Message from the Provost: Canvas Access Update for Faculty and Staff

UCF continues to monitor the global service disruption affecting Canvas (Webcourses@UCF), which is operated by our third-party vendor, Instructure, Inc. This incident is not isolated to the University of Central Florida and is affecting more than 8,000 educational institutions worldwide.

At this time, Instructure has reported that UCF’s instance of Canvas is available for use, and, at this time, Webcourses@UCF is online and accessible. Teams from across the university will continue monitoring the service closely.

Information for Faculty

Because of the service interruption, all faculty have been granted an extension to submit final grades for the Spring semester until 11:59 p.m. tonight. All existing processes for grade submission, including the importing of Canvas gradebook data into PeopleSoft, are functional.

Faculty who have not yet submitted final grades will receive notification from the Registrar’s Office as teams work to resolve any remaining issues and support the successful closeout of the semester.

Faculty and instructors preparing Summer semester courses should continue to monitor Canvas access and follow any additional guidance provided by the university. 

Faculty are also strongly encouraged to back up their course data by Monday. Instructions on how to do that can be found at: https://ucf.service-now.com/ucfit?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0014873

About the Canvas Disruption

This disruption was related to a vendor-side cybersecurity incident that has affected institutions across the country. Instructure has stated that its investigation, conducted with an independent forensics partner, found no evidence that credentials were obtained, additional data were removed, or that unauthorized access affected institutional environments.

Please remain especially alert to potential phishing attempts, unexpected messages referencing Canvas, password reset requests, ransom claims, or links to unofficial websites. Do not click suspicious links or provide your password in response to any email, text message, phone call, or website prompt that you did not initiate. UCF will never ask you to provide your password by email.

We recognize the disruption this interruption created at an especially busy point in the semester, and we appreciate the flexibility and support faculty and staff have shown. As a reminder, students should not be penalized for academic impacts related to the outage.

We will continue to work with Instructure and share additional updates as needed. Thank you for your patience and care.

John Buckwalter, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice
President for Academic Affairs

This notice was provided on behalf the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs.