Understanding Timer, Availability, and Accommodation Settings for Canvas Classic Quizzes

Setting up Classic Quizzes in Canvas involves some important settings to highlight and understand. This post aims to clarify these settings to allow for the smoothest experience for you and your students. Note: if you’re using Canvas New Quizzes, please go here instead: Canvas – Add accommodations to a New Quiz.

Time Limit

• The time limit is the amount of time students have to complete the quiz from when they first open it. If they navigate away from the page, restart their computer, etc. the timer continues to run. Once the timer runs out, the quiz auto-submits unless the Available Until time occurs first

Available Until Time

• The Available Until time is when the quiz ends and is no longer available. The quiz auto-submits at this time even if there is time left on the student’s timer
  • For example, if a quiz is available until 12:00 and has a time limit of 60 minutes, if a student were to begin the quiz 11:30, it will auto-submit at 12:00 even though the student still has 30 minutes left on the timer
  • It is imperative that you inform your students that the quiz will auto-submit at the Available Until time, no matter when they begin the quiz
    • Canvas will also warn the student if they begin the quiz with less time remaining until the Available Until time than the full allowed Time Limit

Available From Time

• The Available From time is when students can first open the quiz. If the quiz is Published, students will be able to see that the quiz exists prior to this time, but it will be locked to them if they try to access it

Publishing the Quiz

• As mentioned above, if a quiz is Published, students will be able to see that the quiz exists prior to this time, but it will be locked to them if they try to access it
• Publishing is necessary in order to set up accommodations for students, such as time-and-a-half
• Published quizzes appear by default within the Quizzes and Assignments menu items. They also appear in Modules, if you have added it to a module

Providing Students with Extra Time or Attempts

• If you want or need to provide with students with quiz accommodations, such as time-and-a-half, you will first need to publish your quiz. Once published, you can access Moderate This Quiz
  • Within Moderate This Quiz, you can click on the edit pencil next to each student’s name to provide extra time or extra attempts
    • Note that this entry is for extra time and not the total time. For example, if you quiz is 60 minutes and you want the student to get 90 minutes, you enter 30 minutes
  • VERY IMPORTANT: The Available Until time will override this added extra time. If you are only providing students with an exam writing window that matches the Time Limit, you will need to change the Available Until for the accommodated students. This is done by adding exceptions to the Assign field on the Edit page for the quiz
  • The Moderate This Quiz settings only apply for this specific quiz. They need to be set up each student each time you offer a quiz

For help with these options and settings access Canvas Help within the global menu on the left-hand side of Canvas. To discuss the best approach to using these settings in your course, email gmctl@usask.ca.