The Assign Feature in Canvas: Availability and Exceptions

• Understand the Assign Feature in Canvas
• Grant Exceptions Using the Assign Feature

Understand the Assign Feature in Canvas

The Assign feature in Canvas manages access to assignments, discussions, and quizzes.

Instructors can manage access per the following parameters.

• Assign To – Indicates who needs to access the item (e.g., assignment, discussion, quiz).
• Dates and Times
  • Due Date – Indicates the date and time that the item must be submitted by. Items submitted after the indicated due date are marked as late in the Gradebook.
  • Available From – Indicates the earliest date and time that the item will be available for student submissions.
  • Until – Indicates the date and time that the item will stop being available for student submissions.

Assign To

By default, the Assign To field is set to “Everyone” when an item is created.

The Assign To field can be utilized to limit access to subsets of users, including:

• Sections
• Groups*
• Individual Student(s)

*Access to Discussions and Assignments can be limited to Groups when required settings are enabled. Access to Quizzes cannot be limited to Groups.

Additional information can be found in the following Canvas Support articles.

• Assignments
  • How do I assign an assignment to everyone in a course?
  • How do I assign an assignment to a course section?
  • How do I assign an assignment to a course group?
  • How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?
• Discussions
  • How do I assign a graded discussion to everyone in a course?
  • How do I assign a graded discussion to a course section?
  • How do I assign a graded discussion to a course group?
  • How do I assign a graded discussion to an individual student?
• Quizzes
  • How do I assign a quiz to a course section?
  • How do I assign a quiz to an individual student?

Dates and Times

Additional information can be found in the following Canvas Support article.

• What is the difference between assignment due dates and availability dates?

Grant Exceptions Using the Assign Feature

Instructors can utilize the Assign feature to grant availability and due date exceptions for individual students.

Note: When granting exceptions for individual students, additional Assign To criteria must be added. The original Assign To parameters should not be adjusted or removed.

Quiz Exceptions

• If a student in your course has testing accommodations through the WSU Access Center, please review Extended Time Disability Accommodations.
• For individual student exceptions, including number of attempts and availability dates, please review How to Set Exceptions for Classic Quizzes in Canvas.