Before we moved to Canvas, we would create numerous terms in our old system. During the summer, we would create up to 25 terms to accommodate all of the differences of the terms. When we moved to Canvas, we decided to drop down to just one term for each semester. We could use our SIS import to designate the face-to-face courses, online courses, and blended courses. We also could use the course start and end dates to accommodate for the block (partial term) courses. Fast forward almost four years, and we are finding different reasons we need to go back to multiple "terms" in our system. Having a semester broken out into multiple terms can cause some issues when it comes to searching and reporting in the system.

Example:

During the summer, we offer the following "terms" for the trimester:

   1. Block 1

   2. Block 2

   3. Block 3

   4. Block 1 & 2

   5. Block 2 & 3

   6. Block 1, 2, & 3

   7. 7-week block 1

   8. 7-week block 2

   9. Online professional block 1

   10. Online professional block 2

   11. Off-schedule

This is all for just one trimester. We have a similar setup during the fall and spring trimesters. This makes searching for courses, reporting, pulling grades, etc rather cumbersome. It also makes our list of terms extremely lengthy when filtering by terms, at any point.

Do any other institutions have a similar setup? Is anyone else doing something different to accommodate a similar situation? Are there other reasons an institution might need sub-terms? If there are other uses, and/or other institutions that would benefit from something like this, I will submit a feature request.