On Wednesday January 21, 2026, we will be enabling a new feature on Canvas, called Differentiation Tags. This new feature will allow instructors to discreetly organize students into defined sets for a more personalized learning experience, making it easier to work with subsets of students for communication, grading, and instructional workflows. Specifically, you will be able to
- create and manage tags assigned to students via the People page
- assign students to assignments and quizzes to specific student tags
- filtering student submissions in the Canvas SpeedGrader based on tags
- communicate with specific student tags through the Canvas Inbox without alerting the whole class, and
- manage student tags via a CSV file upload
What do I need to know about this new feature?
- You will not need to do anything to prepare. The feature will be enabled seamlessly, and the option to use it in your Canvas course will be available from January 21 onward.
Where can I get further help?
If you have other questions about this change or about Canvas, feel free to contact us at the LT Hub. You can also refer to the FAQ page set up by Canvas on this new feature.