Adding People to Canvas Course After a Term Concludes (When +People is Greyed Out)

After a course term concludes, Canvas greys out the +People option in the People area of your site. This guide explains a workaround for adding individuals to Canvas outside of those previous term dates.

  1. Open the course Settings for the site in question.
  2. Under Participation change the dropdown from Term (default) to Course.
  3. Pick a date that's in the future and add that to the End field. In this case, I picked Jan 1.
  4. Click Update Course Details on the bottom.
  5. Go to People and click + People. Enter the user's email (e.g. first.m.last@dartmouth.edu) and role and add them in.
  6. Go back to the Course Settings and change the participation option back to Term for the option.
  7. Click Update Course Details on the bottom!

After adding the user, they will receive a message via email and a banner notification (next login to canvas.dartmouth.edu) with the invitation to join the course.