eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Updates

Update on Canvas Disruption

The Courseware Team is resharing the message below from Russ Composto, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, Vice Provost for Graduate Education:

“As of this morning, access to Canvas was restored for the Penn community. We ask that all instructors consider the following:

  • For any courses with final exams or assignments due between Thursday, May 7 at 4:00pm through end of day Friday, May 8, we ask instructors to be flexible as needed. In addition to the flexibility that is always available to instructors, please consider these options due to the Canvas disruption:
    • Approving students to take make-up exams during the University’s postponed exam period
      • Postponed exam dates for graduating seniors only are Wednesday, May 13th through Thursday, May 14th, 2026
      • Postponed examinations for all other students will be Tuesday, August 25th, 2026 through Monday, August 31st, 2026
    • Extending deadlines for take-home exams and assignments
    • Offering alternate forms of assessment
  • If you use Canvas for grading, download a copy of the grades now so you have access to it in the event of any further disruptions. Grades should be stored in a secure location such as PennBox.
  • Have backup copies of any materials in Canvas so that they can be shared with students outside of Canvas if needed through a cloud sharing tool like PennBox.
  • The grading deadline currently remains 12pm EST on Friday, May 15, to ensure that grades are submitted in time for commencement.

Instructors are encouraged to be proactive in communicating with their students about any impacts of the Canvas disruption on their courses and contact their schools with any questions.”

Kate Rojas Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Updates

RESOLVED Outage – Canvas Down (5/7/26)

UPDATE: As of 8am Penn Canvas is accessible again. Please report any continuing issues to canvas@pobox.upenn.edu

UPDATE: As of 7:14 am Penn Canvas is still inaccessible this morning due to problems with authentication. We are working with ISC and Instructure to resolve this as soon as soon as possible. 

UPDATE – This issue is still ongoing as of 12am on Friday May 8. We will provide an update once service is restored.

Canvas is currently down across many institutions. This issue is not limited to Penn.

Our team has notified the Canvas vendor, Instructure, and they are working to restore functionality.

Please visit CETLI’s Resources for Teaching During a Canvas Disruption for solutions to continue teaching during this time.

We will let you know once service is restored, and we apologize for the inconvenience. To check for updates, visit https://status.instructure.com/.

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Features

RESOLVED -Turnitin Similarity Reports Not Generating (5/4/26)

UPDATE 5/4/26 at 7pm: This issue has been resolved. Please note that Canvas will resubmit the affected submissions; it is worth noting that this may take a while to complete. Please direct any continuing issues to canvas@pobox.upenn.edu

Users may encounter errors accessing or generating reports in Turnitin for newly submitted assignments

Reports for previously submitted assignments do not appear to be affected and are still accessible.

For updates please see the vendor’s status page.

Canvas and all other integrated tools are available and working normally.

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

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Features

RESOLVED – Speedgrader Bug – 4/22

UPDATE 4/23/26 – This bug has been fixed. Please contact canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you encounter any ongoing issues.

The Courseware Team has received multiple reports of a Speedgrader bug where a student’s submission only displays in a small strip at the top, making it difficult for instructors to grade and provide feedback.

We have put in a ticket with the vendor, and we will provide an update once the issue is solved.

As a workaround, drag the little grey triangle to the bottom of the page to resize the window. Arrow copy.png

All other Canvas tools are available and working normally. 

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

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Panopto Maintenance – 3/22

Panopto will be unavailable on Sunday, March 22 from 12:30am-3:30am Eastern due to scheduled maintenance by the vendor. During this downtime, media content in Panopto and the “Class Recordings” or “Panopto Recordings” area of Canvas sites will be unavailable. 

Canvas and all other integrated tools will be available and unaffected by this maintenance.

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

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Turnitin & Gradescope Maintenance – 3/7

On Saturday, March 7 from 11am-3pm Eastern:

  • Turnitin may be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance by the vendor.
    • Only assignments using the Turnitin originality checking settings (“Plagiarism Review”)  will be affected.
    • To avoid issues, instructors are encouraged to set due dates for Turnitin assignments outside of the scheduled maintenance window.
    • Students are encouraged to submit Turnitin assignments in advance of affected due dates.
  • Some Gradescope features (Exporting submissions & submitting files for Code Similarity Reports) will be unavailable. All other components of Gradescope will be operational.

Canvas and all other integrated tools will be available and unaffected by this maintenance.

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

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Features

New Course Request Form & Form Downtime – 2/25

We’re excited to announce that a new Course Request Form will launch on February 25!

As part of the launch, the Library Course Request Form will be unavailable on Wednesday, February 25 from 9am-9:30am Eastern while we make the transition. Once this downtime is complete, the current URL will direct users to the New Form, so any existing links or bookmarks will continue to work. Instructions on how to use the new Course Request Form will be published on Canvas Info@Penn after the transition is complete.

While we do have contingencies for any site requests made after business hours on February 24, we would advise users to place any site requests before 5pm on February 24 or to wait until after the New Course Form is live on February 25.

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

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Resolved – Zoom Bug for Automatic Meeting Recording

The issue with automatic Zoom meeting recording through the Canvas integration has been resolved by the vendor. Zoom meetings created through the Canvas integration and set to auto-record to the cloud should now automatically record as expected.

If you encounter any ongoing issues with automatic Zoom recording through the Canvas integration, please email canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.

eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Turnitin & Gradescope Maintenance – 2/7

On Saturday, February 7 from 11am-5pm Eastern:

  • Turnitin will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance by the vendor.
    • Only assignments using the Turnitin originality checking settings (“Plagiarism Review”)  will be affected.
    • To avoid issues, instructors are encouraged to set due dates for Turnitin assignments outside of the scheduled maintenance window.
    • Students are encouraged to submit Turnitin assignments in advance of affected due dates.
  • Some Gradescope features (Exporting Submissions & Code Similarity Reports) will be unavailable. All other components of Gradescope will be operational.

Canvas and all other integrated tools will be available and unaffected by this maintenance.

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