Understanding Assignment Dates in Canvas

Canvas provides three options for setting dates on assignments.

Due Date

The first date associated with assignments is the due date, which is the date and time when the assignment is due.

To see assignments that have not yet been assigned a due date, expand the Undated section on the right side of the Calendar. You can then drag and drop that item onto the Calendar to set the due date.

Adding a due date to an assignment automatically adds it to the Calendar. If you move the assignment around by dragging and dropping on the Calendar, the dates will automatically change in the modules and on the Assignments Index page. If you drag an undated assignment onto the Calendar, this assigns a due date to the assignment.

Technically, due dates are optional; students can access assignments in Canvas without a due date. However, we would expect most assignments to use due dates so they appear in the Calendar, the Syllabus, and on students’ to-do lists.

Regardless of the type of assignment, due dates do not limit the ability of students to submit assignments. Without availability dates applied to an assignment (see below), students could submit an assignment at any point while the course is open and published. For example, a student can submit a quiz after the due date. However, that quiz attempt will be marked as late in SpeedGrader and in the assignment.

We would expect every assignment to have at least a due date assigned to it.

Availability Dates

However, availability dates do limit students’ ability to submit assignments. These are optional.

Available From (start date)

This is the date and time when assignments become available to students.

Until Date

This is the date and time when students can no longer submit the assignment.

Notes About Dates

All dates associated with an assignment are visible from the Assignments Index page. Click here to view a Canvas Guide about the Assignments Index page along with examples of what information is visible there.
Availability dates do not display on the Calendar nor can they be edited on the Calendar. If you use until dates, you should also apply a due date to the assignment, so students see that on the Calendar.
Due dates and until dates do not need to match, but the until date shouldn’t be before the due date.
Due and availability dates use the time zone set in the course. If the course time zone is Central time and has an assignment due at 11:59 pm, the assignment will display as due at 10:59 pm to a student in Mountain time.
The Discussions tool allows for a discussion to have only one due date. If you would like to have a due date for an initial post and a separate due date for response posts, talk with your instructional designer to explore your options.

See the Canvas guide on dates for more information: What is the difference between assignment due dates and availability dates?

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Katie Venit

I received my B.A. in English with a minor in Journalism from Wake Forest University and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Indiana University Bloomington. I see the role of an instructional designer as one that removes barriers to learning online content. Those barriers might be ones of accessibility, clarity, motivation, or something else that we discover as the online education continues to be refined. My job is to collaborate with instructors to make their content shine.

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