Canvas CEO apologizes after outage, California professors demand accountability
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Canvas suffered an outage last week that left California students without access.
- Instructure's CEO apologized for the disruption and the company’s poor communication.
- California professors are demanding accountability from Canvas and their universities.
The California Community Colleges system began adopting Canvas as the common learning management platform for online courses across its 116 colleges in 2015.
In the years since, the California State University and University of California systems have also centralized their digital learning activities on the same system.
When Canvas suffered a nationwide outage last week as a result of a data breach, millions of students across the state were left without access to their assignments, grades and course materials. As college communities recover from the disruption in the last weeks before finals, the company has offered a public apology. Meanwhile, some California professors are demanding accountability, not just from the company, but also the institutions that contract with it.
Instructure took Canvas offline on Thursday after it identified “unauthorized activity” by a hacker who made changes to the pages that appeared when students and teachers logged in to the system. This activity, it said, was tied to a data breach that occurred April 29. A group called ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach and warned affected schools to “negotiate a settlement” by May 12 to prevent the release of their data.
Based on its investigation so far, the company said data including names, email addresses, student ID numbers and messages were taken in the April 29 incident. There was no evidence, it said, that passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information or other highly sensitive data had been compromised. The FBI, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and international law enforcement partners have been notified, per the company.
“Over the past few days, many of you dealt with real disruption,” Instructure CEO Steve Daly wrote in an update on the platform’s website. “Stress on your teams. Missed moments in the classroom. Questions you couldn’t get answered. You deserved more consistent communication from us, and we didn’t deliver it. I’m sorry for that.”
Through Thursday, campus communities were relying on their institutions for updates. Although Instructure has a status update page, the nationwide outage was not reported there until early Friday. That morning, the company said the platform was back online and safe for use. After conducting its own security assessments, the CSU and California Community Colleges systems restored access to Canvas Friday afternoon while the UC system confirmed access Monday morning.
“Last week, we made a call to get the facts right before speaking publicly,” Daly wrote. “That instinct isn’t wrong, but we got the balance wrong. We focused on fact-finding and went quiet when you needed consistent updates. You’ve been clear about that, and it’s fair feedback. We will change that moving forward.”
In addition to regularly updating its status page, the company promised to soon share a summary of the forensic analysis of the incident and inform customers of the specific data involved after the completion of a comprehensive study.
While the company — which was acquired by private equity firm KKR for $4.8 billion in 2024 — cleans up the mess on its end, schools are dealing with the aftermath on campus.
Sacramento-area institutions navigate outage effects
At the four community colleges in the Los Rios district, the administration asked the faculty to be flexible with students on tests, assignments and deadlines affected by the outage. Staff was also asked to download critical information from Canvas so they have it readily available in case a similar situation recurs, spokesperson Gabe Ross said.
At Sacramento State, faculty were told not to allow the outage to impact student grades, Provost Erika Cameron said. The campus is also adding a page on its website with information on what to do in the event of a Canvas outage. Graduations, she said, would not be affected.
In an email to union members, California Faculty Association President Margarita Berta-Ávila said it was unclear how the outage would affect professors’ ability to close out grades and other work on time, especially with the last day of lecturer contracts approaching. CFA represents 29,000 professors, librarians and counselors who work in the CSU system.
Berta-Ávila said the association was demanding a meeting with the administration to get more information and find solutions.
“It is deeply concerning that a learning management system the CSU pays millions for and requires faculty to use failed so completely,” Berta-Ávila wrote. “This for-profit company and CSU management must come up with solutions to protect student and faculty data, and CFA members will hold them accountable.”
