Dropped Students Appearing as Inactive

[DanielWeinberg]

Students who are dropped from a course in our SIS (PowerSchool) are still appearing in the course on Canvas as "Inactive."  I've tried removing them from the course directly in Canvas, but they reappear after the roster sync.  Is there a way to not have them appear in the course at all?

[chriscas]

Hi @DanielWeinberg,

I believe That would be a question you'd need to ask PowerSchool more than Canvas.  On the Canvas side of things, if you will ever need to see activity or submissions of dropped students for any reason, inactive would be the status to use.  It's what we use for students who drop after the term starts (but students who drop before the term starts are deleted).  Our SIS to Canvas sync process was custom built by our IT department years ago though, so we are able to customize to our needs and policies more than an out of the box integration may do.

Hope this info helps a bit.

-Chris

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

HI @DanielWeinberg,

I will echo what @chriscas said.

For my institution:

1. we do not allow faculty to manage their roster
2. if a student is dropped/withdraws from something in our SIS...
   1. if the drop/withdraw happens before the course/section starts, they are completely removed from the roster
   2. if the drop/withdraw happens after the course/section starts, they are left in the roster with an inactive status

If I, as an admin, use the Canvas user interface to remove a student that is "inactive", the next enrollment update from my SIS to Canvas will add that student back into the course with an "inactive". We do this so that records are retained and so that faculty are able to see data for them (even if they are "inactive").

With all of that said, if you are not a Canvas admin, you should have a conversation with your institution's Canvas admin.  If you are a Canvas admin, you would reach out to your CSM to have a conversation about enrollment options.

-Doug