[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!

[scottdennis]

Hey All, 

I don't remember now when publishing/unpublishing content was first added to the product.  I want say it was somewhere around 2013 but I'm not certain.  Prior to that there was no way to hide or limit access to module content.  When publishing/un-publishing first hit the feature idea discussions there was a lively and sometimes acrimonious discussion between people who were used to other systems where they could set up their course ahead of time and then unhide things as they went and on the other side people who disagreed philosophically with the whole concept of hiding content from students... at all...  

For what it is worth, when the feature first hit production publishing a module would not override the state of a module content item that had specifically been unpublished in the past.  If you created an item from the module and did not change the default un-published state before saving, then publishing the module would publish that content item.  Many people found this to be confusing and a feature idea to override quickly took off (this was in the old Zendesk community).

Ancient history at this point but it is a fact that publishing modules being the trigger for also publishing previously un-published materials is actually a community requested feature.

[hasti]

But why have it not ALSO work in reverse: UNpublishing a module makes everything UNpublished? I'd like to reuse my course from a previous semester (or at least use it as a starting point), but this "feature" requires me to either re-create the module structure with all the pages and links to files within them OR to play the "quick unpublish the stuff for later in the semester (or even later in the week)" every time I publish a module. What good is the "course copy" feature with this module "toggle" that only works in one direction (toggle on works, toggle off does not)?

[scottdennis]

That part of the history of how we got where we are today, Beck, isn't something I remember unfortunately.  My guess at this point is that at the time, copying courses from one term into the next was not as common of a use case as it has become with the addition of additional tools to facilitate that approach (blueprint courses, etc) but that is a guess.

[jeremy_stevens]

I think despite the requests from users years ago – the current system strikes me as slightly inflexible (and beyond that – not intuitive. I have met with instructors who published a Module of theirs, not realising it would publish everything within it). Something like this would satisfy all parties, right?

If there is an unpublished Module, and everything within it is already published, should the instructor publish the Module, it is published instantly with no changes made to items within the Module.

If there is an unpublished Module, which contains a mixture of published and unpublished items, should the instructor publish the Module, it prompts the user which a choice: 1) Publish the Module and all content within it, 2) Publish the Module only.

[mcna6887]

This sounds like a great feature! Like everyone else in this thread, I'm frustrated with the current behavior, and it requires a lot more work and remembering on my part than I think it should. Software should use the "principle of least surprise," and in this case it would be least surprising to have the published status of the individual items remain the same. Your idea of a prompt is even better, because it would make it clear what was going to happen!

[james_wallerste]

I just voted for this idea but also submitted a related FI (which probably won't be visible until-unless approved). It suggests removing the "Publish" button for Modules, instead having such buttons only for the items that can be grouped under Modules. However, for convenience, I also suggested that (via a "three vertical dots icon") creating a "Publish all items" which would imitate Module auto-publish behavior for those cases where the instructor wants that.

[slynch3]

I am glad this topic is gathering votes. I hope that if it reaches the requisite 99 votes, the good folks at Canvas will see that users in 2019 are not satisfied with the way the "Publish Module" command functions.

The argument that the "Publish Module" command works exactly as it is supposed to because "large numbers voted" for this feature idea a few years back flies in the face of what people today, in 2019, are expressing here: That the way the "Publish Module" command works today is very frustrating and misleading and should be changed.

Just because an idea was once ratified by "large numbers" of people, doesn't mean that idea should be imposed upon people at a later date if they disagree. After all, we repealed Prohibition, didn't we?

[plowrey]

So why not a toggle setting that would satisfy both groups of users?  Publish all module content or publish selected content?  Count me with the group that finds this feature extremely tedious and counter to what an LMS should do.

[slynch3]

Happy 2020 to everyone on this discussion and especially to the Canvas folks who now see that more than 99 people have voted in favor of this topic: "Stop Canvas Modules from Auto-Publishing All Content Inside a Module When a Module is Published."

Canvas, please do your thing and listen to your users. Please make the proper changes. Acting upon the proposal posted today by Paul Lowrey would do just that: "So why not a toggle setting that would satisfy both groups of users?  Publish all module content or publish selected content?"

Please help us out, Canvas!

Thank you,

Sheila Lynch

[slynch3]

Thanks, Paul—I just quoted today's recommendation from you in my most recent post to this forum. With 118 votes in favor of fixing this issue of Canvas publishing ALL content within a module whether or not the author has selected to "unpublish" certain content, I am hoping Canvas will take action on your recommendation. It's a new year, after all.