Updated Acceptable Use Policy and Canvas Free-for-Teacher

[KevinMeredith]

Hello, Canvas Free-for-Teacher users!

First, many congratulations on getting through this most challenging school year! We hope that your Canvas Free-for-Teacher use has helped connect your courses and classrooms and that your instruction and learning were made easier using our free tools. But most of all, we hope that you are safe and well during this challenging period.

Despite the increased Canvas usage during the pandemic, our team will always continue to offer a free version of Canvas to instructors. Moreover, over the next several months, we are actively working to improve your experience, with the goal to make Free-for-Teacher as self-driven as possible. Particularly for new Free-for-Teacher users, we want to make the setup process robust and comprehensive so everyone can enjoy Canvas.

Additionally, Instructure is implementing a new Free-for-Teacher Acceptable Use Policy. Among the updates, you’ll note that accounts will be deleted upon 6 months of inactivity. This policy encourages activity on our platform and maintains our ability to cater to active users. Please view the link for full information.

Thank you again for your continued engagement with Canvas Free-for-Teacher. Please visit the Free-for-Teacher user group in the Canvas Community for more information.

[reid_mclain]

All of these changes seem great actually, I think keeping the active users will help those of us who have to use the FFT version and free up resources until we can persuade the implementation of Canvas. 

My question is what happens to the old class data if an instructor has to go on a sabbatical? Or otherwise, take a break from teaching for a semester that the break time may go over the six-month grace period?  Where I am, we are required to keep student data for 7 years after a class.

Will there be notice prior to deletion or a way to export or access the archived old class data for record-keeping if the account is deleted? 

[Kelvin_Dean]

Me too. If the account is deleted, we may not be able to log in to the Canvas Community anymore with this Canvas Account.

By the way, Reid, this inactive policy only applies to FFT (we don't know if it also applies to Canvas Network or Canvas CCE, because we don't want to lose the certificates we earned). You should check with your local institution about their inactive student/instructor policies for Canvas. I had an account back to 2013 and stopped using it for nearly 5 years (from July 2013 to April 2018), but then I was able to recover my account along with the classes that I have taken during my summer school.

If there were to be a paid subscription service for Canvas (like with Gradescope Complete), we don't need to worry about inactivity, as long as payments are made without any outstanding balances.

[KevinMeredith]

Hi Reid and Kelvin, 

Yes, the plan is to send out a notification prior to deletion so that users can re-access their accounts and courses prior to deletion. Emails should be sent out to give users a chance to re-access their accounts and courses. We are doing this to better cater to our ongoing users. We hope to give enough of a grace period so that users can quickly and easily avoid any headaches that this may cause. Hope this helps. 

And yes, this is just specific to FFT. 

Thanks,

Kevin

[reid_mclain]

Wonderful, thank you for continuing to support those of us who need the FFT option. 

[RemaNilakanta]

I'd appreciate  clarification regarding the term "inactivity" in the updated Acceptable Use Policy. Is it enough to log in at least once within a 6-month period, or does it mean there needs to be activity in the courses created under an account, like updating content, and/or enrolling students?

We have created self-paced and self-guided online training for professional engineers and it's quite possible there will be gaps in activity. We would like to keep our courses live for at least a few years if not more.

I'd appreciate clarification on these new terms. Thanks.

[RajniChaudhry]

I am not able to use the feature of restricting downloading by students for canvas free for the instructor?

[KevinMeredith]

Hi @RajniChaudhry that feature is an account-level setting that is off by default, so students cannot download and view content offline by default in Canvas Free-for-Teacher. Instructors cannot toggle this setting.