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At MiraCosta College, every credit and non-credit class scheduled in SURF automatically results in a Canvas course shell being created and populated with the instructor and enrolled students. After the term concludes, the Canvas course does not disappear, but does change in how it may be accessed and used.

Canvas Course Lifecycle/Timeline

Canvas course shells created
- Usually around 2.5 months prior to the start of the academic term
Canvas course rosters begin populating with enrolled students
- Once registration begins
Canvas "start of term" means that you can publish courses and use Canvas to send notifications to students (though SURF is recommended to communicate with students before the semester)
- Usually about three weeks before the academic term begins
Start of semester: Make sure your courses are published!
Ongoing: as students add and drop in SURF, Canvas rosters are updated within 24 hours typically
Canvas "end of term" moves courses into "concluded" status
- Usually about 10-14 days after the last date of the academic term
- By default, concluded courses remain available in read-only mode to students and faculty
- See the Canvas End of Semester tutorial to learn more about this and how instructors can change this if they want to

Links to MiraCosta support tutorials to see more details about some of the above:

FAQs Regarding Canvas Course Creation and Roster Management

Click any question to view the answer.

What if I want to start building a future class prior to the creation of the Canvas course shell?

How do I use a previous Canvas course as the basis for a new one?

How do I manage the courses that are on my Canvas dashboard, and/or access courses that are not listed there?

What if I need to give access to a Canvas class to someone who is not on the SURF roster?

What if a class is taught by multiple faculty?

What if a class is reassigned to another faculty member?

What if a class section is cancelled (e.g. due to low enrollment)?

What if a class is cross-listed in SURF (i.e. the same class is listed under two different departments)?

What if a class has multiple (non cross-listed) sections that a faculty member is teaching, and the faculty member would like these to be combined into one Canvas course shell?

What if I, or a student, wants our name displayed in Canvas to be different from the name it's currently pulling from SURF?

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