Tab visibility and order
Overview
Tab Visibility & Order lets you control which tabs appear in your course navigation and in what order. You can show or hide each tab separately for students and for the teaching team, and reorder tabs with the up/down controls.
Before you start
- You must be on the teaching team for the course.
- Hiding a tab from a role only affects navigation — it does not delete or lock the underlying content. Teaching team members can still reach hidden-from-student pages directly; students cannot navigate to a tab that is hidden from students.
Open tab settings
- Open your course.
- Go to Course Settings.
- Select Tab Visibility & Order in the sidebar.
Configure a tab
Each tab is listed as a row with two independent toggles and a set of order controls:
- Show to Students — when unchecked, students do not see this tab in course navigation.
- Show to Teaching Team — when unchecked, instructors and TAs do not see this tab in course navigation.
- Order — use the up and down arrows to move a tab earlier or later in the navigation menu. The same order applies to whichever roles can see that tab.
Because the two checkboxes are independent, you can hide a tab from students while keeping it visible to the teaching team (for example, Gradebook), or hide a tab from everyone if it isn't relevant this term.
Default visibility
New courses start with sensible defaults:
- Announcements is hidden from students automatically when the course has no announcements visible to students yet. As soon as a visible announcement is posted, the tab appears for students.
- Assignments always shows to students, even before any assignments are created, so students always know where to look.
- Gradebook and Settings are teaching-team only and are not shown to students.
- Other tabs (Syllabus, Calendar, Files, Roster, Grade Calculations) show to both students and the teaching team by default.
You can override any of these defaults from this page at any time.
Preview
The page includes a preview of the resulting navigation for Students and for the Teaching Team, so you can confirm the effect of your changes before saving.
Reset to defaults
Select Reset to Defaults to discard your customizations and return every tab to its default visibility and order.
Troubleshooting
| Situation | What to try |
|---|---|
| A tab I hid is still visible to me | Hiding a tab from the teaching team hides it from your own navigation too — check which checkbox you unchecked. |
| Announcements tab isn't showing for students | Confirm at least one announcement is visible to students (not a draft, not hidden); the tab appears automatically once one exists. |
| Order changes didn't stick | Confirm you selected Save Changes — the order in the settings table is not applied until saved. |