If you would like to set a specific period of time that a student can register for and access a course, this can be done in the publishing settings of a course.
Once you have finished creating a course, select 'Publish Course' from the Manage Course dropdown on the Course Management page to go to the publishing settings page. Here you will see the Enrollment Settings section, which includes enrollment Start and End date inputs, along with additional options to specify an enrollment expiration date:
By default, if these settings are left blank students will have unlimited time to register for and access this course. You can modify this setup in a couple of ways:
• Restricting Registration Period - The Start and End Dates correspond to registration periods for students. Starting on the specified Start Date and going through the End Date, students will be able to register for a course.
For example, if the dates are January 1st, 2018 through May 15th, 2018 a student will be able to register for a course on January 1st, 2018 at 12:00AM to May 15th, 2018 11:59PM. Once a student has been registered, they can access the course whenever they like, even past the registration period, unless you would like to restrict the access period.
• Restricting Access Period - If you would like to define an access period for a course, check the 'Restrict course access' box. This will set the dates as the time period in which a student can register for AND view the course. Once the End Date passes, students will no longer be able to complete the course.
If you include a Start Date and leave the End Date blank, the course will be open for registration and/or access indefinitely beginning on the Start Date.
Setting the timezone will define the exact time for Start and End dates (occurring at 12:00AM for each)
• Setting up an Enrollment Expiration - If you would like to set a date for when a student's enrollment for the course expires (regardless of completion status), you'll set this option under the Enrollment Expiration field. Enrollment expirations can be set in terms of months or days.
For example, if students are required to complete a certification course every year, you'll want to set the Enrollment Expiration period to 12 months. This means that when a student completes the course, their completion data will reset 12 months later and they'll have to re-enroll to renew their certification status.
To learn more about course re-enrollment, take a look at Enabling Course Re-Enrollments.
Once the course has been published, these settings will be reflected on the Course Details page.