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Publish or Hide Course Lessons

Change lessons and videos from Draft to Published, hide lessons from learners, and check why a published course still has missing content.

Written by Artur Binzaru

Publish a lesson to let learners with course access see its saved content, including videos, PDFs, quizzes and forms. Keep unfinished lessons as Draft to hide them from learners.

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This guide is for System Admins and Course Owners working on on-demand or blended courses hosted in Cademy. A lesson holds learning material; a section groups lessons. Sections have no publication status of their own.

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Publish a Draft Lesson From Course Contents

  1. Go to admin.cademy.io, select Courses and open your course.

  2. Select Edit Course, then Contents.

  3. Find the lesson and select its amber Draft badge.

  4. Select Publish Lesson.

The change saves immediately. The message Lesson published appears and the Draft badge disappears. Repeat for each lesson you want to publish. Keep as Draft leaves the lesson hidden.

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Draft lesson menu showing Publish Lesson and Keep as Draft

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Publishing does not remove schedules or access restrictions. A learner must have access to the course, and any opening time or earlier-lesson requirement still applies. To add or change the learning material, see Build and Organise Lessons in an Online Course.

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Check Which Course Lessons Are Drafts

In Contents, Draft lessons have an amber Draft badge. Published lessons have no Draft badge. A section’s Draft count tells you how many lessons in that section are still hidden.

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Course Content list showing two sections, one Draft lesson and the section Draft count

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A timing label describes a lesson’s schedule, not whether it is published. A lesson with no timing label can still be a Draft. For release rules and due dates, see Release Lessons Over Time and Set Due Dates.

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Hide a Published Lesson by Moving It to Draft

  1. Open your course, select Edit Course, then Contents.

  2. Open the lesson’s three-dot actions menu.

  3. Select Move to Draft.

The change saves immediately. The message Lesson moved to Draft appears and the amber Draft badge returns. The lesson stays in your course, but learners can no longer see it.

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Published lesson’s three-dot menu showing Move to Draft

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Change Publication Status While Editing a Lesson

If you are already editing a lesson, use its status control above the lesson title. This route needs Save.

  1. Open the lesson from Edit Course > Contents.

  2. Select its Draft or Published control above the title.

  3. Choose Published - Visible to students to publish it, or Draft - Hidden from students to hide it.

  4. Select Save at the top of the editor.

The editor can show the changed status before you save. Save the lesson to apply both its status and content edits.

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Lesson editor showing the Published status, unsaved changes and the Save button

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Why a Published Course Still Has Missing Lessons

Publishing a course and publishing its lessons are separate actions. Making the course Public or Private through Share does not publish its Draft lessons. Check each lesson in Contents, then publish the ones learners need.

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If the lessons are already published, check the learner’s access and the lesson’s opening rules. Test a Course Before Launch explains how to test with a separate learner account. Preview as Student is an admin preview: it can show Draft lessons and does not prove what a learner can access.

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For the course’s listing and sharing settings, see Publish and Share a Course.

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