All courses are unpublished by default; instructors publish the course to make it visible to the students.
Important
- You must publish a course before students can access it and its contents. Students cannot see unpublished courses and content.
- If your course has been published and includes grades, you cannot modify the course’s published status. Otherwise, there is an option to unpublish.
- There may be guidelines in your program to determine when a course should be published prior to the start of the term.
How does Canvas differ from Blackboard?
- In Blackboard, courses defaulted to ‘unavailable’ and instructors had to make the course available to students. Similarly, Canvas courses are referred to as ‘unpublished’ and must be ‘published’ before students can view the material.
- In Canvas, there is one click to publish.
- You can ‘unpublish’ specific content from students. If you do not ‘unpublish’ content, all content will be visible when you publish the course. Learn more about publishing content in the Canvas guide.
How to use – Canvas instructions
Canvas offers an in-depth guide on Publishing a Course.
Best Practices and Accessibility
Students with accommodation may require additional time to prepare for your course.