All fall 2019 courses in Canvas will automatically be published on Monday, August 12. If you do not want students to access your course site, you must manually “unpublish” your course. Once students submit something to your course (e.g. a discussion post, quiz, assignment, etc.), your course cannot be unpublished.
You may use the steps outlined in our support article to unpublish your course. If you unpublish your course, you must remember to manually publish it after August 12 for students to see the course.