Start and End dates for courses within Canvas are set by our University of Findlay's Registrar within the Workday database based upon the academic calendar your course resides. These dates are what allow students to access and submit assignments within a course. Any course may be published before the academic start date to allow students to access the course as long as you have not prevented your student from viewing the course before the start date. However, this alone will not allow those students to access and/or submit assignments as that is controlled by the start date.
Manually changing the start/end dates of a course in the settings of the course will have NO EFFECT on the runtime of the course.
Courses will automatically conclude at the end of their designated end date. This will move your course into an archived state where it can no longer be updated but can still be accessed. You may request to have a course extended by submitting an Extended Course Grade or Incomplete Grade in Workday. Please allow some time for this process to be completed as it is not automatic.