Publish Content please!

One of the key reasons SWC students don't "see" content that instructors have posted on Canvas is because the content is not actually published.

There are three levels of publishing content in Canvas:

Publish the course
Publish Modules
Publish activities

Publish the course
Publish Modules
Publish activities

First tier: Publish the course

Make sure your course is published at the start of each term.

Simply click the "Publish" button on the top right corner of the Home Page in your Canvas course. It will turn from gray to green.

publish course button

You can confirm your course was successfully published by checking for the "Course is Published" confirmation message in the top right corner of Settings/Course Details.

course is published confirmation

Second Tier: Publish Modules

Content must be published at the Module level for students to be able to see the Module in Canvas.

If the Module is not published, students won't be able to see the Module listed in their course, nor will they be able to access any of the activities contained within the Module.

publish module - module

Third Tier: Publish activities

Lastly, make sure the activity itself is published in Canvas.

publish module - activity

Tip! It's a better practice to publish ALL activities in Canvas and activity availability release settings for the activity than to keep content unpublished. If the content is unpublished, it won't appear in Grades when students review course activities, and students won't receive notification reminders from Canvas about the activity. So publishing activities, but restricting access dates is a win win approach for both instructors and students.

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