Canvas offline for at least another week

| Martin ter Denge

As a precaution, UT will keep the hacked educational platform Canvas offline until at least Monday 18 May. The university says that time is needed to make the platform safely available again. Communications advisor Jochem Vreeman confirmed this.

Photo by: BCREMERS; Boris Cremers

For students and lecturers, the situation currently requires some improvisation. ‘People are handling it pragmatically and coming up with all sorts of creative solutions,’ says Vreeman. ‘They are setting up WhatsApp groups, using file transfer websites to exchange large files, or simply working through email.’

According to Vreeman, the UT community has remained relatively calm about the hack, although the situation is far from ideal. ‘Some lecturers said they had to come up with all sorts of last-minute workarounds this weekend to keep classes running, but so far everyone has stayed fairly level-headed about it.’

On 4 May, it became clear that Instructure, the American company behind Canvas, had been hacked. Names, email addresses, student numbers, and exchanges between students and lecturers were compromised. UT is still investigating whether Twente-related data was affected, but Instructure has not yet provided clarity on that matter.

Stay tuned

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.