Concluding a course seems to publish it too

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

I tested, and manually concluding an unpublished course using the button on the Settings page, the course also gets published.  It also publishes while concluding using an SIS update.  Does anybody know if this is expected behavior? 

We'll report the issue to Canvas too.

[rmurchshafer]

I have no idea if it's expected or not, but I can't understand why you would ever need to conclude an unpublished course.  

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Thanks for your answer @rmurchshafer.  We use concluding to make cancelled courses unavailable to students.

[rmurchshafer]

Can't you just leave them unpublished as a means to keep them unavailable to students?

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Hi @rmurchshafer - you're right, that would do it, but we've had cases where teachers published cancelled classes, so we wanted to make sure students weren't being mislead into thinking the course was still being offered. 

[gnoack]

I think it is expected behavior. Concluding the course puts the course in Read-only status.  The course would have to be published in order for this to happen, students wouldn't be able to read-only if the course was unpublished.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-conclude-a-course-at-the-end-of-a-term-as-an...

If you are looking to restrict access, I believe you'll have to use the Term Dates. 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Terms-page-in-an-account/ta-p/159

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

We'd like to leave them unpublished, the issue is that concluding the course also publishes it.  I think this might be a bug, it doesn't make sense that concluding a course will publish it.  I can't think of a reason why you'd want that to happen.

[gnoack]

I thought more about this, and I think I understand now what you mean. Because the course was never published, it shouldn't be published when it is concluded.  That does seem like a bug. But still, I think that the concluded tool is meant to archive and the term limits are meant to restrict access. 

What's missing, is a way to unpublish courses using an SIS import. I don't think that is possible. 

[gnoack · Accepted solution]

Actually, I think it is expected behavior. You can't conclude something that never started.  Concluded is meant to archive courses that have been taught and are now finished, students can still go back and view the assignments and their grades, but cannot interact with the assignments or submit assignments anymore, and faculty cannot make any changes either.  It's like an archive. 

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Thanks for this rationale, @gnoack.  Sounds correct, that they never considered the use case of conclude to deal with unpublished cancelled classes.  That it assumes the class has actually finished in a normal fashion, and so publishes the course to start it before finishing.  Can't do the required actions on an unpublished course.  I appreciate your pursuing this!