Catalog Listing: Self-Paced vs. Date vs. Limited Time

[sam_ma]

We are using Canvas Catalog to list all our training courses for registration. The actual in-person course with start and end date. However, when we post without "Days To Complete", it shows "Self-Paced" on the actual Catalog list and it confuses people to think it is an online training rather than a in-person training. We tried to put date into the section (even it is only one) as well, but it still shows "Self-Paced"

However, some of the classes do show the actual date even they have the same settings as the one say "Self-Paced".

[nwilson7]

Hello  @sam_ma ‌.  There is probably some custom JavaScript that can be used to remove that but I am not sure what it is.   I can tell you that "self-paced" ones get a date instead when you enroll in it.  It then shows the date that "started" it.  So, if they  still show self-paced it is because the user has not enrolled in them.  

We put in the short description details like Face-to-Face to avoid confusion.

Hope this helps!

Nick

[jsowalsk]

You need to use section dates and start and end dates to list listings correctly.

[c-mc]

Can someone share more about where the section dates and start and end dates need to be listed for Catalog to show the dates correctly? The Canvas courses settings are set to Participation = Course and have both a start date and an end date, but Catalog continues to show the course as "Self Paced." Is there another place this needs to be updated? 

[BarryBEATTIE]

is a solution still to be found?

[c-mc]

I haven't gotten a clear response on here or from my direct emails with the support team about this except "If a course does not contain any dates except for the term dates, Catalog sets the course to be permanently self-paced with no start or end dates." I assume that means that if you set the dates manually in Canvas, they port over to Catalog — but that has not always been the case for courses that I've listed.

I now see a "start" and "end" date and time option in the Catalog Listing backend. I though this might be to control what shows on the Catalog listing in addition to the settings in Canvas for the course start and end date, but I think it's to control when enrollment opens and closes. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Catalog-Releases/Catalog-Release-Notes-2022-12-13/ta-p/547...

This is a great new feature, but is not related to the start/end date of courses (my understanding), so could be confusing. My recommendation to the Catalog team would be to update the new feature to say "Enrollment Open Date" and "Enrollment Close Date" to avoid any confusion. 

[BarryBEATTIE]

What you're making very clear is that there are two levels of dealing with dates when setting up a Catalog listing.

1) course availability that also includes never-ending for self-enrol OR fixed delivery OR ... (start/end)

2) enrolment availability (open/close).

I haven't bothered to check, but I doubt there is any validation to ensure the two sets of dates are in alignment. ie:
- you can enrol into a course, but it's not running.
- you can't enrol into a course, even though it's current.

This matters for the sub-catalog admin who needs the ability to interrogate the course (as perhaps one of the account admins in the sub-account within Canvas), as well as the business unit/departments' directive to make these courses available.

(we're government level, these things never trivial, even when they are)

[hechla]

@c-mc If I'm understanding all this correctly, you need to create a section in the Canvas course associated with your Catalog listing and set the dates on the section.  This should get you there: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-change-the-start-and-end-dates-for-a-co...

[TinaBusch]

My organisation has also been grappling with this issue. If you put a section date on the canvas course, you are correct it removes "self-paced" from the Catalog listing but we have found it also locks access to the canvas course until that date. In my organisations case we want users to access the canvas course prior to their face-to-face training for workshop materials and pre-readings. Having "self-paced" hard coded into catalog is very confusing for our users who do both self-paced and face to face training and need to access the canvas course for the face to face training prior to the date. We have also found if you put a section date on one of your course listings and that course listing is part of a program of courses, even if all other courses in the program do not have a date associated with a section (ie they are self-paced) then the program picks up the date of the one course with the section date and says that is when the program starts even though all other courses in the program are self-paced and can be accessed any time. It is very misleading for users.

[hechla]

I've done a bunch of "access testing" with different settings and here's what I've discovered...

• set the section dates for the actual dates the course will be run... (ie. Sept 1 - Sept 30) AND
• not check the box in the section settings that "Students can only participate in the course between these dates" AND
• set the Participation to "Course" AND
• set the course dates for when we want students to actually be able to access the course material (ie. August 25 - October 7)
• enable "Restrict students from viewing course before course start date"
• enable "Restrict students from viewing course after course end date"

The result is that Catalog will display the sections dates, which is what we want. BUT, the students will be able to fully access the course material based on the course dates. 

There's also a combination of settings that will allow the students to only have read-only access to the material before and/or after the section dates but it also won't appear on the Dashboard (in Canvas). I'm not sure I've nailed them all down exactly as my focus during testing has been to allow students access after the end dates and not before. 

[BarryBEATTIE]

Just to support this discovery, I have found this visual representation* of the effects on dates to student access very useful

*mapping/flow chart/decision tree

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Resource-Documents/Student-Course-Visibility-and-Participa...