Understanding Draft State

Canvas Tutorials Understanding Draft State

Instructor Creating Content Module

What is Draft State?

Draft state is available when you create pages, assignments, discussions, and quizzes in a course and this allows instructors the option to create content without publishing. Unpublished content cannot be seen by students and unpublished assignments (including graded discussions and quizzes) will not be included in the gradebook total. Please note draft state is different than publishing your course Links to an external site.. Review the faq and guides below for more information about draft state.  

 Important Draft State Notes

It is important to remember the following: 

  • Unpublished content cannot be seen by students even if you link to the content. Students will see an error message when they try to view the unpublished content. Instructors can validate links Links to an external site. to check for links to unpublished content.
  • Graded assignments, discussions, and quizzes that have student submissions cannot be unpublished.
  • Unpublished graded assignments will display in the gradebook. Unpublished assignment columns will display the text "Unpublished" in the column header and grades cannot be entered in the column. To hide unpublished assignments in the gradebook click the View menu and select Unpublished Assignments. 
  • Students cannot view published content in an unpublished module. Be sure to publish modules. See Using Modules to Organize Content. 

Commons Issues with Publishing Content

If you are having issues with your content, review this frequently asked questions. Click an item to view or use the expand all option to see all items in the list.

How Do I Publish Content I'm Editing?

When you create new content there will be three options.  

Publish options when saving content

  1. Cancel - Click Cancel to not save any unsaved changes to the content.  
  2. Save & Publish - Click Save & Publish to save and publish the content for student view. 
  3. Save - Click Save to save an unpublished draft of the content. 

How Do I Publish Content After Saving It?

After you save content you can toggle between Unpublish and Publish by clicking the Publish button in the upper right. Please note with graded assignments including discussions and quizzes you will not be able to unpublish content after there are student submissions

publish option on page

How Do I Publish Content from Index Pages?

On the pages that lists all Pages, Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, and Files you can also toggle between the unpublished and published state for each item in the list. Click the publish icon next to the content item to toggle between the states. Please note with files there are additional options for restricting when students can see files. See the Files tutorial for further details. 

publish from assignment page

How Do I Publish Modules? 

When content is added to modules you can also click the cloud icon. It is important to click the publish icon for the module as well. Students will not be able to access published content in an unpublished module. See Using Modules to Organize Content. 

publish options from module page

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.