Publishing Courses in Canvas

It is critical that you publish your course(s) in Canvas so students can access them. Publishing your course(s) makes your course content available to students.

  1. Log in to Canvas, and select a course you wish to publish.
    • You can also click on Courses >> All Courses to see all of your courses on one screen and which of those are published or not.
  2. From the course Home page, under Course Status, click on Unpublished.
  3. Select Publish from the drop-down list.
    • If the course is already published but does not have any student submissions, the Course Status will show Published.
    • To unpublish a course, click on Published, and then select Unpublish from the drop-down list.
    • If the course is already published and has student submissions, the Course Status indicator will not be visible. Courses that have student submissions cannot be unpublished.
The course "Home" page displays an "Unpublish" drop-down list on the upper right corner of your screen. Select "Unpublish" and then choose the "Publish" option to publish your course.

Alternatively, from the Canvas Dashboard, you can publish courses that are displayed at the bottom of the screen under the Unpublished Courses heading. Click the Publish button to publish a course.

Instructors can publish Canvas courses from the Dashboard. Under the "Unpublished Courses" heading of the Dashboard, click the "Publish" button at the top of any course card that you want to publish.

Students will be able to see their courses on the Canvas Dashboard once you have published them.

Additional Resources