Time zone setting is not working correctly.

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TaraLohman
Community Member

Has anyone had the experience of the time zone setting not working correctly?  I live in Knoxville TN and have set my time zone for Eastern time.  However, everything message I send or received shows a time 2 hours earlier than what was actually done.  Since there is a time limit on my quizzes and assignments, this is not going to work very well for my students.  

The Canvas "help" section states it can't give me any "free teacher" help and referred me to the Canvas community.  Anyone else had this issue 

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Chris_Hofer
Community Team
Community Team

Good afternoon, @TaraLohman ...

If Tennessee College of Applied Technology - Knoxville is using a paid Canvas environment (not the Free For Teachers version of Canvas), there are three main areas where time zones can be set:

  • At the Canvas account level.  This is usually set by your school's Canvas administrator (instructors wouldn't have access to this screen), and the time zone specified here usually correlates to the location of where your campus is located.  For example, since Knoxville is in the Eastern time zone, your Canvas admin would set the time zone appropriately.  More information at: How do I set details for an account?.
  • At the Canvas course level.  Instructors can set the time zone for each course they are teaching in a given semester.  For example, even though an instructor may work for Tennessee College of Applied Technology - Knoxville, the instructor may live in Minnesota (Central time zone).  So, the instructor may want to update that particular course for Central time zone settings.  More information at: How do I set a time zone for a course?.
  • At the Canvas user account level.  For example, I might be taking a course at your school as a student, but I live in Wisconsin (also Central time zone).  So, I would want to set my own time zone appropriately.

It would be the responsibility of your students to make sure that their time zone setting (using the Guide linked in my third bullet point) is configured correctly ... so that any due dates or availability dates for assignments/quizzes in your course are adjusted automatically based on their own settings (even though you may be in a different time zone as your students).

Hope this helps!  Let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thank you!

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