Canvas - Known Issue - Course Pacing Unreliable In Some For-credit Courses [UW-Madison]

Course Pacing is a Canvas feature that allows instructors to quickly set due dates for several assignments based on course sections. Learn@UW has determined that this Course Pacing feature is unreliable in for-credit courses.

Course Pacing works in noncredit courses because instructors can create enrollment sections, add students to the appropriate section themselves, and set differing due dates for each section. 

However, Course Pacing does not work properly in for-credit courses where students are enrolled through SIS. For-credit courses often have individual students enrolled in multiple course sections:

• A lecture (LEC) section

• A lab or discussion (LAB/DIS) section. 

• Some courses also have custom-created course sections set up by departmental administrators.

Course Pacing is not designed to handle student enrollment in multiple course sections, and will not work properly in courses where students are enrolled this way.

Affects

Instructors/Staff using Canvas Course Pacing in a for-credit Canvas course (Any course where students will appear in more than one section.)

Status

This issue is present as of 6/16/2026. The vendor is aware of the issue, but has not announced plans to address it.

Workaround

At present, there is no known workaround for this issue. However, one solution is for assignments to be given custom due dates for each section using the “Assign to” options on each assignment. For instructions, see How do I assign an assignment to everyone, individual students, differentiated tags, or sections? - Instructure Community.