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Canvas - Assigning Alternate Assignment Due Dates to Specific Students

Course instructors can add individualized due dates to any Canvas assignment (including quizzes) to give specific students an extended deadline for submitting their work. These due dates are added by editing the assignment and adding an additional box of student-specific due dates and availability dates underneath the dates that are assigned to "Everyone".

This article is adapted from the following page of the Canvas Instructor Guide: How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?

To add student-specific due dates to an assignment in Canvas, perform the following steps:

  1. In your Canvas course, navigate to the assignment for which a student needs an extended due date. You can navigate to an assignment by clicking its title within the course Assignments page or within a module on your course Home page.
    screenshot of an assignment title in Canvas

  2. Click the Edit button at the top of the assignment page.
    screenshot of the Canvas edit button

  3. Scroll down to the Assign section at the bottom of the assignment's edit page and click the +Add button at the bottom of the box.
    screenshot of the assign box's add button in Canvas

    The +Add button creates a new assign box underneath the original box that can be used to assign different dates to specified students. In the following steps, make changes to the fields in the lower, newly-created assign box. To ensure that the original dates still apply to everyone else in the class, do NOT modify the "Assign to" field or date fields in the original assign box.

  4. In the "Assign to" field of the newly-created assign box, type the name of the student to which you'd like to give extended dates. As you type, search results will appear beneath this field. When the full name of the student appears, click the name to add that student to the box.
    screenshot of the student search box in the Canvas assignment assign to box

    If multiple students need the same extended date, you may add additional students to the "Assign to" field of the same box by repeating this step for each student.

  5. In the date fields of the new assign box, enter the extended due dates and availability dates that should apply to the student(s) that you added to this box in the previous step.
    screenshot of the Canvas assignment assign box with due and availability dates highlighted

    Tips for using assignment due dates and availability dates in Canvas:

    • Due Dates appear on student Calendars and To-do lists in Canvas. Any submissions made after the due date are marked as "LATE" in the grade book.
    • Availability Dates are the hard cut-off dates that determine when a student can submit an assignment (or attempt a quiz). A student cannot submit to an assignment before the "Available from" date or submit after the available "Until" date.
    • Leaving a date blank will set that date to be open-ended for the specified students.
    • Setting a due date helps students stay organized by creating calendar and to-do list reminders, so we recommend always setting a due date. If you want the due date to be a hard cut-off for submissions and do not want there to be a period of time when Canvas will mark student submissions as "LATE," enter the same date in the due date and available until date fields.

    Detailed information on using due dates and availability dates in combination can be found on this Canvas Instructor Guide page.

  6. Click the Save button to save your changes and apply the new individualized due dates.
    screenshot of the Canvas save button

  7. You can now view your date changes on the assignment.
    screenshot of due date and availability date changes reflected on a Canvas assignment page