Archiving courses in ICON
This page was updated on Feb 12, 2026. We are currently gathering feedback and this information may change if we adjust the process.
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. Inactive and archived courses are an exception; if older courses are inactive or 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.
The Office of Teaching, Learning, and Technology is meeting with colleges to discuss access needs to better understand how a content retention policy may impact specific areas. If you have questions about archiving ICON courses, please contact your college's IT department.
Starting in mid-spring 2026, instructors and course administrators 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 state must contain accessible content to remain compliant with the Title II mandate.
Course Archiving Process
Course remains active
Year 1Students' 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 access removed only when the instructor or admin checks the box to restrict students from viewing within the course settings. (This step is optional.)
Teachers, TAs, and Designers maintain full access to the course until the end of the next year's equivalent term.
Course is inactive
Year 2-5Course names will be updated to indicate they are in the Inactive stage.
Students' participation and Dashboard access ends with the term, and it transitions to read-only view and Courses page access after that. Complete access is removed only when instructor/admin checks the box to restrict students from viewing within the course settings.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.
Courses do not need to be remediated for accessibility in this stage.Course is archived
Year 6Course names will be updated to indicate they are in the Archive stage.
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.
Courses do not need to be remediated for accessibility in this stage.
Course is deleted
Year 7Canvas performs a hard delete, irrevocably removing content.
Opt-In Archiving
Instructors and course administrators can opt-in to archive courses earlier.
Initial Spring 2026 Opt-In
If a course or set of courses opts in to have the course archived, an initial grace period of one year will be applied. This initial opt-in period will follow these stages:
One year of an “Inactive” period
One year of an “Archive” period
Deletion
Opt-in Summer 2026 and Beyond
If an instructor would like to opt-in to have the course archived starting in Summer 2026 when the process is rolled out, the course will be set to “Archive” for one year and then moved to the deletion phase. It will follow these stages:
One year of an "Archive" period
Deletion
This follows the Archive stage outlined in the Archive Process where a course is set to Archive for one year prior to deletion. This follows the standard workflow of the archive process rather than creating separate timelines to be managed on the backend.