Controlling student access to online courses

The ability for students to see and access an online course is controlled by the instructor. When course shells are generated in both Moodle and Canvas they are hidden from students by default. This gives the instructor time to work on the courses before students can access them. Once the course is ready to be viewed by students, it needs to be published or made visible. This visibility/accessibility can be toggled off and on by the instructor whenever necessary. 

In Canvas

In Canvas, the setting that controls access and visibility for your students is referred to as publishing. To find this setting, visit the Canvas course page and look in the upper right corner of the main course page under the the heading Course Status. 

If the course status is Unpublished as in the example above it is inaccessible by students and will not show up on their dashboard. 

If the course status is Published, it is accessible by students and will be visible on their dashboard.

To change the status of the course, click on either Publish or Unpublish under Course Status.