Course of record shells are typically created six weeks before the start of the term, and can be found on your Canvas Dashboard, under “Unpublished Courses.”

In the screenshot example above, note the term designations. Use this to make sure you are working in the correct term’s course.

Choose one of the methods below for getting content into your Canvas course of record shell.

• Copy a Canvas course from a previous term, or a Canvas sandbox into your shell by following the steps here.
• Import a course template into your shell and begin building the course by following the steps here.
• Build your course without copied content or a template in the shell.
• If you would like to move content from Blackboard, we highly recommend meeting with a learning designer, who can guide you through the considerations and process.

Use the “Validate Links in Content” feature to check the links in your course. This is a helpful feature to make sure the links you use in your course are still active. If any links are flagged, check them out and update them if necessary.

Make sure your Gradebook settings are set, and the grade weights are set up if necessary.

Verify that the content you do not want students to see yet is  unpublished, and the content that you do want students to see is published.

• We recommend that instructors organize their course using Modules. If you are using Modules → See: Publishing your Canvas Module (Make Visible to Students)
• If you do not organize your course using Modules → visit the Assignments area of the course to ensure the correct course content is published.
• If you are participating in preview week → make sure any welcome/getting started information is published.

Use the “View as Student” feature to view your course as a test student. Revisit any content that should/should not be visible to students, and change the publish status if necessary.

When you’re ready to open the course for students, publish the course. See: How do I publish a course? Once you publish the course, it will move from “Unpublished Courses” to “Published Courses” on your Canvas Dashboard. This can be undone until students participate in the course (submit an assignment, take a quiz, post to a discussion board). Once students participate in the course, it cannot be unpublished.

Once the course has been published, send an announcement or use the Canvas Inbox to message your students that the course is open. Your course must be published (open) to communicate with students.

More information on customizing notification preferences can be found here.