Course visibility options can be customized and allow access to different user roles. The visibility setting offers three choices for a course or course content:
- Course: The course or course content is available to all users associated (enrolled) in the course. This option is the default setting.
- Institution: The course or course content is available to users associated with this institution. This option allows users in your institution to view your course before they enroll in the course. For this option, users can only view the course if course self-enrollment is enabled or the course is included in the Public Course Index. The course content shown to authenticated users is the same content shown to the public for publicly visible courses.
- Public: The course or course content is available to anyone with the URL. If a public course is unaccessible to unauthenticated users, your institution may require a login and password to view all courses within their Canvas instance.
To learn more about visibility options, view the Canvas Course Visibility Options resource document.
Note: If the Visibility option cannot be changed, you do not have permission to manage visibility settings. Please contact your Canvas administrator or Canvas Support for assistance.
Open Settings
In Course Navigation, click the Settings link.
Open Course Details
Click the Course Details tab.
Set Visibility
In the Visibility options, the default is set to Course.
To change the visibility, click the Visibility menu and select the visibility option you prefer [1].
If the Visibility option cannot be changed, you do not have permission to manage visibility settings [2]. Please contact your Canvas administrator or Canvas Support for assistance.
Customize Content Visibility
If you also want to customize content visibility, such as the course syllabus, click the Customize checkbox.
Set Content Visibility
Currently the only content available for customization are the Syllabus and Files. The default is set to the same option shown for course visibility.
In the Syllabus [1] and Files [2] drop-down menu, select the visibility option you want to set:
- If course visibility is set to Course, content visibility can be set to Course, Institution, or Public.
- If course visibility is set to Institution, content visibility can be set to Institution or Public.
- If course visibility is set to Public, the entire course is already public so content visibility can only be set to Public.
Update Course Details
Click the Update Course Details button.
