On May 7, 2026, faculty and students across the country opened Canvas and got a ransom note from ShinyHunters, a cybercriminal extortion group, telling thousands of institutions to negotiate or watch their data get leaked. Canvas login pages at roughly 330 schools were defaced. The platform went into maintenance mode. Finals week for a lot of institutions were inaccessible.

This was actually the second hit. Instructure had confirmed a breach on May 1, said it was contained by May 2, and by May 7 ShinyHunters was back on the login page explaining, in their words, that Instructure had “ignored us and did some ‘security patches’” instead of negotiating. The whole thing ended with Instructure paying the ransom on May 12 and receiving what the group described as “shred logs” -- digital confirmation that the data was destroyed.

I’m not here to argue for or against the breach; other people covered that thoroughly. I’m here to talk about what got exposed that nobody was talking about.

The problem nobody wanted to mention out loud

When Canvas went dark on May 7, admins and faculty started reaching for their export files. Teachers may know what I’m talking about. The .imscc files you can generate from Course Export in the Settings menu. It’s the official Canvas backup format. The thing Instructure points you toward when asked about portability.

Here’s the problem with .imscc files: they’re a zip archive of XML and HTML that requires Canvas, or a compatible LMS, to interpret them. Open it with any other program and you get gibberish. You can’t read your assignment instructions, you can’t access your quiz questions, you can’t reference a rubric. The content is there, technically, in the sense that the food in your refrigerator is technically in your house even if the lights are off and you can’t find it in your kitchen.

If Canvas is offline, and Canvas is the only place that can read your course export, your data has limited use.

Faculty were asking questions during that outage that admins couldn’t answer well. Where are my quiz questions? How can I get to SpeedGrader to view my students’ essay submissions? What about grading three weeks of accumulated discussion replies? The honest answer, for most of them, was: we’ll have to wait until Canvas comes back online.

I built something because I didn’t want that to be the answer.

What CanvExporter does

CanvExporter is a Python tool that uses the Canvas API to pull course content out of Canvas and write it into files you can actually open on your desktop computer. Real files like a Microsoft Word .docx file with your assignment descriptions and quiz questions with answer keys. An Excel .csv spreadsheet with your importable rubric criteria in template form. Organized subfolders for announcements, discussions, content pages, rubrics, question banks, and uploaded files.

Make no mistake: CanvExporter is not a backup tool in the traditional sense. It won’t restore your course. It’s a content extraction tool. It answers the question what’s in this course in a format that works whether Canvas is running or not. Your quiz bank becomes an editable Word document. Your rubrics become Excel documents formatted for easy import into another course. Your discussion prompts become files you can email a colleague, print out for hard copy, or just read in a text editor.

The tool uses the public Canvas API exactly as designed. Authenticated requests, only for content the user running it has access to, rate limit compliant, nothing stored server-side. I checked it against Instructure’s Acceptable Use Policy and Canvas API Policy before the repo went public. It’s clean. And it’s cool like Fonzie.

It’s licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. Free to use. Credit required. Not for commercial resale.

Where it stands

The repo is live at https://github.com/techconsigliere/CanvExporter. Initial release is coming soon. I’m not shipping before it’s solid, because tools that handle course content need to be reliable or they’re worse than nothing. The README has the current status and what’s in active development.

Since the breach, I’ve already put the tool to work in ways that have nothing to do with disaster recovery. Our Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance department received a records request for content from a required employee training -- seven Canvas courses worth of material. Printing Canvas content pages directly produces formatting that’s somewhere between “unhelpful” and “cringey.” CanvExporter exported all seven courses in 35 minutes. A less-than-half-day turnaround on a compliance records request. That’s not a small thing.

I’ve also used it for faculty clients preparing their tenure evaluation packages. Their quizzes and assignment curriculum needed to be uploaded to an external platform for review. CanvExporter pulled all the course content in minutes. I picked the relevant assignment and quiz folders and sent my clients exactly what they needed. Clean files, right format, no manual transcription.

Both of those use cases happened in the normal course of the job. Not during a crisis. CanvExporter handles normal requests on a Tuesday afternoon just as well as a crisis, and can provide some insurance at the start of the academic term once all course content is updated.

I’ve also submitted proposals to present CanvExporter at EdTech conferences in Portland later this year and I’m tracking toward EDUCAUSE Seattle 2028.

If you’re a Canvas admin who lived through May 7 and thought there has to be a better answer than this -- that’s exactly why I built it. Watch this space.

Chris Powell is a Canvas LMS Administrator at Western Washington University and publishes Canvas Insider from the Admin side of the desk. The CanvExporter repository is at github.com/techconsigliere/CanvExporter.

I started this blog in 2022 because I had information to share about Canvas and no place to say it.

Back then COVID was on the decline, but Canvas LMS was everywhere. Accelerated adoption had outpaced what most schools were ready for, and support staff were mostly invisible. Faculty had questions about their courses. Departments had problems with outcomes and assessments of learning. And through no fault of anyone, knowledge and experiential skill about Canvas got pushed to the side.

So I created a Substack and started writing.

For four years, I’ve been showing up in your inboxes the way a wise colleague appears at your office door: informal, carrying something useful, occasionally cracking a joke. Every word was written by me. Every video was narrated by me, a Canvas Admin paying attention to the quirkiness of his LMS and sharing what he noticed.

If you’ve been here for any part of that era, thank you. I am grateful you have stuck with me as I found my voice. That version of the Canvas Insider was exactly what it needed to be, and whom I needed to be.

Things are different now. Here’s what changed.

Over the past several months I’ve been acquiring something I didn’t have back then: an enhanced skillset for LMS administration built around Python scripts, Node web applications, and automated workflows that resolve issues Canvas’s own feature set doesn’t address. I developed these tools through conversations with AI, but the observations, the ideas, and the customizations are mine. Each one exists because a recognizable problem arrived in my inbox and the existing solutions weren’t clean enough.

This work deserves a more serious tone of voice than a post that signs off with “stunningly vivacious Canvas Insiders.”

So here’s what the Canvas Insider looks like moving forward.

The problems I write about are real issues, the ones that populate my email inbox first thing in the morning from several faculty. The tools I share are explained clearly, downloadable, and openly licensed. The workflows I walk through are elegant because the people I serve deserve elegant solutions, not seven-step bullet-point lists and a handful of links to documentation they’ve already read.

The razor-sharp wit stays. The warmth stays. The hurdy-hurr cheeky jokes are done.

I’m writing for Canvas Admins who want to do their jobs effectively inside schools that don’t always make that easy. For instructional designers who need creative solutions their IT department hasn’t thought of yet. And for directors of educational technology who are quietly deciding whether the person they’re reading is someone worth knowing.

I think I am. This is where I’m going to prove it.

-Chris

I wanted to see if I could bulk-suspend, not delete, guest accounts that haven’t signed into my Canvas instance in over six years. So I had a conversation with an AI agent.

What resulted was a handy-dandy Python script that I can run from my desktop computer that requires three things:

1. A specified domain for your insitution, e.g. canvasinsider.instructure.com

2. An access token for an API call

3. An Excel .csv file with the User IDs in a list

Here is what a proof of concept looks like. You might want to watch this in full screen mode to see the details:

If you would like to obtain a copy of my Python script, send me an email. I’m happy to share the info that helps keep my university LMS a little bit more secure.

Thanks for your time. Have a good day,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

If you are still using Classic quizzes, your printout may not be...nicely formatted.

I recently had a conversation with AI, and was able to create a web “bookmarklet” that contains some javascript to print a Classic Quiz. Nicely formatted. This proof-of-concept video was done with a Mozilla Firefox. You might want to view this at full screen size to see the little content:

Also, I recently shared how one can convert a properly-formatted Word .docx file into a Canvas quiz with a neat little python script I developed. What about converting a Classic Quiz to a Word document? I had another conversation with you know who, and developed another web bookmarklet to create a .doc file from a quiz. Again, full screen size viewing might prevent headaches from squinting:

Please note: If you are using Safari with web bookmarklets containing javascript, you must go into Settings, Advanced, check the box to “Show features for web developers” in Advanced, then check the box to “Allow JavaScript from Smart Search” in the Developer menu.

If you are interested in trying out either of these web bookmarklets for yourself, send me an email. I’m happy to share what I’ve developed as long as you do not blame me for your computer blowing up, the high price of gas per gallon, or for any of the world’s problems. Speaking of gas, your mileage may vary with my web bookmarklets. :-)

Thanks for your time…Have a good day,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Recently I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they got a popup recommendation when editing the Roll Call assignment’s settings page?”

So I had a conversation with an AI agent and was able to accomplish this by appending my Canvas theme with some javascript and css. Proof of concept video for you here…might want to view this at fullscreen to see the small text as I go clicky-clicky around the browser window:

Should you or your institution be interested in learning more, or getting a customized proof-of-concept for your situation, send me an email. I’m always happy to share information with my stunningly vivacious Canvas Insiders. :-)

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

A software application I’ve used for years to convert properly-formatted Word .docx files into Canvas quizzes gave me error messages after I changed the “New Canvas Login UI” settings.

Nerdy background info: I use a Mac Mini as my daily driver for work. The quiz conversion software I use is only made for Windows. For years I have relied on Parallels for macOS to let me use a Windows11 virtual machine solely for this software as a way to provide a service for my faculty clients. This week I discovered my software stopped working, and a faculty client needed a Word document converted to a quiz for later this week.

So I had a conversation with Gemini.

What resulted was a python script requiring no elevated rights in Canvas and no access tokens to leverage an API call. When I ran the command in my terminal application it immediately opened a new tab on my web browser, allowed me to upload my .docx file, showed me a preview of the quiz questions with correct answers, and required two mouse clicks to download a QTI .zip file of the converted quiz onto my desktop computer to import into a Canvas course of my choosing and create a new question bank as well. No cloud requirements, no tiered pricing structure, no external sources. Needless to say, I was chuffed with the workflow.

Here is a no-dialogue video of what I was able to create. Might want to view it in fullscreen size to see the small text:

If you’re interested in converting properly-formatted Word .docx files into a multiple choice / true-false quiz in Canvas, drop me a line. Always happy to share my nerdy info with my fabulous Canvas Insiders!

Have a good day,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Couple of things:

1 - I used Canvas Beta for this video recording which has IgniteAI Agent enabled. I don’t have any AI tools enabled in my university’s live “Production” Canvas environment. Yet.

2 - You might want to view this video on a large monitor full-screen to see the details.

3 - I like Erik Satie’s Gnossiene #1. It’s playing in the background.

4 - If you have concerns of me violating FERPA or PII by showing an actual student’s essay in Speedgrader, you might want to check out the Ted Lasso TV show.

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

Instead of joining in the middle school cafeteria food fight online about artificial intelligence and agentic AI browsers, and their impact on Canvas, I am drawn to a story famously shared by Alan Watts, a mid-20th century “philosophic entertainer” about a Chinese farmer:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

— Alan Watts

In addition, I often repeat this statement when faced with life situations that give me elevated states of anxiety and stress:

Christopher, there is more to the situation than you are aware of. Lift up and out of it to get a better perspective.

— My inner narrative

My hope for you, my fabulous and dazzling Canvas Insider, is that you will consider the possibility that a new product might not result in a career that is flushed down the toilet. A calling that is all for naught. A job that is unceremoniously terminated. My hope for you is that the overwhelm incurred from concern for events that have not yet happened might actually result in change that will ultimately benefit you and others.

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

In 9+ years as a Canvas Admin, I receive about 10 emails a calendar year from students asking why their course from a past term is still in their Canvas Dashboard.

I’ll masquerade as the student’s dashboard and locate the past-term course since the term is usually in the title. I then go to Settings and smile knowingly as I see Course set in the Participation field, but no end date set:

As soon as I enter that past-term’s end date and click Update Course Details to lock in the changes… POOF. The course disappears from the teacher and student dashboards, moves it to everyone’s Past Enrollments section, and sets it to read-only access.

I can hear you saying, “But Chris - we know you are a brilliant and benevolent Canvas Admin, but can the IgniteAI Agent fix this for teachers? Get back to the task at hand, nerd-boy!”

I recently had a conversation with the IgniteAI Agent about this very topic. Like to see it? Here it go:

As you witnessed, hopefully in fullscreen video, the IgniteAI Agent did indeed share the correct way for the teacher to fix their problem, but it wasn’t capable of entering an end date for the teacher. That would require specific input from the teacher, perhaps in a follow-up question sometime in the future. As we are in the second month of 2026, the IgniteAI Agent can provide a path to issue resolution for teachers of Canvas courses…but I have concerns with advising teachers to conclude their own courses, “…by changing its status from ‘Available’ to ‘Completed’…” when only an end date is necessary.

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

If you’re an experienced Canvas Admin like me, you’ve encountered a number of S.O.S. communiques like this. Teachers of Canvas courses, please hear me when I say this:

You are not alone if you find grades have mysteriously disappeared in your gradebook. This happens quite often. You should not be expected to know everything about Canvas. Situations like this happen, and they are fixable.

-Chris Powell, Canvas Insider

An experienced, caring, highly-attractive, witty, and extensively-knowledgeable Canvas Admin would guide Professor Plum to their gradebook to confirm what they are seeing:

The empathetic, patient, entertaining, and vivacious Canvas Admin would then go to the Edit quiz page and notice only one student is assigned the quiz:

Nodding their head, the benevolent, charismatic, and appealingly-charming Canvas Admin would assign “Everyone else” to the quiz and include the previous date/time info to prevent students from taking the quiz in the future:

Hopefully Professor Plum will exhale in relief as all other student grades return to their gradebook for that quiz:

This method works for assignments, discussions, quizzes….all graded curriculum in your course.

It’s obvious that AI agents can be trained on situations like this. But isn’t it nice that you have a wise, approachable, and eye-catchingly delightful Canvas Admin to help resolve these crisis moments?

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

Couple of things to keep in mind:

1. This is a 17-minute video without narration. You’ll see a lot of mouse wiggling as I attempt to emphasize important information. I recommend you view this video full-screen on a large monitor. You might not enjoy the small mobile phone viewing experience.

2. This is a raw recording of my conversation and IgniteAI Agent’s responses. There was no AI manipulation (ha!) of what you see in the video.

3. The Canvas Beta instance is a bit slower than our usual Canvas Production environment. Thus, the Agent’s “Thinking” was taking quite some time in some cases. The jumps you see in the video are me pausing recording until it completed thinking…then I resumed the screen recording.

4. I’m a fan of Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes.

Topics I asked IgniteAI Agent about:

• Student participation in my demo course.

• Creating an announcement.

• Creating a Group Set and adding students to groups.

• Hiding unpublished assignments in the gradebook.

• Providing a student additional time for a quiz.

…and other questions.

Thanks very much for your time and checking out this lengthy video,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Had an encouraging success story with a recent issue with meeting accessibility standards for <code> tag formatting in Canvas’ rich content editor. Appended some CSS code to the theme, saved the theme, and made our faculty client very happy. Check out the video to learn more!

Thanks for your time. Have a good day,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

I noticed a recent update to Canvas Assignments that might be helpful for teachers: annotating documents. While Instructure has an extensive online guide for students navigating through an annotation assignment, I wanted to show both the teacher’s and student’s perspective with this new update in Canvas.

Thanks for your time. I hope today is better for you than yesterday,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

A web application to quickly cross-list courses! Check out the video for my first foray with AI.

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Recently Instructure debuted Canvas Apps, “…a new feature designed to streamline app integration and management for Canvas root admins.” Their words, not mine.

One of the more noticeable changes I found with this new way of managing and installing LTIs is the sequence of how Canvas Admins enter the third-party vendor’s specific information in the install fields. As I ventured into the new era of LTI app installs in my Canvas instance, I failed three times to get all the information entered correctly in Beta.

Now that I learned the appropriate steps, I wanted to share with my fellow Canvas Admins ~ as well as online book publishers and software companies providing LTIs to Canvas institutions ~ so that we all can progress together with the least amount of installation friction as possible.

Thanks very much for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

This ain’t no podcast, this ain’t no “…smash that like button and subscribe” video found on a popular website. This is a conversation with a colleague of mine, AJ Barse, where we discuss a new-ish web browser on the scene that has some…interesting capabilities.

Especially when it pertains to students taking quizzes in Canvas.

I appreciate your time. See you soon with another Back to Basics video.

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Some Canvas Admins may not know how to set up access to courses without adding as teacher. This video shows the method I have found success with in providing scores of folks the access they need.

Thanks,

-Chris

I happened to spot a way that teachers could get access to the actual file of the student submission…but it might involve using “please?”

Check this quick video to see what I’m talking about!

Thanks for your time,

-Chris