Canvas Course Visibility Options

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This document explains the options that admins and instructors have to manage the privacy and visibility of their courses.

Admins and instructors have several options when customizing the privacy and visibility of their courses and content. In Course Navigation, click the Settings link to access Course Details and view course and course content visibility options.

Note: Visibility settings can only be managed by users that have the Courses - change visibility permission enabled.

Course Visibility

When visibility options are selected, users have varied views of course content. Not all features are enabled at the course level by instructors and may not be visible to users.

Course: Only users associated (enrolled) in the course can view the course.
Institution: Only users associated with your institution can view the course before they enroll; course content is the same as shown in publicly visible courses.
Public: Non-logged-in users can view the course. Unpublished courses will require users to log in to Canvas, after which they will be shown a message that the course is not available.

Advantages to Public Courses

Does not require enrollment to view course content.
Anyone can see and view information taught in the course.
Great way to administer orientation courses (if submitting assignments is not necessary).
Anyone can answer ungraded quizzes and surveys, which can be a good resource for administering anonymous assessments and receiving feedback.

Public Course Index: As part of visibility options, any course can be added to the Public Course Index. All courses can be accessed via a link to the URL, though most commonly, Institution and Public courses are generally added to the Public Course Index for easier access to all users at your institution. For more information about the Public Course Index, please refer to the Canvas Guides.

Content Visibility

In addition to customizing the course visibility, content can also be customized. Customization options are the same as course options mentioned above, except the options relate to content visibility:

Courses: Only users associated (enrolled) in the course can view the content.
Institution: Only users associated with your institution can view the content before they enroll; the content is the same as shown in public courses.
Public: Non-logged-in users can view the specified content. Unpublished courses will require users to log in to Canvas, after which they will be shown a message that the content is not available.

Currently, features that are available for content customization include:

Syllabus
Files

Content visibility options can only be customized at an equal or greater level than course visibility. For instance, if course visibility is set to Course, content customization options include Course, Institution, or Public.‬  But if course visibility is set to Public, the entire course is already public so the Syllabus and Files can only be set to Public.

Visibility Comparisons

The following table shows the functionality and limitations of each visibility option when set as course visibility.

Feature	Course Visibility	Institution Visibility	Public Visibility
Home	✔️ When selected as the front page, can view Assignments, Syllabus, Files, Modules, and Pages (when a front page is set). Can view Course Activity Stream.	✔️ When selected as the front page, can view Assignments, Syllabus, Files, Modules, and Pages (when a front page is set). Cannot view Course Activity Stream.	✔️ When selected as the front page, can view Assignments, Syllabus, Files, Modules*, and Pages (when a front page is set). Cannot view Course Activity Stream.
Announcements	✔️ Can view all announcements.	✖️ Cannot view or create announcements because of student privacy concerns. Possible workarounds: Use Pages or Modules for posting announcements.	✖️ Cannot view or create announcements because of student privacy concerns. Possible workarounds: Use Pages or Modules for posting announcements.
Assignments	✔️ Can view a list of assignments, as well as assignment details (instructions, due dates, point value). Can submit assignments.	✔️ Can view a list of assignments, as well as assignment details (instructions, due dates, point value). Cannot submit assignments.	✔️ Can view a list of assignments, as well as assignment details (instructions, due dates, point value). Cannot submit assignments.
Calendar	✔️ Can view Calendar assignments and events; can create personal events and group events, respectively. When available, can view Scheduler events.	✖️ Possible workaround: Use the Syllabus feature to post upcoming events and assignments.	✖️ Possible workaround: Use the Syllabus feature to post upcoming events and assignments.
Collaborations	✔️	✖️	✖️
Conferences	✔️ Can view and participate in Conferences.	✔️ Can see a concluded conference, but cannot join or listen.	✖️
Discussions	✔️ Can view graded discussion topic and comments from the Syllabus and Assignments. Can access graded discussions in Modules. Can access links added via the Rich Content Editor. Can access ungraded discussions.	✔️ Can view graded discussion topic (but not comments) from the Syllabus and Assignments. Cannot access graded discussions in Modules. Cannot access links added via the Rich Content Editor. Cannot access ungraded discussions.	✔️ Can view graded discussion topic (but not comments) from the Syllabus and Assignments. Cannot access graded discussions in Modules. Cannot access links added via the Rich Content Editor. Cannot access ungraded discussions.
Files	✔️ If File Access settings are set to “Course,” files uploaded to the course will only be viewable by users actively enrolled in the course	✔️ If file access settings are set to “Institution,” files uploaded to the course will only be viewable by users actively enrolled in the institution.	✔️ If file access settings are set to “public,” files uploaded to the course will be viewable by any user.
Grades	✔️	✖️	✖️
Modules	✔️	✔️	✔️ Modules with any completion requirements will not be accessible to unauthenticated users in public visibility courses.
Outcomes	✔️	✖️	✖️
Pages	✔️	✔️	✔️
People	✔️	✖️	✖️
Quizzes (These functionalities refer only to Classic Quizzes, not New Quizzes.)	✔️ Can view quiz instructions in graded, ungraded, and practice quizzes and surveys. Any quiz/survey (graded or ungraded) can be taken. Questions for a quiz/survey (graded or ungraded) are visible. Quizzes/surveys can be taken (graded or ungraded).	✔️ Can view quiz instructions in graded, ungraded, and practice quizzes and surveys. Any quiz/survey (graded or ungraded) cannot be taken. Questions for a quiz/survey (graded or ungraded) are not visible. Quizzes/surveys cannot be taken (graded or ungraded).	✔️ Can view quiz instructions in graded, ungraded, and practice quizzes and surveys. Any graded quiz/survey cannot be taken. Questions for a graded quiz/survey are not visible. Questions for practice/ungraded quizzes and surveys are visible. Practice/ungraded quizzes and surveys can be taken in public courses. Responses are anonymous to the instructor.
Syllabus	✔️ Can view Syllabus events (with date/time) and details.	✔️ Can view Syllabus events (with date/time) and details.	✔️ Can view events (with date/time). Cannot view event details, location, and address.

Last update: 2024-11-07

This resource can also be accessed from the following Canvas Guides:

Canvas Course Visibility Options