June 30, 2026 at 9:18 am
On June 30, 2026, we will be enabling the new course Accessibility Checker tool within Canvas, which allows you to build your course while considering different accessibility attributes. The tool works by scanning pages and assignments within your Canvas course, and detecting common accessibility issues including:
- Missing image alt text
- Alt text lengths or image filenames used as alt text
- Table formatting errors
- Duplicated or broken links
- Text contrast issues
What do I need to know about this new tool?
- 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 June 30th onward.
- Please note that this tool only works with native Canvas content and will not be able to check the accessibility of content created outside of Canvas. This includes files uploaded onto Canvas (e.g. PDFs, PowerPoint, Excel or Word documents), other tools that work in Canvas (e.g. Kaltura, H5P) or other custom widgets.
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 Canvas guide on how to use the accessibility checker in Canvas for more information.
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Posted in Canvas News
May 26, 2026 at 1:58 pm
The LT Hub suspended the Threadz and Student Timezones tools on May 5, 2026. After this date, Threadz and Student Timezones were no longer available to use in Canvas.
Why are Threadz and Student Timezones being suspended?
As the LT Hub continues to look into ways to support the collection and analysis of learning data for faculty and students, our learning analytics team has developed a new tool, Course Insights, that will replace both Threadz and Student Timezones.
Our team will focus on deploying Course Insights this summer.
Where can I get more support with transitioning?
For questions or requests for help in transitioning from Threadz and Student Timezones, including requests to extract data from these tools, contact us at the LT Hub
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Posted in Canvas News, Threadz News
May 26, 2026 at 1:51 pm
On December 30, 2026, the Canvas ePortfolios feature, currently listed as “ePortfolios (Legacy)” in the Global Navigation, will be discontinued and replaced by the new Canvas Portfolio feature. Canvas recommended exporting or migrating any important content before this date. The new Canvas Portfolio is fully integrated within Canvas and provides a more user-friendly portfolio experience.
What do I need to know about this new feature?
- There is no automatic migration from ePortfolio to Canvas Portfolio. You will need to manually migrate from ePortfolio to Canvas Portfolio. The Canvas Portfolio feature is currently available in Canvas for students to begin transferring their ePortfolios. For instructions, please refer to the LT Hub guide for students.
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.
- To learn more about how to migrate to Canvas Portfolios, refer to our LT Hub guide for students.
- You can also refer to the FAQ page set up by Canvas on this new feature.
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Posted in Canvas News
January 20, 2026 at 1:36 pm
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.
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Posted in Canvas News
January 13, 2026 at 12:39 pm
The Kaltura LTI integration in Canvas will be upgraded to use LTI 1.3. Originally, we had planned for this to happen on January 19, 2026, however, this upgrade is now delayed until the 2026 Summer Term (May to August 2026).
What do you need to know about this change?
No downtime is expected, but you may notice a brief “blip” during the transition.
After the upgrade, the location of My Media will move from the course navigation menu to the Canvas global navigation menu.
Additionally, you will need to re-authorize Kaltura when you first access My Media or the Media Gallery. This is a legitimate one-time request that will need to be accepted to continue using Kaltura with Canvas.
Thank you for your patience as we improve your experience!
Where can I get further help?
Please contact us at the LT Hub if you have questions about this change.
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Posted in Kaltura News
December 15, 2025 at 1:28 pm
Please note that by default, your Canvas courses will not appear on your Dashboard for access until the first day of term, Monday January 5, 2026, and access to courses typically ends eight weeks after the last day of class (approximately June 5, 2026). However, instructors may adjust their courses to open early or close late.
Due to the high volume of registration changes at the start of term, changes to registration in Workday can take up to 24 hours to reach Canvas.
What does this mean?
If you have recently registered for a course and do not see it on your Canvas dashboard:
- Log in to Canvas and click Courses in the global navigation.
- Select All Courses to see your complete list of courses.
- If the course does not appear in All Courses, wait 24 hours from when your registration was updated in Workday and check again.
- If the course is appearing under All Courses but it says “No” in the Published column, this means your instructor has not made the course accessible to students.
Where can I get further help?
If your course does not appear under All Courses in Canvas after 24 hours or you have questions about accessing courses at the start of term, please contact us at the LT Hub for support.
For more information about Canvas, please see our Canvas Student Guide.
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Posted in Canvas, Canvas News
December 3, 2025 at 12:46 pm
On December 5, 2025, between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Pacific, the Kaltura LTI integration in Canvas Catalog will be upgraded to use LTI 1.3.
What do you need to know about this change?
No downtime is expected, but you may notice a brief “blip” during the transition. After the upgrade, users’ “My Media” will be accessible via the Catalog main navigation menu.
Additionally, new features will be added, including:
- Enhanced Media Player
- Media Stitching for combining clips
- Recycle Bin for easy recovery
- Support for Documents
Thank you for your patience as we improve your experience!
Where can I get further help?
Please contact us at the LT Hub if you have questions about this change.
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Posted in Kaltura News
August 25, 2025 at 10:52 am
On August 19, 2025, 10:30 a.m. PST, we upgraded the Zoom integration in Canvas to a new version to improve overall stability and performance. The upgrade completed successfully; however, certain Zoom settings were reset in Canvas, and this reset may require you to re-add Zoom to areas of your Canvas course.
What do instructors need to know about this change?
- If you did not have Zoom in your Canvas Course Navigation and did not link to Zoom’s Canvas page in other areas of your course content, there is nothing to do. These two areas are the only areas that were impacted by the upgrade. Links to Zoom meetings and Zoom recordings in Canvas courses were not affected in any way.
- The Zoom menu item was removed from the Canvas Course Navigation for all courses. To re-add Zoom to your Course Navigation, first go to the “Navigation” tab in your course settings page. Find the “Zoom” menu item, click the options menu (the 3 vertical dots), choose “Enable”, and save your setting changes.
- Any links to Zoom’s Canvas page in other areas of your course were also removed. These links are created when you add an external tool to a Canvas module and select Zoom. If you wish to use this link to Zoom in your course, you will need to re-add Zoom as an external tool to the module(s).
Where can I get further help?
Please contact us at the LT Hub if you have questions about this change or would like assistance with Zoom or Canvas.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this upgrade and expect the improvements will ultimately support a positive experience in the coming term.
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Posted in Canvas News, Zoom News
August 20, 2025 at 3:00 pm
During 2024/25 W2 term, the LT Hub/LTIC had the opportunity to pilot Studiosity, an AI-based study tool designed to provide students with immediate feedback on their writing. The pilot has now concluded, and the UBC trial license for Studiosity is no longer available.
We would like to thank all those who participated in the pilot, and the team at Studiosity for setting us up with the tool and answering our myriad questions – it was a valuable learning experience for us at UBC about our own needs and approaches to teaching and supporting students with their learning with technology.
LTIC is committed to ecosystem vibrancy and to making available a rich suite of tools to educators and learners. We are undertaking a holistic process of examining our approaches for building out this ecosystem. We will let you know of any additional opportunities to try new tools in the coming year, and we thank everyone who participated in piloting this one—your time, feedback, and enthusiasm are always appreciated!
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Posted in Other Tool News
April 7, 2025 at 11:15 am
The LT Hub’s support for the chat tool Mattermost will end on Monday, May 5, 2025. After this date, Mattermost will no longer be available to use with central support at UBC.
Why is central support for Mattermost changing?
UBC’s learning technology leadership made this decision for several reasons:
- Since its adoption at UBC, Mattermost has seen a significant drop in use that is now disproportionate to its maintenance needs.
- The functionality of Mattermost is similar to what is now available in Microsoft Teams.
Where can I get support with transitioning?
For questions or requests for help in transitioning from Mattermost or with using Microsoft Teams, contact us at the LT Hub.
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Posted in Other Tool News