Course "auto" publishing

[wilkersond1]

After "unpublishing" courses in my dashboard, the courses show as "published" again the next time I log into Canvas. How is it that they publishing without my permission?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @wilkersond1,

There is nothing in Canvas itself that should auto-publish a course.

With that being said, there are many schools/institutions (mine is one of them) that have created auto-publishing scripts that run on a schedule and publish courses based on set policies and schedules.  For my institution, we auto-publish any course with enrollments on a daily basis stating on the first day of the term.  It may be worth reaching out to your school/institution Canvas team (usually in the eLearning / IT / Digital Education areas) to see if they have something like that in place.

The only other thing I could think of is that your unpublish action isn't being successfully done, but you should see a message at the top of the screen in Canvas when you hit unpublish if that was the case.

Hope this helps a bit!

-Chris

[wilkersond1]

Thank you!

[christiamme]

Admins can both set rules for publishing and publish courses directly. You may ask if that is what is happening.

For example, my admins set a date by which all courses will be published (one day before the administrative first day of class), and then it is not possible for me to unpublish it (so that students don't get confused and start contacting tech support).