Courses, by default, are not available to students until the faculty member decides to make them available or until the first day of the semester, if you selected Auto-Availability when requesting the course. After the scheduled section is created and materials added to the course, you can make the course available by accessing the Course Availability Settings in one of three locations:
- From the Tools tab on the base navigation, click Course Availability Settings
- In Original Course View, in the Control Panel, click Course Tools and then click Course Availability Settings
- In Ultra Course View, in the Details & Actions panel, click View Course & Institutional Tools and then click Course Availability Settings
Setting the availability is an immediate process (meaning the faculty member does not have to wait for the server to run in order for the command to be processed).
At the end of the semester, faculty do not need to reverse this process, as all NIU courses are automatically set to be "unavailable" 10 days before the beginning of the next semester. Once a course is made unavailable, students lose all access to the course and are unable to see the course in their list of courses.