Lessons From the Canvas Outage (opinion)

A major Canvas outage occurred during a critical period when instructors were grading final exams, calculating final grades, and preparing for summer online courses. The outage was attributed to hackers demanding ransom to prevent disclosure of millions of users’ personal data. Students experienced heightened stress on top of end-of-semester pressure, though some were less affected when coursework was already completed. Observers across social media and within institutions reacted in real time, with faculty scrambling to reassure students and some expressing frustration or superiority toward the company and administrators. A notable response favored abandoning technology and returning to largely analog classrooms, despite accessibility benefits of digital texts and conveniences such as automated grade calculations.

"What troubled me through much of the dialogue, however, was a hard and fast turn against all technology and a commitment to return to a more or less fully analog classroom when we're back in the fall. Never mind that many of our students were never taught cursive or how to take notes longhand. Or that digital texts are more accessible in multiple ways than physical books. Or that, guess what? You kind of like the grade book doing math for you."

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