One of the most valuable parts of building Canvas is learning directly from the people who use it every day.
Earlier this year, we introduced the Canvas Collaborative Roadmap to create a more transparent, ongoing way for customers to share contributions, vote on roadmap cards, and help shape future investments. In just a few months, hundreds of contributions, comments, and conversations have already given us a clearer picture of where we can create the most value.
This update highlights the biggest themes we've heard so far, and how they're influencing our roadmap. We can’t wait to see what themes arise over the coming months.
Following the security incident in May, we redirected engineering resources to strengthen platform security, resilience, and reliability. This post-incident hardening work temporarily slowed progress on some planned roadmap initiatives. During this time, we continued gathering feedback, evaluating requests, and identifying opportunities to deliver greater value for educators and learners.
Here's what we heard.
Course Content That Is Easier to Build, Reuse, and Control
What We Heard
Many customers told us that course creation and content management remain time-intensive. Feedback frequently centered on content reuse, course copying, modules, blueprints, and maintaining consistency across courses and terms.
At the heart of these requests is a desire for greater control and predictability. Customers want to spend less time rebuilding or troubleshooting content and more time creating impactful learning experiences.
What We're Doing
We're focused on helping educators create, manage, and reuse high-quality content more efficiently and with greater confidence.
To support that goal, we're investing in:
- Delivering the long-awaited Block Content Editor to make content creation more intuitive and accessible
- New approaches to personalization and differentiation that help meet diverse learner needs
- Improvements that make it easier to reuse and distribute content across courses and terms
- Richer reporting through enhanced SCORM interaction data
Admin Control, Integrations, and Institutional Scale
What We Heard
Administrators consistently shared feedback about reporting, permissions, integrations, and operational visibility. As institutions grow and their technology ecosystems become more complex, the need for flexibility and control becomes increasingly important.
Customers want better insight into what's happening across their environments and more confidence in the tools they use to manage Canvas at scale.
What We're Doing
We're helping institutions operate with greater visibility, control, and confidence while reducing administrative complexity.
To support that goal, we're investing in:
- Reimagined user management experiences
- A Unified Admin Analytics Dashboard that provides greater visibility into institutional activity
- Institutional Tagging to help institutions organize, manage, and better understand their data
- Intelligent rules that reduce manual effort across enrollments, notifications, and user management
- Expanded permission controls, including role permissions for Quizzes
Communication and Collaborative Learning That Reaches the Right People
What We Heard
Customers shared feedback related to discussions, groups, announcements, messaging, and other collaborative experiences.
The common thread was a desire for communication tools that better reflect how teaching and learning happen in practice. Educators want to engage the right learners at the right time without adding unnecessary administrative effort.
What We're Doing
We're focused on helping educators connect with learners more effectively while making communication and collaboration easier to manage.
To support that goal, we're investing in:
- Cross-course announcement capabilities through the Educator Dashboard
- Portfolio collaboration enhancements that create more connected learning experiences
Assessment and Grading for Today’s Teaching Practices
What We Heard
Assessment continues to be one of the most important areas of Canvas. We heard consistent feedback around grading workflows, quizzes, rubrics, and feedback experiences. While the requests varied, the underlying need was clear: educators want more visibility, less friction, and greater confidence when evaluating student learning.
One customer summarized this need simply: "On SpeedGrader please display the student's individual deadline and whether that is in the future." That request reflects a broader desire for assessment tools that surface the right information at the right time.
What We're Doing
We're expanding the flexibility of assessment and grading to support a wider range of teaching practices while helping educators evaluate learning more efficiently and confidently.
To support that goal, we're investing in:
- A modernized grading experience that reduces friction across common workflows
- A new Educator Dashboard that helps instructors quickly identify priorities and take action
- Deeper insights into quizzes, LTI adoption, and learner engagement
- Bulk Quiz Submissions to streamline grading workflows
- Plagiarism detection for Graded Discussions
- A simpler path to New Quizzes that reduces migration friction and helps educators unlock more advanced assessment tools and capabilities
Clearer, More Accessible Everyday Experiences
What We Heard
We heard a significant amount of feedback about navigation, usability, accessibility, and overall ease of use.
Customers want Canvas to feel more intuitive. They want to find what they need faster, complete common tasks with fewer steps, and have a more consistent experience across devices and workflows.
These requests may seem small individually, but together they have a meaningful impact on day-to-day productivity.
What We're Doing
We're modernizing the Canvas experience to make everyday tasks simpler, faster, and more intuitive.
To support that goal, we're investing in:
- New Learner and Educator Dashboard experiences that surface the most relevant information faster
- Learner Progress experiences that help students understand what's expected, what's next, and how they're progressing through module content and learning sequences
- More intuitive module navigation, breadcrumbing and visual progress tracking
- Note taking and learner study tools that support organization and engagement
- Modernized UI to reduce the number of clicks
Looking Ahead
As we reviewed this feedback, one thing became clear: while the requests varied, the goals were remarkably consistent. You want Canvas to be easier to use, easier to manage, and better aligned with the realities of teaching and learning. Those priorities continue to guide our roadmap.
Thank you for sharing your ideas, voting on requests, and helping shape what's next for Canvas. We'll continue sharing how your feedback influences our roadmap, and we’ll be presenting the latest product updates that are live and coming soon at our New & Next presentation live at InstructureCon on July 23rd. We’ll share the recording and slides here in the Community so you can explore the near-term roadmap and what's coming next, even if you can’t join us in Louisville.
We're excited for what's ahead, and grateful to be building it together.
