How do I publish or unpublish a discussion as an instructor?
As an instructor, you can publish or unpublish a discussion in a course. Unpublished content is invisible to students, and graded discussions are excluded from grade calculations.
Note: If you use Modules in your course and add a discussion to a Module, please be aware that the state of the Module overrides the state of all module items. You may want to consider leaving discussions unpublished until you are ready to publish the entire Module. For more information, learn more about publishing modules.
Open Discussions

In Course Navigation, click the Discussions link.
View Status of All Discussions

In the Discussions Index Page, you can view the status of each discussion. The Unpublished icon [1] indicates that a discussion is unpublished, while the Published icon [2] shows that a discussion is published.
Publish Discussion

To publish a discussion, click the Unpublished icon.
Unpublish Discussion

To unpublish a discussion, click the Published icon.

Discussions with student submissions cannot be unpublished. The Published icon for these discussions is lighter in color to indicate discussions that cannot be unpublished.
View Status within an Individual Discussion

Within individual discussions, the published status displays.
Publish Discussion

To publish a discussion, click the Unpublished icon. The icon will change to display the Published icon.
Unpublish Discussion

To unpublish a discussion, click the Published icon. The icon will change to display the Unpublished icon.
Note: Content with student submissions cannot be unpublished.
Discussions Student View

When students view discussions, they cannot see any of the actions involved with publish status, such as published and unpublished icons and setting icons. Students see only published discussions.