This documentation is about student statuses instructors may see in the “People” tab in their course. Specifically, it elaborates on the meaning of “Inactive” and “Pending” users.
Pending Status
In Canvas, you may see a student in the people section with the “pending” status in a course:
This means a student has not “Accepted” the invitation to the course after it has been published. You should not typically see this for students (even if they have never logged into the course) as invitations are not sent when students are added to courses through regular means. The only time a student will receive the Pending status is when they have been manually enrolled into a course via the UI. This should never happen within a normal registrar course but could happen for organizations or training courses. If you see this status within a standard registrar course, please reach out to IT immediately.
Inactive Status
In Canvas, you may see a student with the “Inactive” status in a course:
This means the student no longer has access to a course even when the course is still published. This can occur for multiple genuine reasons, with the most common reason being the student has dropped the course after the initial enrollments. The reason students are kept in the course with this status is to signify that any relevant student data is still preserved. For example, if the student has submitted course work and then dropped and immediately re-added the course, that student’s coursework will be preserved rather than discarded. This is important to meet our data security requirements.
For More Information
For further information regarding users in the People section of a Canvas course, please reference this document: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-People-page-in-a-course-as-an-instructor/ta-p/667