How do I give specific students different time or date settings on a quiz or assignment?
You may use the Moderate Quiz and Assign to features in Canvas Quizzes and Assignments to override the time limits and availability dates on quizzes or assignments for specific students.
Accommodations are often required for students who need extra time on quizzes or assignments, those who are taking a quiz in a different time zone, and those who have scheduling conflicts with final exams in two courses.
IMPORTANT: Groups should not be created to support students needing accommodations. Groups in Canvas are for collaborative work, and all group members can see and interact with the other members of their group.
Add extra time on a test or quiz.
The Canvas Quizzes tool includes options to create quizzes as either Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes. With New Quizzes, you can create a time limit accommodation for a student using a multiplier (e.g., 1.5x the amount of time) for all quizzes throughout the course.
If your quizzes were created as Classic Quizzes, and you would like to use the accommodations feature in New Quizzes, migrate the quizzes by following the steps in How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes? (opens new window).
Tip: For links to documentation describing the differences between Classic and New Quizzes, see the New Quizzes Transition Toolkit (opens new window).
Note: You should use Classic Quizzes to include audio or video content in a test or quiz. New Quizzes is still under development and does not yet have media tools integrated into it.
Add extra time in Classic Quizzes.
If your test or quiz was created using Classic Quizzes, follow the steps in Once I publish a quiz, how do I use the Moderate Quiz page? (opens new window).
Check that the time limit for each student is not set to extend beyond the Until date setting in the Assign to card which applies to that student. A quiz will conclude and be automatically submitted at its Until date, regardless of the time limit specified for the student.
Don't forget to edit the availability date settings for the student or section as needed to ensure there will be enough time between the Available from and Until dates to allow for the designated time limit! Skip to the step for editing dates.
Tip: You can also add extra attempts for students through the Moderate Quiz page, and allow extra time on subsequent attempts. See Once I publish a quiz, how can I give my students extra attempts? (opens new window).
Add extra time in New Quizzes.
You can set up accommodations for a student that will apply automatically to all quizzes in the course which are created using New Quizzes. For steps, see How do I add accommodations for a student in New Quizzes? (opens new window).
Check that the time limit for each student is not set to extend beyond the Until date setting in the Assign to card which applies to that student. A quiz will conclude and be automatically submitted at its Until date, regardless of the time limit specified for the student.
Don't forget to edit the availability date settings for the student or section as needed to ensure there will be enough time between the Available from and Until dates to allow for each designated time limit!
Recommended: Set different availability dates for specific students.
You may modify the availability dates (Available from, Due, and Until dates) for a quiz or assignment on a per-student basis.
This method of modifying dates is strongly recommended because it avoids any potential issues that may be encountered with setting up sections for date accommodations.
See the articles below for steps.
Alternative: Use sections for date accommodations.
If you have a large class, and you would find it very difficult to set availability dates for assignments or assessments on a per-student basis, you could use sections for accommodations. However, there are potential issues with using sections for this purpose (see caveats below).
Caveats for using sections for accommodations:
- Unless you take care to hide both sections and the People tool from students, it is possible for students to inadvertently discover which of their classmates have accessibility accommodations.
- If you are doing group activities in your course where students need to assign themselves to groups via the People tool, the tool must be visible to students. In this case, you should not use sections for accommodations.
- If a student who has been added to a section created for accommodations drops the course, they will remain in the accommodations section. The dropped student will not be automatically removed from the course by the Student Information System (SIS). To remove them from the course, you will need to remove them from the section by following the steps in How do I remove an enrollment from a course? (opens new window).
Set up sections for accommodations.
If you need to give the same date accommodations to several students, you can create a section to assign the dates as needed to those students.
- Create a section: How do I add a section to a course as an instructor? (opens new window).
- Hide the names of the sections where each student is included: How do I hide sections from students on the People page? (opens new window).
- Add a student to a section: How do I edit sections for an enrollment in a course? (opens new window).
IMPORTANT: To protect student privacy, sections must be hidden from students on the People page before adding students to the sections intended for accommodations.
Make sure the People tool is hidden from students.
When using sections for accommodations, it is strongly recommended to keep the People tool hidden from students. When the tool is hidden, an eyeball with a slash icon will appear in the Course Navigation Menu to the right of the tool's name to indicate that it is Disabled. Not visible to students.
If the People tool is visible to students (no eyeball icon appears with its name), you can hide it by following the steps in How do I manage Course Navigation links? (opens new window) and disabling People.
Why is hiding People important?
Even with sections hidden from students in the People tool, it is possible for students to see when other students are in multiple sections. The Student role will be listed for each section in which a student is included (e.g., Student, Student, Student).
With the People tool visible, other students might inadvertently discover which of their classmates have accessibility accommodations.
Set different availability dates for specific sections.
See the articles below for steps to modify dates for a specific section.