Public Course Index opt-in and access

[dm200400600]

Hello Community,

I have a few questions on Public access it isn't clear to me based on the existing guides, it would be good if someone has gone through this process and can offer some advice.

• In this guide it states "Public Course Index is currently an account opt-in feature and must be enabled by your institutional admin", does that mean we contact our Instructure account manager? https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-include-a-course-in-the-Public-Course-I... 
• I would like to test this in Beta, can this be done without it resetting every so often?
• Once the index is on, it is not clear to me if enabled courses (public visible and indexed) automatically are public and do not require authentication. This guides line indicates no login is needed if the course is published? "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 Unpublished courses will require users to log in to Canvas, after which they will be shown a message that the course is not available." https://s3.amazonaws.com/tr-learncanvas/docs/CanvasCourseVisibilityOptions.pdf 

I would like to test opening up a course publicly but avoid messing with the established authentication (MS Azure SSO) i.e. the Course truly being public. 

Reading the guides I take it even enabled this shouldn't impact existing course visibility as it can be controlled granularly, from individual courses. 

Be interested if anyone has tried this in Beta, and how it translated to Live. 

[nwilson7]

@dm200400600 If you are using an institution Canvas and not the Free for Teachers Canvas then there is someone at your institution that is your Canvas admin.  They are the ones that can turn on or off the ability to have public courses as well as who can make them public.  You do not need to involve your CSM.  

I do not believe you can test it in Beta without it resetting.  I really don't know anything you can test in Beta or Test without it resetting but maybe there is something.

Making the course public will not require a login.  Think of it like creating a website.  Anyone that has the URL can get to it.  They will not be users though unless you allow enrolling.  It pretty much will function just like a website.  We have a few courses that are used for storing resources that we make public so we can link to areas of the course and don't have to worry about the users (normally our faculty) all being enrolled in the course.

Yes, it gets enabled per course so it does not hurt anything.

Hope that helps with at least some of the questions!

-Nick

[dm200400600]

Great, thank you, this is super helpful. I'll follow up on all your points.

I did think that our institutional admin could do this but then I couldn't find anything on how it was actually done? There didn't seem to be an obvious switch or toggle in the Admin setting for it. Other than the in-course settings.

Thanks again

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @dm200400600 

Keep in mind that setting a course to be Public (where the instructor sets the visibility to "Public" in the course settings so that anyone with the URL can view the course) does not require the Public Course Index to be enabled.  See this page for more information about course visibility: https://s3.amazonaws.com/tr-learncanvas/docs/CanvasCourseVisibilityOptions.pdf 

The Public Course Index is a list of courses on the server that anyone can see.  It is a "public list"--the courses themselves may not be public.  For more about what the Public Course Index looks like, see  https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-view-my-institution-s-Public-Course-Index-as... 

Here is how the admin enables the Public Course Index on the server: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-set-details-for-an-account/ta-p/194 

And here is how the instructor chooses to allow the course to be shown in the list: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-include-a-course-in-the-Public-Course-I... 

[dm200400600]

Thank you for the clarification, these links are useful, especially that third one that I hadn't read up until now.