[Modules] Stop Canvas Modules from Auto-Publishing All Content Inside a Module When a Module is Published

[khearn1]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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My university is finding the fact that publishing a module auto-publishes all the content in it quite annoying.

I would like to be able to just publish a module and then choose what features of it that I wish to publish.

I know that I can set a limiter on when a student can actually see and interact with materials-but if a professor is uncertain about publishing certain content all at once, they have no options.

This has been asked about several times in the community-I snagged two of the best examples below.

Thank you all for your time and your vote!

[fidalgok]

This is also frustrating for our faculty. Publishing a module should respect whatever publishing status is set on the individual items within it. The current behavior of automatically publishing everything requires faculty to remember to go back through the entire module and unpublish items they wish to keep hidden again. 

[starkej]

I'm really frustrated with the auto-publish feature. Our school has purchased modules which can include up to 300 activities (powerpoints, quizzes, reading assignments) per module. When I publish the module ALL of those items are visible, including the instructor section.  When I go through and unpublish what I don't want the students to see, it will stay that way unless I unpublish the module again (when we're finished with it).  If a student wants to go back into that module to do late work (just had one who was quarantined and needed to do some late work), I publish the module again and all 300 items are published again.  I'd love to have the option of publishing everything or having everything unpublished so I can pick and choose. I spend at least 45 min/class each term unpublishing or deleting. 

[govreacladmin]

This publishing of unpublished content is frustrating for all faculty. Please fix this issue so that when a faculty member doesn't want something in a module published it stays unpublished.

[164415]

This is much needed for teachers!

[adamboyce]

@pxo4 the only vote option I'm seeing is clicking the stars on the top left of the original idea post. 

[jhough]

I'm not sure how to vote any more, lol. This is an issue I'm hearing more and more as we have moved online. Teachers love Modules, but for some of the beefier ones, having to unpublish everything is tedious. I will suggest the availability dates and dig in on some of the other ideas I see here, but I vote YES! Please give an option when publishing Modules to Publish all or not.

[JimFitch]

Please stop automatically publishing all of the modules inside! Please? What a simple concept.

[mplotkin]

The automatic publish all is exceptionally vexing. I vote that Canvas should allow the publish all option but publishing a module by default should retain the pattern of published/unpublished items already in the module.

I realize this quirk was implemented after a vote, but I wonder if those voting for the publish all option wanted it to be the only way or whether they thought it would be an option. Why can't we have a publish all/unpublish all button and otherwise let the publish module action change nothing about the contents of the module?

[DeborahBryant]

Could we please have the option to publish a module without EVERYTHING within publishing? Every time I publish, I have to spend time unpublishing the items that I don't want published yet! It is time-consuming and tedious.

[mprogers]

Isn't "time-consuming and tedious" Canvas' motto? It's certainly not "let's make our designers and programmers work harder so our customers don't have to".