How to Publish Your Course

Canvas Tutorials How to Publish Your Course

Instructor Getting Started Module

Publishing a Course vs Publishing Content

By default all Canvas courses will be in unpublished state. A Canvas course will not be available to students until the course start date passes (see Canvas Course Overview) and the course is published. If course start date passes and your course is still not published, students will not be able to access your course content. Please note the the default course home option is modules. If you leave the course home at the default, you must have published module with content before you can publish the course. You can change the home default to another option if desired.  It is important to publish your course before the semester begins. See the following guides. 

In a Canvas course, the following content items will have Publish options.  Students cannot see unpublished content in a published course (See Understanding Draft State). 

Steps to Publish Your Course

When you first view a Canvas course the course status will appear in upper right column. On the course home click the Publish button. 

 Course home of unpublished course

Once the course is published the publish button will turn green and word publish will change to published. 

how a published course appears

Canvas Guides

Note: These guides are maintained by the Canvas Documentation Team and are available on the Canvas Community site Links to an external site.. Some of the information in these guides may not apply to the Lake Land College instance of Canvas. If you have a question about a feature mentioned in these guides, please review Getting Help page for details on who to contact at Lake Land College.