eleanortf Bugs & Maintenance, Canvas Updates, Third Party Tools (LTIs)

Outage – Canvas, Gradescope, Turnitin, PollEverywhere Down (10/20/25)

UPDATE 11:37 AM ET

Gradescope, iThenticate, Turnitin, and PollEverywhere are now working. Canvas is still experiencing an outage.

While Canvas is inaccessible, you can access these tools directly at Gradescope.com, iThenticate.com, Turnitin.com, and Polleverywhere.com.

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10:00 AM ET

Unfortunately, several of our tools (including Canvas) are currently impacted by an ongoing Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage this morning. 

You may be unable to login or encounter significant performance issues for Canvas, Gradescope, Poll Everywhere, and Turnitin until this is fixed by Amazon. You can follow the progress below for specific tools, and we will update you once we hear that service has been restored.

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

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

What’s New in Canvas? Fall 2025

The following information will introduce you to notable changes in Canvas for Fall 2025. If you haven’t used Canvas in the past year, we recommend reviewing What’s New in Canvas Spring 2025.

Assignments & Grading

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

New Canvas Features & Updates

New Features

  • Redesigned Files Page The Files page is redesigned. A temporary button allows users to switch between the new and original interface. For a complete list of how the look and feel of the Files page has changed, please see the release notes.
  • Dyslexia Friendly Font When the Use Dyslexia Friendly Font feature option is enabled in User Settings, the Canvas interface and the Rich Content Editor display text using the OpenDyslexic font by default. If the feature is disabled, both OpenDyslexic and OpenDyslexic Mono are available as font options within the Rich Content Editor. For details, see the release notes.
  • 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.

Feature Updates

  • Media Player with Improved Accessibility and Usability The media player playback experience has been improved with enhanced accessibility, adaptive streaming, and privacy features. 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.

New Quizzes Updates

  • 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.
  • 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.

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

Third Party Tools

Pilots

  • Wooclap A tool for student engagement through in-class polling and checks for understanding. Wooclap has similar functionality to Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere remains available for those not participating in the pilot.

    If you’re interested in joining the pilot, contact your LSP.

Updates

Questions?

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

eleanortf Canvas Updates

Canvas Production Release Notes: July 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.

July 19, 2025 Production Release Highlights

New Features

  • Manage Threaded Replies in Legacy Type Discussions In Discussions, a banner displays with a Manage Discussions button allowing instructors to enable or disable threaded replies in bulk. Individual discussion settings can be adjusted using a drop-down menu. This update replaces the previous temporary Make all Discussions Threaded button.
  • Redesigned Files Page The Files page is redesigned. A temporary button allows users to switch between the new and original interface. For a complete list of how the look and feel of the Files page has changed, please see the release notes.
  • Dyslexia Friendly Font When the Use Dyslexia Friendly Font feature option is enabled in User Settings, the Canvas interface and the Rich Content Editor display text using the OpenDyslexic font by default. If the feature is disabled, both OpenDyslexic and OpenDyslexic Mono are available as font options within the Rich Content Editor. For details, 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: July 19, 2025.

eleanortf Canvas Updates

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.

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.

eleanortf Canvas Updates

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.

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.

eleanortf Canvas Updates

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.

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.

eleanortf Canvas Updates

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.

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.

eleanortf Canvas Updates

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.

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.

eleanortf Canvas Features, Canvas Updates

Discussion Checkpoints Feature Disabled

We have disabled the recently released Discussion Checkpoints feature option in both Penn Canvas and Open Canvas. We made this choice after the vendor was alerted by by faculty and support staff to serious concerns regarding the new Discussions SpeedGrader experience and pulled the feature for institutions that had not already enabled it. Based on the data we were able to access through the Canvas API, we do not believe this feature was in active use by any Spring 2025 courses.

Issues with the new Discussions SpeedGrader experience that weren’t clear in testing before release include:

  • Accessibility of the tool for those with disabilities
  • Loss of discussion context
  • Slow loading time for large discussions

Because the new SpeedGrader experience affects all graded Discussions if Discussion Checkpoints is enabled, we had to disable the feature. We will re-evaluate in the future if improvements are made. In the meantime, the previous Discussions SpeedGrader experience is still available to faculty, along with the third-party tool Ed Discussion.

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

eleanortf Canvas Updates

Canvas Production Release Notes: January 18, 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.