Academic Technology Central

Campus-wide messaging will be forthcoming to provide further information and next steps regarding the Canvas outage that began Thursday, May 7, until Friday, May 8, 2026. We continue to work with the Chancellor's Office, Instructure, and campus partners to gather information and resources.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Academic Technology ([email protected] or 415-405-5555) and follow guidance in upcoming campus-wide messaging. More updates and information will be available later today.

This is to inform you that the threat actor has escalated its attack on Instructure. As a result, Canvas is currently offline for all three SF Bay Region Network campuses, and we are learning that several other CSU Canvas instances are also impacted. 

Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage all community members to remain vigilant for phishing or suspicious communications and report any such activity to [email protected].  

We are continuing to work with the Chancellor’s Office, Instructure, and Academic Technology Partners to determine the full scope of impact and will provide updates, including resources for affected individuals, as more information becomes available. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Network Support Center or your local Academic Technology Support.

This is to inform you of a recent cybersecurity incident involving Instructure at all CSU campuses, the vendor that provides Canvas, the learning management system for the CSUEB, SFSU and SSU campuses.

We have been informed that the threat actor accessed data from many educational institutions worldwide stored at Instructure’s site that likely included information from the CSU. Instructure is still confirming what data may have been exposed, but based on their preliminary assessment, it may include personal information such as names, campus email addresses, student ID numbers, and user messages.  At this time, neither Instructure nor we are able confirm whether any individual’s data was included. Canvas does not store passwords, Social Security numbers, financial information, or dates of birth.

Canvas remains fully operational, and there is no evidence of an ongoing threat. Instructure has contained the incident, remediated the vulnerability, and continues to investigate in coordination with external forensic experts and law enforcement.

Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage all community members to remain vigilant for phishing or suspicious communications and to report any such activity to [email protected].

Password resets are not required at this time; we will notify you if that guidance changes.

We are continuing to work with Instructure to determine the full scope of impact and will provide updates, including resources for affected individuals, as more information becomes available at https://lts.calstate.edu/csu-canvas-incident-reports. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Network Support Center (https://www.sfbrn.calstate.edu/support) or your local Academic Technology Support.

To support instructors, Academic Technology (AT) has created this comprehensive list of guides and videos to support the use of Canvas.

AT also maintains a video series called "One Little Thing" (or OLT) that covers the most important and frequently asked topics to assist users via video tutorial, both quickly and effectively. These OLT videos are 5 minutes or less and cover one specific topic, rather than having to sit through a whole long training video. The YouTube playlist is linked below, and additionally we have compiled a list of the most frequently asked about topics.

"One Little Thing" playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuslnhg9t488j0ju06S4ZWt2sF5TGwMgz

#1 General getting started documentation:

Canvas user interface and navigation: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/18435027728019-Canvas-user-interface-and-navigation

Getting started with Canvas: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/17397321389715-Getting-Started-with-Canvas

Start of semester checklist: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/6160522861331-Start-of-semester-checklist (this covers general settings)

Disabling pages (OLT): https://youtu.be/gXJ4lYbIKIc?si=R-H5NcIVulyWw9EL

#2 Modules:

Using modules (OLT): https://youtu.be/3RH6O2B3s9o?si=hnxNFlzieO7MDsSh

Canvas organizational tips: https://youtu.be/khXfpd9fjOc?si=Mb1hUAUYhRKoLeIw

Add a discussion to a module: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/19229363115667-Adding-a-Discussion-to-a-Module

Add an external URL to a module: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/15341432977683-Adding-an-External-URL-to-a-Module

Add a page to a module: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/14456100781203-Adding-a-Page-to-a-Module

Add a file to a module: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/14528142132243-Adding-a-File-to-a-Module

#3 Home page:

Setting a custom home page: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/13409489258643-Setting-a-custom-home-page

#4 Gradebook: This heavily depends on how someone is doing grading. AT provided a long, general gradebook workshop early in the transition to Canvas; current recommendation is to book an appointment (email [email protected]) if more specific questions aren't covered.

Grades and Grading in Canvas: https://youtu.be/KyqtbrOypKs?si=V9wKWrhZHji91LMy

Grading with Canvas Speedgrader (OLT): https://youtu.be/qFvpW9STmvA?si=jqbRaaystRWsNra4

Gradebook view options (OLT): https://youtu.be/sDboQ7bKTac?si=KA5LPXIIDqLWP-Ao

The whole set of grading guides: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/sections/14515976658707-Grades-and-grading

#5 Combine sections:

Combining course sections: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/6513311261843-Combining-course-sections

#6 Canvas syllabus: he built-in Canvas syllabus grabs any item in your course that has a due date attached to it and makes a long list. AT recommends using the SFSU Syllabus tool instead: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/categories/360001978754-Syllabus-management-tool

#7 Quizzes and assignments:

The whole set of Assignment guides: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/sections/6373241946259-Assignments

Attaching rubrics to assignments (OLT): https://youtu.be/lDUG4m6OJQU?si=3Wjfht914HxgW4lp

Submit an assignment in Canvas (OLT): https://youtu.be/HUrYCMnny-A?si=30bnjUM7x-q8j1Se (student-centric)

Create and grade a Canvas Studio assignment (OLT): https://youtu.be/k-iSN9OnD90?si=gdjz8faid2m3EeH4

Submit a video to a Canvas Studio assignment (OLT): https://youtu.be/SQcl8c1LkXk?si=d92TU9LbRm-VASNq (student-centric)

The whole set of Quiz guides: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/sections/7040991540243-Quizzes

What to expect when taking a quiz in Canvas (OLT): https://youtu.be/QHiNKAAowX4?si=slBGS7DJ6s4S6enh (student-centric)

Understanding the value of quiz question types (OLT): https://youtu.be/0EPStWo2yls?si=_5QIiKa28ge20vVA

#8 Announcements (communicating with students):

Communicating with students using Canvas: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/8757218756627-Communicating-with-students-using-Canvas (announcements are covered in this guide)

Messaging students who haven't submitted an assignment: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/15053378064147-Messaging-Students-who-haven-t-submitted-an-Assignment

Sending a Message to Students from the Gradebook (OLT): https://youtu.be/WaU_2iZqCT8?si=2Va2k1Yo9xJI_CuV

#9 Organizing files/instructor materials: Instructors are recommended against using the "Files" area of Canvas in favor of sticking content where it makes sense contextually, for example as a link in a module for the week. Instructors are generally recommended hiding the files link in general so students don't get confused. As for videos, the best practice is to use Canvas studio. Uploading videos as files is very problematic from an accessibility (no captioning) and technological standpoint (course file size limits), but if the instructor uploads their video content to Canvas studio not only does it get automatically captioned, there's no file size limit either. Canvas studio is available to both instructors and students.

Canvas studio overview: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/17758624337427-Canvas-Studio-Overview

Record with Canvas studio (OLT): https://youtu.be/FT5q18cv99g?si=K2MMfIoGtxBtuobH

Edit video with Canvas studio (OLT): https://youtu.be/TLJLCz_1g8g?si=9BqCJ80p3y6L6eqK

Canvas studio for students: https://youtu.be/uh4EZBolG_o?si=watlNgRe9qEIykpp (student-centric) 

#10 Publisher integrations are not officially supported. 

Mediasite (Coursestream) has been discontinued. Existing video content will continue to work through the end of the semester to allow instructors enough time to download the videos and migrate to Canvas Studio. Instructions for downloading content from Mediasite can be found in the guide to download a copy of a Coursestream recording on the ATHelp website.

iLearn video was retired in January 2025. Instructors must migrate old iLearn video content to Canvas Studio in order to provide stable access to video content to students. iLearn video is no longer supported and students may encounter issues with accessing iLearn video that cannot be fixed.

Canvas Studio is a video platform built-in to Canvas. Similar to Mediasite and iLearn video, it allows instructors and students to upload video content to share with Canvas courses either as learning materials, embedded videos in quiz questions, or as assignment and discussion post submissions. Videos can also be automatically captioned to comply with accessibility requirements. More information on Canvas Studio can be found in the Canvas Studio overview guide.

Have old video content that you’ve been reusing for 5 or more years? It might be time to review and renew the content. Academic Technology instructional designers are available for consultation by appointment to help with questions about content format and review. Book an appointment by emailing [email protected].

Support

Academic Technology (AT) Winter support hours will begin on Monday, December 22, 2025 from 8:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday (excluding campus holidays).  Regular hours will resume on Monday, January 26, 2026, the first day of instruction for the Spring 2026 semester.

The Digital Media Studio & MakerSpace Winter hours will begin on Friday, January 2, 2026 from 10:00am to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday (excluding campus holidays).  Regular semester hours (Monday - Thursday 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.) will resume on Monday, January 26, 2026.

Support:

On Sunday, December 7, 2025, all SFSU Qualtrics surveys will cease collecting IP and geolocation data, and all previously collected IP and geolocation data will be permanently removed. Users who wish to preserve this data, or have a legitimate research need for this data, are encouraged to export survey data prior to this date, and manually enable these fields in data collection after this change.

Support documentation is provided for the above recommendations: 

How to export survey data (via Qualtrics)

Manually enable collection of IP and geolocation data (via Qualtrics)

Microsoft has resolved the underlying cause of the outage on Wednesday, October 29, 2025. Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Office, and campus single sign-on (SSO) should now function as expected.

Support

Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Office, and campus single sign-on (SSO) are unavailable or slow beginning around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 29, 2025. There is no current estimated time to resolution. Microsoft is currently working on resolving this issue and will notify users when service is fully restored. For more information on Microsoft service availability, visit the Microsoft service health status page.

What to expect Microsoft 365 services including Microsoft Office and SSO may be affected by this outage. AT will provide more information as it becomes available to us.

Adobe Creative Cloud applications are now available to all fully matriculated SFSU students. Students in all majors can now log in to https://adobe.com/ to gain free access to all Adobe apps by using their SFSU email. More detailed instructions can be found in this support document.

What to expect

All SFSU students, regardless of major, now have full access to the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite, including Adobe Express and Firefly. Faculty and Staff continue to have access as before but may be required to sign out of the creative cloud app and sign back in.

Support

Academic Technology (AT) has resolved the service outage resulting in AT hosted service and application access on campus. Users may log in to all AT-hosted online services and applications as normal.

Support

Academic Technology (AT) is currently investigating an issue with AT managed services and applications on campus that began on Thursday, September 4, 2025 at 11:54 a.m. AT is currently working on resolving this issue and will notify users when service is fully restored.

What you can expect Users attempting to connect to AT managed services and applications from on campus may encounter error messages. Access from off-campus is not affected.

This includes the following:

at.sfsu.edu

canvas.sfsu.edu (as an alternative, go to https://sfsu.edu/login and select Canvas, or use the button in the Gateway Launchpad)

classdata.sfsu.edu

classrooms.sfsu.edu

Syllabus (syllabus.sfsu.edu)

Student Resources (studentresources.sfsu.edu)

DIVA (diva.sfsu.edu) 

Labspace

SCCM

MathAdvising

WritingAdvising

Network license server (ArcGIS, Geneious, Keyshot, MATLAB, Solidworks, SPSS)

Research computing VMs

Software license servers

Pharos, the vendor providing print services through Uniprint, has resolved the issues resulting in printing service unavailability that began on Monday, August 4, 2025 09:30 a.m.

Users may use pay printing services at all service points in the Library as normal.

Pharos Uniprint is currently unavailable as of Monday, August 4, 2025 09:30 a.m.

Academic Technology (AT) is working on resolving this issue and will provide updates when we obtain additional information.

What you can expect: Pay printing is currently unavailable at all service points in the Library.

Zoom has resolved the underlying cause of the outage on April 16, 2025 1:20PM. https://sfsu.zoom.us and Zoom meetings should now function as expected.

Outage timeline

Began: April 16, 2025 at 12:00PM

Resolved: April 16, 2025 at 1:20PM

Support

Zoom services, including zoom.us and the Zoom applications, are unavailable beginning around 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. There is no current estimated time to resolution. Zoom is currently working on resolving this issue and will notify users when service is fully restored. For more information on Zoom service availability, visit the Zoom service status page (currently impacted by the outage).

What to expect Zoom services including the Zoom website and Zoom meetings may be affected by this outage. AT will provide more information as it becomes available to us.

Khan Academy, in collaboration with Instructure, have released a series of AI powered tools within Canvas for teachers called Khanmigo. These tools help instructors with various specific class-related tasks like creating rubrics, writing letters of recommendation, and grouping elements of long lessons into more digestible modules. 

For more information on how you can use these tools in Canvas, check out the support guide: https://athelp.sfsu.edu/hc/en-us/articles/39481219689363-Get-started-with-Khanmigo

To learn more about AI tools and features available within campus-licensed products and services, visit the Tools page on the AI website (https://ai.sfsu.edu/tools). 

Support