Canvas Data Retention Policy

Overview

Content created in the UW Canvas LMS is retained for five years after the end of the academic year (considered to be June) in which the course section was offered. Expiration dates for courses are viewable in the Canvas “all courses” page itself.  UW-IT recommends that instructors review expiring courses and archive any needed content. Expiring courses will be permanently deleted from the vendor’s servers within six months, and are not recoverable.

For example, a course offered in autumn quarter 2020 will expire in June of 2026, and be deleted by the end of 2026.

View course expiration dates:

1. Sign in to UW Canvas LMS by visiting http://canvas.uw.edu.
2. In the global navigation at left, click Courses.
3. In the Courses fly-out menu, scroll down to the very bottom.
4. Click All Courses. The column at the right displays the expiration date for courses in which you have a Teacher or Designer role.

The data retention policy is separate from the Canvas Access Policy, which specifies which accounts can sign in to Canvas and Panopto, and when separating individuals lose access.

In preparation for the initial implementation of the Canvas data retention policy, UW instructors whose courses are scheduled for deletion in December 2023 were informed in March 2023, with additional reminders sent in May, August, October and December. View a version of the announcement.

The data retention policy was created with guidance from the Office of the University Registrar, the Faculty Council on Teaching and Learning, Records Management, and in alignment with pre-existing retention policies for course materials and education records.

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