About Course Subsections

About Course Subsections#

What Is a Subsection?#

Sections are divided into subsections, which in turn contain one or more units. A subsection may represent a topic in a course, or another organizing principle. Subsections are sometimes called “lessons” or they might represent a week’s worth of material.

Viewing Subsections in the Outline #

For more information see About the Course Outline.

Subsections and Visibility to Learners #

Learners cannot see any content in a subsection until a release date is scheduled, and that release date has passed.

If a subsection’s release date has passed, learners can see content in the subsection if the following conditions are met.

The release date of the parent section has passed.
The units have been published.
The subsection or the units are not hidden from learners.

To control whether learners have access to the subsection and its units after a subsection’s release date, various visibility settings can be applied.

By default, the subsection and its units are available to learners, except for any units that have been explicitly hidden from learners.

A subsection can be entirely hidden so that the subsection and its units are not visible to learners at all in the course navigation. Additionally, the contents of a subsection can be hidden after the subsection due date has passed. For more information about subsection visibility settings, see Hide a Subsection from Learners.

Note

Release dates and times that you set are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You might want to verify that you have specified the time that you intend by using a time zone converter such as Time and Date Time Zone Converter.

Learners who have specified a time zone in their account settings see course dates and times converted to their specified time zone. Learners who have not specified a time zone in their account settings see course dates and times on their dashboards, in the body of the course, and on their Progress pages in the time zone that their browsers specify. Learners see other course dates and times in UTC.

Release Statuses of Subsections #

For the content of a subsection to be visible to learners, the subsection must be released. See the following topics for more information about the possible release statuses of subsections.

Scheduled with the Section #

When a subsection is created, it is set by default to release on the same date and time as the section it is in. Therefore, published content in the subsection is visible to learners at the date and time the section is released.

When a subsection is in the “Scheduled with Section” state, and the section is scheduled, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical green bar next to the subsection’s display name.

The release date for a subsection can be changed to be different from the section it is in. For more information, see Set a Subsection Release Date.

Unscheduled #

If the parent section is unscheduled, when a new subsection is created, it will also be unscheduled.

Regardless of the publishing status of units within the subsection, no content in an unscheduled subsection is visible to learners.

When a subsection is unscheduled, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical gray bar next to the subsection’s display name.

Content in the subsection is not visible to learners until a release date is set and the date passes.

Scheduled Later than the Section #

A subsection can be set to release on a date after the section releases.

Content in a subsection that is scheduled for release on a future date is not visible to learners, even if some or all of the units in the subsection are published.

When a subsection is scheduled, even if the subsection is scheduled to release later than the section, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical green bar next to the subsection’s display name.

The scheduled date must pass for the subsection to be visible to learners.

Scheduled with Unpublished Changes #

Changes to a published unit can be made before its parent subsection is released.

In this situation, when the release date for the subsection passes, the last published version of units within the subsection are made visible to learners. The changes in units are not visible to learners until they are published.

When a subsection is scheduled but has unpublished changes, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical yellow bar next to the subsection’s display name. When the subsection is expanded, the unit that has unpublished changes is visible.

Released with Unpublished Changes #

If a unit is modified within a released subsection, those modifications are not visible to students until they are published.

When a subsection is scheduled but has unpublished changes, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical yellow bar next to the subsection’s display name. When the the subsection is expanded, the unit that has unpublished changes is visible.

Released #

A subsection that is released is visible to learners; however, learners see only units within the subsection that are published.

When a subsection is released, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical blue bar next to the subsection’s display name.

Staff Only Content #

A subsection can contain a unit that is hidden from learners and available to members of the course team only. That unit is not visible to learners, even if the subsection has been released.

When a subsection contains a unit that has staff-only content, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical black bar next to the subsection’s display name.

See Setting Units to Staff Only for more detail on unit-level visibility.

Review Date	Working Group Reviewer	Release	Test situation
2025-11-16	sarina	Ulmo	Pass

About Course Subsections

Contents

About Course Subsections#