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Free-for-Teacher Platform Restoration

shirenv

To our Free-for-Teacher users,

The Canvas Free-for-Teacher program is a product offering we have had since the beginning of our company. It is a program intended for individual educators at traditional schools and higher education organizations.

We want to apologize for how disruptive the last few weeks have been due to our Free-for-Teacher accounts being offline. While this was a necessary step to secure our system following the recent incident, it doesn’t diminish the disruption it has caused to your teaching and learning. We are temporarily restoring access to the product in a secure, limited capacity from 12 am ET on May 28 through 11:59 pm ET on May 29 so that you can safely download course content and close out the school year.

We also want to reassure you that we made the decision to restore temporary access with significant caution and after implementing multiple additional safeguards to strengthen the platform’s security, including:

CrowdStrike tested the elements of the known attack chains against the application version with Instructure's remediations applied, and found that the remediated version was no longer vulnerable to those same attack chain elements
Disabling new account creation during this temporary restoration period
Removing administrative and support functionality from the Free-for-Teacher platform to help prevent unauthorized access and privilege escalation
Turned over all existing tokens
Implementing additional technical protections, including removing token-generation capabilities
Fully segregating the Free-for-Teacher database and application server from the broader Instructure environment
Protecting the platform behind a new, redundant firewall architecture

Additionally, we have implemented several technical enhancements to help protect the platform, such as removing token-generation capabilities. The Free-For-Teacher database and app server are completely segregated from the rest of the Instructure environment and protected behind a new, redundant firewall. Finally, we will deploy real-time human monitoring of all traffic and network activity on Free-for-Teacher during its open hours.

During this temporary restoration period, your course content will be fully accessible and can be exported as usual.

https://community.instructure.com/en/kb/articles/664584-exporting-and-moving-canvas-content

In the coming weeks, we will be in touch to share more information about how we plan to support our Free-For-Teacher users moving forward. We are committed to providing a free offering for individual educators.

Thank you for your continued patience as we navigate this incident.

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Comments

Waiting_n_Hoping7

@shirenv,

I'm a graduate student who is looking to finish my research and qualify for graduation by June 23rd. After I export my course, is there an option to keep it with Canvas to deploy to a small group of learners (10-20 people)? My thesis has been planned around Canvas and my first choice would be to stay with Canvas to complete the research. However, I don't know how to become a paid user as an individual designer and instructor. Is there a paid option for the "little guys" who want to be legitimate Canvas users?

KarianaBeyer81534168

There isn't a paid option for individual users. We have begged for one for YEARS!

Renee Carney

@Waiting_n_Hoping7 I have sent you a DM

KalSander

Would exporting content to Commons be okay in the meantime until the FFT site is back up and running? Can we place a course on Commons and keep it private so only the creator has content?

MelissaSamaro

I wanted to ask about how updates are being shared with FFT teachers. I only learned that we will have temporary access to our courses by stumbling upon this forum, so I'm not sure why this information isn't being shared more broadly with all FFT teachers. I noticed on another forum page that some users did receive a communication from Instructure, but clearly not everyone did. Would it be possible for this kind of information to be emailed to all FFT teachers or posted on the Incident Update page?

The last sentence of this posts mentions, “In the coming weeks, we will be in touch to share more information about how we plan to support our Free-For-Teacher users moving forward.” Could you clarify how this information will be shared? Will it be via this forum or will it be sent to us?

I'm happy I will be able to download my course content, and I appreciate the safeguards that are being put in place to allow us to access our materials, but I am a little frustrated with the lack of communication I've received.

LilyApedaile03545461

A paid option for individual users would be amazing. @Renee Carney any information you have would be great!

gioinguyen

Exactly!

Renee Carney

Hi @MelissaSamaro & @gioinguyen

Your comments are heard and appreciated. We had many conversations about messaging every FFT user over the past couple weeks, but doing so would create a great risk of bounce that would put every message in a spam folder - not reaching anyone. We had to get creative, posting to the blog here, posting to our website, and updating the Free-For-Teacher login page to include the updated information.

HMed724

hi @Renee Carney I have a similar situation where I am trying to finish a randomized control trial for my dissertation that was being conducted in FFT version. It's an online training for parents of children with disabilities. I would really like to keep it in the Canvas platform and am willing to pay for an individual license!

YanChakLam60458096

Hi @Renee Carney Can you please also share this information with me, or maybe make it public for everyone out here? I think there are lots of people who will consider paying individual licenses since there is no exact date when FFT will be back.

steinert

Canvas Free for Teacher to Canvas Career Question:

For those of us who individually use Canvas Free for Teacher, how are we supposed to import our exported FFT course into Canvas Career (as described at this URL: https://community.instructure.com/en/kb/articles/664584-exporting-and-moving-canvas-free-for-teacher-content%29 ) if we do not belong to an organization that subscribes to Canvas Career?

Simply exporting our courses is not very helpful unless we are provided with free access to Canvas Career.

My course starts Monday and I am thinking it's time to switch my classes to Google Classroom unless Instructure comes up with a more realistic fix that takes our needs into account.

Kristin Lundstrum

You're right that Canvas and Canvas Career requires a subscription, but your export gives you two useful options even without it:

The IMSCC file follows the Common Cartridge standard, so it'll import into most major LMS platforms. You can also preview it first with the Common Cartridge Viewer, no platform needed.
The HTML export lets you view assignment details, availability dates, and point values right in a browser, which is handy for referencing your content wherever you land.

The platform closes again after May 29, and we don't have a timeline yet for what comes next. We won't be able to support a June 1 start, and we're sorry for that disruption.

Kristin Lundstrum

Hi @KalSander - Canvas Commons is a great resource, but it will not be available during the access window. Please make plans to fully export your content. How do I export a Canvas course?

William_Mnozya

I am in the same stuation as you. It seems exporting won't do any good to me as i do not have any other LMS other than Canvas FFT to support my teachings. So sad indeed.🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

equinecoach73

I don't understand why they don't create a paid user account. It was only ever free or enterprise. Crazy how much revenue could have been made. Been a loyal user since 2011 and would have paid. I hope they come back with a paid version but at this point I have lost so much revenue and customers, I can't wait. Seems like such a missed opportunity that I am moving everything to a paid platform. Great opportunity for learndash and kajabi!

Renee Carney

Hi @YanChakLam60458096
Sorry for any misunderstanding, we do not have information on the new free solution or a paid solution yet. I was reaching out to the other Community user to try and help them complete their grad thesis.