Publishing

Publishing modules

Once you have built items and actitivies within the Modules tool, you need to click the Publish button to the right of each item. When an activity is published, the grey 'no-entry' icon to the right of it will become a green circle with a tick inside. Don't forget to also publish each module as a whole by clicking the icon to the right of the module title. 

Publishing files

You must publish all files in the Files area in order for students to be able to see them. For example, if you build a page that contains images, each image file stored in Files needs to have its usage rights set and be published – otherwise students won't be able to see it.

For more information about publishing files and the related topic of usage rights, please read our page about File usage rights. 

Publishing a course

To publish a course, click on the Home page and select the option to Publish under Course Status on the top right-hand side of the page.

• When a course is published, the Publish button will turn green:

Before                                                     After

The same feature is available via Settings on the course navigation menu, on the Course Details tab:

Course checklist

The Canvas team has created a course checklist which outlines the basic steps to take before you launch your Canvas course. This will help to improve the quality and functionality of your course, as well as consistency of the student experience.

You can download the checklist by clicking below. 

Canvas Course Launch Checklist.pdf Download Canvas Course Launch Checklist.pdf

Before you publish a course

Consider the following questions, and take a look at the checklist provided above.

1. Are all quoted materials or resources cited correctly?
2. Has permission been obtained to use copyrighted material such as articles, texts, images, illustrations, music and/or sound? (See section on Copyright below)
3. Has permission been obtained to link to videos and animations including those on YouTube?

Publishing and copyright

Before you publish a course you should consider whether the works of others have been included in your course, and whether you have obtained permission to use them. You should also consider whether the materials you have used have been displayed according to the specifications of the creator.

Read our page about copyright, or contact your subject librarian for further guidance.

Main principles of using copyrighted material

• Unless the material clearly has an open copyright license, educators should be careful about using the work of others.
• Even some open copyright licensed material may have restrictions that could require the user to provide attribution to the original creator, prevent the user from using the material in profit-generating situations or inhibit the modification of material or inhibit the re-mixing of material.