"Publishing" in Canvas

The term "publish" is Canvas terminology for "make available to students." Canvas publishing works on two levels:

1. You need to publish the entire course,
2. You can manage the publication status of individual items in the course.

Publishing the Entire Course

To publish a course so students can access, look for the Course Status bar. If you're on a computer browser, it's generally in the upper right. However, it might be on the bottom if you have a small browser window. By default, all courses are in an Unpublished state.

To publish:

1. Click the Course Status Button
2. Choose the Publish State
3. Choose the Unpublish State to reverse publication*

*Note that once students start participating -- e.g., submitting assignments, taking quizzes, participating in discussions -- you won't be allowed to reverse publication.  For more details, visit How do I publish a course [in Canvas]? Links to an external site.

Publish items in a course

You can also manage the publication status of...

• assignments
• files
• modules
• module items

Watch the video below for an overview of publishing in Canvas. If you would like to see a demo of how you can publish individual modules, visit How do I publish or unpublish a module as an instructor? Links to an external site.

Useful Reminders

• Use Student View Links to an external site. to check that course content is accessible to students.
• You can't unpublish a course after students have started participating, e.g., assignments, discussions, etc..
• You can't unpublish an item after students have started submitting to it
• Remember to publish the entire module for students to be able to see items within it.

If the module is unpublished, all items within it will be unavailable to students, even if they are individually published: If you ever have a question about an item's availability, please contact the Teaching and Learning Center at TLC@lasell.edu, or give us a call at 617-243-2001.