Why can't I see my courses? (for instructors)
Answer
When you open Canvas, you'll see your Dashboard in "Card View," the automatic standard display when logging into Canvas.
Before the semester
Before the semester begins, you'll find your courses in the "Unpublished Courses" section of your Dashboard. You might need to scroll down to see this section, depending on the number of published courses you have. From here, you can access the Canvas shell and begin building your course. Only you (and anyone with Instructor access) can see the course when it is unpublished. The "People" tab will populate student rosters from PAWS, but they cannot access the course until you publish it at the start of the semester. Courses are not available until their start date, which by default is set at the beginning of the term, unless you choose to publish the course early, which instructors can always do.
After the semester
Once the semester concludes, your course will move from the Dashboard to Courses in the Global Navigation Menu. This typically happens on the course end date, though occasionally, courses will remain on the Dashboard past this date.* When you click on Courses, select "All courses" to see active, past, and future enrollments. *You can extend the course end date past the final day of classes if you use Canvas to continue collecting work, administering finals, etc.