SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Canvas, a learning management system used by universities worldwide, including CSU and San Diego State, is back online for most users after an outage impacted schools in San Diego and nationwide.
The timing could not be worse for students at San Diego State University and universities across the country as finals week ramps up.
Students logging into Canvas Thursday were instead met with an error screen showing the platform was unavailable, creating confusion and concern among both students and faculty.
Professor Noah Arceneaux said he quickly realized the issue was much larger than a campus-specific outage.
“And then one email, then two emails,” Arceneaux said. “I talked to someone in the IT department and realized, oh, it was not just my class, it’s everywhere, the nation, globally.”
San Diego State University sent out an alert saying "reports indicate that the outage is worldwide. SDSU is working closely with the CO and our third-party partner to understand more about the impact and an estimate for restoration."
The outage leaving many students unable to access grades, assignments or even communicate with instructors.
“I can’t even email the students because their email addresses are in the system that’s down,” Arceneaux said.
The disruption added another layer of stress during one of the busiest academic weeks of the year.
“It’s definitely weird that I can’t really do anything,” SDSU student Luke Pratali said.
“Definitely impactful for sure,” student Jad Mustafa added. “Need to study a little more but can’t do anything right now.”
Some students managed to complete exams before the outage began.
“I had to do an exam this morning, and if it was down, I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” student Ashley O'Rourke said. “That would have really stressed me out.”
Later in the afternoon, the university sent out a notification that students were being contacted directly with ransomware offers.
"If anyone receives information to this effect, do not respond and forward such messages to fraud@sdsu.edu. Do not attempt to open any links, do not download any attachments and do not reply to the message," the university said.
SDSU warned students, faculty, and staff not to attempt to access the Canvas portal.
University officials say there is currently no evidence that students’ Social Security numbers or banking information were compromised in the outage.
As of Thursday night, SDSU said final exams would not be rescheduled, but faculty members have been encouraged to provide flexibility and grace for students navigating the disruption.
“I’m pretty worried about my grades right now,” O’Rourke said. “I do need to look at that, but I can’t.”
The San Diego Community College District also said it was impacted by the Canvas outage. SDCCD Chancellor Gregory Smith shared the following message with students Thursday:
I understand the severity of impact this has given the timing and end of spring semester. I will be monitoring this in real time and communicating with CCCCO until it is resolved. Thank you for the flexibility and resilience you have shown throughout this week and managing the additional impacts of this latest development. Continuity of access for our students is our first priority and we are all essential in that effort.
The San Diego Unified School District, which uses Canvas at some middle and high schools, was also impacted.
"Instructure has informed us no passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers or financial information were involved. Our school district was not a direct target. Our Information Technology Department is in communication with Instructure and has reinforced our expectations about upholding the highest data security standards," the district said in a letter to families.
As of 4 p.m., Instructure, the company that manages Canvas, said it was investigating the issue. According to the Instructure website, Canvas is used by tens of millions of people.
