checkbox titled "Enable course grading scheme".
Click on the blue hyperlink that just appeared, "set grading scheme".
Click on the blue hyperlink (at the bottom), "manage grading schemes".
Click on "+ Add grading scheme".
Give this grading scheme a name, and complete the points-and-grade scale as desired.
Click "Save".
Return to Settings.
Place a check mark in the checkbox titled "Enable course grading scheme" (again).
Click on "set grading scheme".
This time, click on "Select Another Scheme".
From the list of available grading schemes, shown on the left, select the one you just created.
Click "Use This Grading Standard".
Click "Done".

Further Reading/Information

Technical Support & Consultation Requests
DoIT Help Desk • helpdesk.wisc.edu • help@doit.wisc.edu • (608) 264-4357

Additional Resources Online
Learn@UW Website with Guides & More Information • at.doit.wisc.edu/learn-uw
Learn@UW KnowledgeBase • kb.wisc.edu/luwmad