As an instructor, you may be able to change restrictions for student access in your course. These restrictions include student access to courses before or after the start and end date.

Please be aware that the settings for student access are already set by your institutional admin. If settings are available to you, you can modify them for your course. If settings are locked, you cannot change the settings for your course.

Restrict students from viewing course before start date: When a student enrolls in a future course, the course displays in the Future Enrollments section in the student Courses list. Once a course is published, the course displays an invitation to join the course, where the students can view course content at any time before the course begins. However, when the student restriction for the course start date is enabled, students cannot view a link to the course until the start date, even if the course is published.

Restrict students from viewing course after end date: Once a course has concluded, students can still view the course but all content is displayed in a read-only state. However, when the student restriction for the course end date is enabled, students can no longer view the course in the Courses list after the course has concluded. This setting can be used if your institution uses the course across multiple terms and want to restrict students from accessing prior content for future students, or if students have to re-enroll in the course.

These restriction settings also apply to the override start and end dates for the course. If no override dates are specified, the start and end dates apply to the term dates. Learn how to change course start and end dates.

Note: Restricting student access does not apply to users who do not have course enrollments and are accessing the course through Public or Institution visibility options.