Year: 2025

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

June 21, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Features

• Redesigned Files Page The Files page is redesigned. For a complete list of how the look and feel of the Files page has changed, please see the release notes.

Release of the redesigned Files tab in Canvas has been rescheduled to take place on July 19-20, rather than the weekend of June 21-22. 

Other Updates

• Accessibility Updates Over the coming months, a series of updates will be introduced to enhance Canvas’s accessibility and intuitiveness, with a focus on improving usability for assistive technology users. For details, please see the release notes.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes: June 21, 2025.

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

May 17, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Quizzes Updates

• New Quizzes Text Block In New Quizzes, instructors are able to provide students additional context with standalone text or prompts that are not tied to questions on a New Quiz. For more details, please see the release notes.

New Features

• Permalink for Discussion Entries In Discussions, each reply includes a copyable permalink allowing users to share a direct link to that specific reply. If the reply is part of a thread, the thread will expand to reveal it.

Other Updates

• Accessibility Updates Over the coming months, a series of updates will be introduced to enhance Canvas’s accessibility and intuitiveness, with a focus on improving usability for assistive technology users. For details, please see the release notes.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes: May 17, 2025.

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

April 19, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Features:

Please note: the new Canvas Media Player is delayed as of 2025-04-18 until 2025-04-24

• Media Player with Improved Accessibility and Usability The media player playback experience has been improved with enhanced accessibility, adaptive streaming, and privacy features. This feature will gradually become available worldwide between April 19 and April 30. For details, please see the release notes.
  
  Please note – these are changes to the built-in media player in Canvas and do not effect Panopto/Class Recordings.

Other Updates:

Accessibility Updates Over the coming months, a series of updates will be introduced to enhance Canvas’s accessibility and intuitiveness, with a focus on improving usability for assistive technology users. For details, please see the release notes.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes: April 19, 2025.

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

March 15, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Features:

• Discussions Default View Settings When creating or editing a discussion, instructors can configure the default view settings, including thread collapse/expansion and sorting options for students, with the ability to lock these preferences if needed.
• Import Content Page Enhancements The Import Content page is updated to the latest version of InstUI, Instructure’s internal design language. The import button text is updated to Add Import to Queue and when an instructor’s time zone differs from the course time zone, both the local and course time zones are displayed. For details, please see the release notes.

Other Updates:

Accessibility Updates Over the coming months, a series of updates will be introduced to enhance Canvas’s accessibility and intuitiveness, with a focus on improving usability for assistive technology users. For details, please see the release notes.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes: March 15, 2025.

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

February 15, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Quizzes Updates:

• Question Bank Migration on Course Copy Instructors can migrate Classic Quiz question banks to New Quiz item banks by using the Convert content to New Quizzes checkbox, previously labeled Import existing quizzes on the Course Copy and Import Course Content pages.

This is currently an opt-in feature. Contact canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you’re interested in using it.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes February 15, 2025.

Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to Canvas Info @ Penn a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

January 18, 2025 Production Release Highlights

Feature Options:

Multiple Due Dates for Discussions When the Discussion Checkpoints feature option is enabled, instructors can set multiple due dates or checkpoints for graded discussions to accommodate different stages of the discussion process, such as the initial post and follow-up replies. For more details, please see the release notes.

New Quizzes Updates:

Student Analysis Report Available In New Quizzes, a Student Analysis Report is available. Instructors can view this report by exporting the CSV file. For more details, please see the release notes.

These are currently opt-in features. Contact canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you’re interested in enabling them.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes January 18, 2025.