How to Publish / Unpublish Courses, Modules, Assignments, and Discussion Boards

Instructors can use the Publish and Unpublish controls while building a course to keep students from accessing content that is still being developed and to release course content strategically throughout the semester.

In Canvas, a green checkmark means an item is published and visible to students. A grey circle with a slashed line means it is unpublished and hidden to students.

Publish or Unpublish the Entire Course

Step 1: Go to your course Home page and locate the Course Status panel in the top-right sidebar.

Step 2: Click Publish to make the course accessible to enrolled students, or Unpublish to hide it.

After students submit a graded assignment, Canvas will no longer allow you to unpublish the course.

Publish or Unpublish Individual Items & Modules

Step 3: Open the area containing the content you want to update (e.g., Assignments, Pages, Discussions or Modules).

Step 4: Click the Publish status icon next to any item's title to toggle between published (green checkmark) and unpublished (grey circle).

Step 5: To publish or unpublish an entire module, open Modules from Course Navigation and click the status icon next to the Module header.

Unpublishing a module hides every item inside it, even if an individual item within that module is separately marked as published. If students report they can't find something you know is published, check whether its parent module is unpublished first.

Step 6: Return to the course Home page and click Student View (the eye icon in the top-right menu) to preview the course layout and verify exactly what students can access.

Success! Your course and content visibility settings are now configured. Students can now access any published content, while unpublished items will remain hidden until you choose to publish them.