eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Zoom Bug for Automatic Meeting Recording

When a series of Zoom meetings is created through the Canvas integration and set to auto-record to the cloud, that setting gets turned off if a user with a non-student role clicks the Zoom tab. This issue has been reported to the vendor and they are working to resolve it as soon as possible. We recommend that instructors verify that Zoom meetings are recording once they start.

If you have any questions, please email canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Features

New Quizzes Maintenance – 2/1

On Sunday, February 1,from 6:02am to 9:02am Eastern New Quizzes may be unavailable in Penn Canvas and Open Canvas due to scheduled maintenance by the vendor.

This maintenance will only impact assessments created in New Quizzes.

  • To avoid issues, instructors are encouraged to set due dates for New Quizzes outside of the scheduled maintenance window.
  • Students are encouraged to submit New Quizzes in advance of affected due dates.

Canvas and all other integrated tools (including Classic Quizzes) will be available and unaffected by this maintenance.

Please direct any questions or concerns to canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.

eleanortf Start/End of Term

Spring 2026 Virtual Course Shopping Period in Canvas

What is it?

Penn has developed a virtual shopping period in Canvas so that students can “visit” different courses as they finalize their course selections. In Spring 2026 Course Shopping will run from Wednesday, January 14 to Thursday January 29.

Students will be able to access the visible courses through Path@Penn via a link available on the course listing. When students are visiting a course’s Canvas site, it is not the same as being registered for the course. Students accessing a course through this process will not appear on the Canvas course roster and they will not be able to participate in the course discussions or submit assignments. Students who access a course’s Canvas site while not enrolled in the course will need to ask the instructor for permission to attend any class sessions.

The default visibility setting for Canvas course sites is “Course” so that only enrolled students have access. During the virtual shopping period, the visibility setting will be changed to “Institution”. After the virtual shopping period, visibility settings will be reverted back to “Course”.

Read more about which courses the shopping period applies to, how students can access them, and how instructors can opt out for their courses on the Course Shopping page.

Who should I contact with questions?

Please contact canvas@pobox.upenn.edu with any questions.

eleanortf Canvas Features, Canvas Updates, Start/End of Term

What’s New in Canvas Spring 2026?

Assignments & Grading

  • Scheduled Feedback In the Gradebook, instructors can manage the visibility of grades and feedback for individual assignments. For details, see the release notes.

Want to learn more about Assignments and Grading in Canvas? See our upcoming Canvas Workshops in January and February.

New Quizzes Updates

  • Survey Support New Quizzes supports Survey-type quizzes, allowing instructors to collect anonymous or non-anonymous feedback, with graded or ungraded options. Instructors can view survey data in the Reports tab. For details, please see the release notes.

    Please note – CSV export of results/reporting is not available for New Quizzes surveys yet. This feature is estimated to release in early 2026. If you will need a downloadable Excel file of student responses, we recommend creating a Classic Quizzes survey for now.

    New Quizzes is currently an opt-in feature. Contact canvas@pobox.upenn.eduif you’re interested in enabling it.

Other Canvas Changes

Third Party Tools

  • Panopto (Class Recordings) has a new and improved course copy process that makes it easier to transfer recordings between semesters. Recordings can still be copied using the old process if you prefer.
  • Perusall has gotten an upgrade. Instructors can find information about the new version of Perusall, and how to copy over previous semester Perusall content in the transition guide.
    • In addition to the new version of Perusall, this tool has a new look and improved features.
      • These include: clarity in multi-part assignments for students, new language options, more efficient scoring templates and rubric application, flexible grouping, and a new “gated assignments” feature. For details, please see the “What’s New in Perusall” blog post.

Questions?

For additional help and support, please email canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.