Archiving courses in ICON

The University of Iowa is working on a plan to archive ICON courses to stay in compliance with the Title II mandate that all active course materials must meet accessibility standards. Archived courses are an exception; if older courses are archived and kept solely for reference and not actively used, they do not need to be remediated. This is outlined in the Summary of Exceptions from the ADA resource guide.
Starting in mid-Spring 2026, instructors and admins may choose to opt-in to an archival process, immediately archiving past courses and marking them as exempt from the Title II mandate.
In Summer 2027, all courses will begin the content retention process described below unless a course has been flagged to remain active. All courses in the active and inactive state must contain accessible content to remain compliant with the Title II mandate.

Course Archiving Process

  • Course remains active

    Year 1

    Students ability to participate in the course and access it from the Dashboard ends with the end of the term. The course transitions to read-only view and access is only available through the Courses page access after that. 
    Complete student access can be removed when the instructor or course administrator goes into Course Settings and checks the box to restrict students from viewing the course. (This step is optional.)

    Teachers, TAs, Designers maintain full access to the course until the end of the next year's equivalent term.

  • Course is inactive

    Year 2-3

    Students maintain read-only view by accessing courses through the Courses page until an instructor or admin goes to Course Settings and checks the box to restrict students from viewing the course. 

    Teachers, TAs, and Designers can view the course in read-only mode, and it is accessible through the Courses page. The course is removed from the Dashboard. 

    Instructors will have access to a self-service dashboard to restore access to the course.

  • Course is archived

    Year 4-5

    All course enrollments removed (students, teachers, etc.)

    Instructors are removed from the self-service dashboard.

    Instructors can submit a ticket to Help Desk staff to request access.

  • Course is deleted

    Year 6

    Canvas performs a hard delete, irrevocably removing content.

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