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.
Canvas Roles for Guests: When adding users to your past course, remember that your course contains FERPA protected student information. If you are adding a colleague with the purpose of sharing your Canvas site practices and content, consider adding them as a
Designer.
For more on roles in Canvas, refer to this guide from Instructure.
- Open the course Settings for the site in question.
- Under Participation change the dropdown from Term (default) to Course.
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=21aacbea-d471-4c76-84d1-c4ecd9abfe4c.png)
- Pick a date that's in the future and add that to the End field. In this case, I picked Jan 1.
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=869644bb-75d3-4e53-915e-124867f10777.png)
- Click Update Course Details on the bottom.
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=cac74abf-8d41-465a-92af-f84e714f1d79.png)
- Go to People and click + People. Enter the user's email (e.g. first.m.last@dartmouth.edu) and role and add them in.
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=dfdeb2a6-6e27-4dfd-ad5c-0650855e1137.png)
- Go back to the Course Settings and change the participation option back to Term for the option.
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=68c58324-ca70-4b89-a69e-4a1cb88383d9.png)
- Click Update Course Details on the bottom!
![](https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=dd25f84b-a918-4f41-b283-ade2db23191e.png)
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.