Open edX® Tutorial: How to end a course.
In our previous tutorial about How to Edit the Course Schedule you learned how to set the start and end dates of a course in Open edX Studio. In fact, this is all you need to do in order for your course to end. Just set an end date and the course will automatically end on that date. However, there are things you need to be made aware of when a course ends and in this tutorial we will explain them to you.
What happens to a course when it ends?
From a learner’s perspective in the LMS:
When a course ends (i.e. when the course end date arrives) no more learners are able to enrol into the course. For all intensive purposes the course has ended. However, by default the existing learners can still access the course via their Dashboard in the LMS, and they can still see all the content and discussion forums, but they cannot improve their grades once the end date has arrived, the grades are fixed by that time.
From a Course Team perspective in the LMS and in Studio (CMS):
When a course ends, just like the existing learners the Course Team members can still access the course via their Dashboard in the LMS, and they can still see all the content and discussion forums as well the Instructor Dashboard.
Importantly, you need to know that in Studio when the course end date arrives, your course will be moved to the Archived Courses area which is just one tab over to the right of the normal Courses area as shown in the below image. Without this knowledge, many Course Team members might be confused because they suddenly can’t find their course in Studio, but actually they just need to look in the Archived Courses area in Studio Home to find their archived course. This feature is very helpful if you think about it because it helps Course Teams to easily differentiate between courses that are still open and courses that have already ended (when you have lots of courses to manage you will be grateful for the Archived Courses feature). We’ve provided an image below of the Studio home, showing the normal Courses tab and the Archived Courses tab side by side.
Image: A screenshot of the Open edX Studio Home page with the Archived Courses tab selected and showing a course that has already reached the End Date.
Note: If you want to extend the course end date after the course has ended and “bring it back to life” so to say, then you can just change the course End Date in Studio. This tutorial shows you how to use the course Schedule & Details page to do this: How to Edit the Course Schedule.
Now that you understand what happens in Studio when a course reaches the end date, your Course Teams should focus their attention to the Instructor Dashboard in the LMS because the Instructor Dashboard is where you manage your learners once a course has started and when a course ends. The following actions are suggested to be done when a course ends (we have provided links to tutorials about the Instructor Dashboard in order to teach you how to do it):
Note: There are many features in the Instructor Dashboard and the below are just a few main suggestions out of all the many features available.
1. Send a farewell email to learners
2. Moderate grades and download course data
3. Generate certificates
4. Make a backup of the course
5. Re-run the course (optional)