A Canvas course must be “published” by the instructor before students can access the course. If the course is published before the course start date, students can view published content, but cannot participate (i.e. submit an assignment, post a discussion, etc.).
For instructors, an unpublished course appears towards the bottom of your Dashboard. For students, an unpublished course only shows on their All Courses page. It moves to the student’s Dashboard after it is published.
Note: a course must be published for students to receive Announcements and Inbox notifications via email.
Publish a Course
To publish a course, click on the Publish button on the right side of the course homepage. Students do not receive a notification that the course was published.
- Be sure your check the published status of Modules, and other areas like Assignments and Pages. Students can only see published content.
- Once a course contains a graded submission, you can no longer unpublish the course (although you can change course Start and End Dates)
Course Start Date
By default, the course start date is the first day of your class, as listed in Patriot Web. You can view the course start date in your Canvas course by choosing Settings (the last item on the course navigation).
If the course is published before the course start date, students can view published content, but cannot participate (i.e. submit an assignment, post a discussion, etc.). If you wish students to interact with the course early, change or remove the course start date.
If you want to publish the course before the semester begins so that you can communicate with students, but don’t want them to view the course content, you have several options:
- On the course Settings page, under the Course Start and End Dates, check the box for “Restrict students from viewing course before course start date”
- Make sure the course content you don’t want them to see in not published
- Hide course navigation items from students by going to the course’s Settings page and choosing the Navigation tab at the top. Drag items (like Modules) to the bottom section
Course End Date
By default, the course start date is the last day of the course, as listed in Patriot Web. After the course End Date, students can view published content, but cannot participate (i.e. submit an assignment, post a discussion, etc.). If you wish students to interact with the course after the end date, change or remove the course end date.