As well as publishing and unpublishing modules to determine what students have access to, another method for determining when and what students can access is by adding requirements and prerequisites. This basically means that certain content will only be released to students (automatically) once other content or activities in the course have been completed.

This can be useful for ensuring that students engage with content online - for example:

  • You can’t access week 2 files until you’ve looked at the files from week 1
  • You can’t access the notes for week 2 until after the end of this week

Requirements and prerequisites act on a unit level. This means that you can only make Units (as opposed to individual pages, files, etc.) automatically available or unavailable.


To use content control and release in Canvas, complete the following steps:

  1. From your module navigation in Canvas, click Units.
  2. Click the options icon (⋮) on the unit that you want use content control on. 
  3. Select Edit.

  4. Optional: To only make the unit available after a specific date, select the Lock Until checkbox and choose a date and a time.

    5. This means the unit will only be available after midnight Oct 25th.

  5. Optional: To only make a unit available after certain requirements have been met, click + Requirement. 
    • Click Complete all and select the requirements from the Content drop-down list. Add multiple requirements by clicking + Requirement. Select Students must move through requirements in sequential order if you have multiple requirements you want your students to complete in sequential order before making the unit available.
    Or

    • Click Complete one and select requirements from the drop-down list. Add multiple requirements by clicking + Requirement. Students will only need to complete one of the requirements before making the unit available.
    Note: You can require students to view the item, mark as done, or contribute to the page.

  6. Click Update unit.