The ability of a student to open a Canvas course, see content within that course, and interact with that course content, can be affected by several diferent course settings. The main things to consider are described here.
The green "Published" button should be plainly visible to the instructor near the upper right of the course home page.
If the Course Status is set to Unpublished, students will not be able to open the course, and so won't be able to see or interact with any of the course contents.
With the green check-mark next to the name of an entire module and each item within that module, studens will have access to everything in that module.
Without the green check-mark to the right of the name of the module, the module as a whole is unpublished. Students will not see the module at all, and will not see any of the items within the module, even if those individual items have a green check-mark.
With a green check mark to the right of the name of the module, the publication status of each individual item takes effect. Here, students cannot see the reading, which is missing the green check-mark, but can see the reaction paper assignment that goes with it, because the reaction paper has a green check-mark.
In your course, click on "Settings" at the bottom of the Course Menu, which appears in blue. | ![]() |
Then click on "Course Details" near the top of the page. | ![]() |
Scroll down the Course Details page until you see the start and end date and related settings:
Courses created through the interface from LORA/SIS are initially set up with a start date and end date, and are set to allow student participation only between those dates. By default, the boxes that restrict students from viewing the course outside the date range are left unchecked.
Instructors can change or remove the course start and end dates. | ![]() |
Instructors can check or uncheck the box that limits student participation to within the dates. | ![]() |
It is recommended that the "Restrict students from viewing" boxes be left unchecked at all time. | ![]() |
By default, new courses are created in Canvas with a status of published and are set to allow student participation only between the start and end date. Outside of those dates, students can open a Published coursed, read documents, and watch videos, but cannot participate by taking tests, submitting essays, or posting to discussion boards.
If the boxes are checked to restrict a student from viewing the course, the student will not even see the course on their list of courses on Canvas, outside of the date range.