Issue:
An instructor has requested to edit a previously published course from an earlier semester.
Solution:
Canvas courses are set with end dates that correlate to the academic calendar. These dates allow for courses to be adjusted during the academic year (in addition to one week after the close of the course).
Because Canvas course spaces are considered academic record, they fall within the University's Student Record Retention Policy.
In order to follow these policies, instructor edit access to a course is removed at the close of the course to preserve the archival state of the course. It is important to note that if a course is closed, instructors and students will still be able to view all content they could previously access during the semester. Instructions for viewing a previously published course can be found in the Missing Courses on Canvas Dashboard knowledge base article.
If the instructor is looking to keep an up-to-date copy of the course, they are able to create a Canvas sandbox course space that may be updated at will.
In addition, instructors may copy information from a closed course to a new course by exporting the content then utilizing the "Import Course Content" tool within the new Canvas course space.