To comply with USG records management policies and maintain system performance, older academic and non-academic (non-Banner) Canvas courses will be periodically removed as outlined below. On December 15, 2025, academic courses that are seven years or older will be deleted. Additionally, non-Banner Courses: Sandboxes and project sites with no activity for 2 years will be deleted on December 15, 2025.

Key Points

• Academic Courses: Banner-provisioned courses become read-only two weeks after term end and are deleted 7 years later. Unpublished courses with no activity are deleted at term end. 
• Non-Banner Courses: Sandboxes and project sites with no activity for 2 years are deleted.  
• No Recovery: Once deleted, courses and content cannot be restored. 

Why This Matters…

• Privacy & Security: Aligns with USG retention standards. 
• System Health: Prevents storage overload and performance issues. 

How to Save Your Content

• Instructors: Export course content (IMSCC zip), download files, export grades (CSV), and bulk download submissions. 
  • How to Export a Canvas Course 
  • How to Download a File or Folder 
  • Export Grades 
  • How to download student submissions for an assignment 

• Students: Save coursework locally or save to GT cloud storage after each semester. 
  • How to download assignments submissions from all courses 

Please review the Canvas Data Retention article for full details and support. 

Canvas Credentials is officially rebranding to Parchment Digital Badges on October 31, 2025!

This rebrand marks a significant step forward in Instructure’s mission to streamline digital credentialing and enhance the way learning achievements are recognized and celebrated. While the name and branding will change, rest assured—there will be no changes to functionality. Your experience issuing and managing badges will remain seamless and familiar. 

🔄 What’s Changing?

Canvas Credentials is being rebranded as Parchment Digital Badges, now part of the Parchment Award suite, one of the Instructure brands. This is a change in branding only — there are no changes to how the product functions or how it’s accessed. The only noticeable changes will be the new logo in the interface where “Canvas Credentials” previously appeared and the URL to our Canvas Credentials instance will invoke Parchment. 

Here’s an example of the new branding in the product interface:

💡 Why the Rebrand?

This rebrand aligns Canvas Credentials with Parchment, the world’s largest credential exchange network. Joining forces will create a more unified and powerful ecosystem for digital credentials that: 

• Connects learning career outcomes using real-time labor market data. 
• Supports stackable, skills-based badges that reflect real-world competencies. 
• Empowers learners to showcase their achievements across platforms like LinkedIn, resumes, and digital portfolios. 
• Simplifies credential management for institutions and organizations. 

🔗 Resources & Support

• To help you navigate this transition smoothly, please refer to the official FAQs for detailed answers to common questions.
• Product Blog: Parchment Award Digital Badges – A New Era in Credentialing
• If you have any questions, email the Digital Learning Team at canvas@gatech.edu.

On Friday, October 3, 2025 (note: originally September 22^nd), any existing or newly added YouTube videos embedded in Canvas may begin showing advertisements and video recommendations, potentially disrupting the learning experience. This change comes as part of YouTube’s updated integration policies, and it’s important for educators and instructional designers to prepare accordingly. Please note that these ads are controlled by YouTube and cannot be disabled within Canvas. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Digital Learning Team at canvas@gatech.edu.  

Please note that upgrading to macOS Tahoe currently causes all new Kaltura Capture recordings to produce corrupted video files. Playback freezes both in Kaltura MediaSpace and when viewed locally on the device. Upgrading to macOS Tahoe at this time will render Kaltura Capture unusable until a fix is released. We are actively monitoring the situation and will provide updates as soon as the vendor releases a resolution.

Please contact the Digital Learning Team at canvas@gatech.edu, if there are any further questions.

We are very excited to announce improvements to GT’s Padlet account access URL. It is moving from gatech.padlet.org to padlet.com/gatech on September 17, 2025.

Please note that once the migration to the “.com” domain happens, the old URL will be redirected to the new URL, and the integration with Canvas will not be impacted. 

🛠️ What’s changing 

• Users can sign up or log in with SAML by going to padlet.com/gatech. 
• Improved safety permissions to restrict access for students to only use and share Padlets within the Gatech account. Read more here. 

📝 What you need to do 

• Bookmark your new school URL: padlet.com/gatech. 
• Read the migration resources below. 

📚 Migration resources 

To help your team get up to speed, we’ve created three quick-start guides: 

1. From Backpack to Padlet for Schools: Explains the migration taking place. 
2. Teacher Quick Guide: Walks teachers through where to find their padlets, how to share them, and what’s new. 

❓Questions 

• We’re here to help. Send us an email at canvas@gatech.edu

Effective December 1, 2025, Qualtrics will officially deprecate Contact List Triggers. This means: Existing triggers will stop functioning. Contacts will no longer be added to lists via triggers. No new triggers can be created.

🔄 What’s Replacing Triggers?

Qualtrics is transitioning to a more robust and flexible system called Contact List Workflows, available in the Actions tab. These workflows offer:

• Enhanced automation capabilities
• Better integration with survey distributions
• Improved reliability and reporting features

✅ Required Action

To avoid disruption:

• Review your current surveys and workflows.
• Replace all Contact List Triggers with the new Workflow Tasks before December 1, 2025.

🛠 Resources & Support

• Step-by-step guides are available in the Qualtrics Experience Community
• For assistance, contact the Customer Success Hub Contact List Triggers.

New feature alert! 🚨💻 The Respondus 4 Exam Authoring tool now supports the publishing of assessments directly to Canvas New Quizzes. Previously, you could publish an assessment to Classic Quizzes and manually convert it to a New Quiz.

How to Update

To update to the latest version of Respondus 4, go to the Help menu and select “Check for Update”. The application will additionally prompt users to update in the coming weeks. 

How it Works

To update to the latest version of Respondus 4, go to the Help menu and select “Check for Update”. The application will additionally prompt users to update in the coming weeks. 

If you have any questions, please email us at canvas@gatech.edu.

Happy Friday, DLT Blog Subscribers! 💛 💻

Please note that after June 30, 2025, VoiceThread will be retiring our custom subdomain (http://gatech.voicethread.com/). You will now be redirected to https://voicethread.com.

To access VoiceThread from outside of Canvas:

• Go to https://voicethread.com
• Click “Sign in.” 
• Click “Sign in via institution.” 
• Search for ‘Georgia Tech’. 
• Click Sign In to be redirected to the GT login page. 

Will the Canvas LTI integration be affected? 

Since GT has VoiceThread integrated using LTI 1.3, we are good to go! Everything should continue to work seamlessly. 

Will any work or accounts be lost? 

Not at all! This simply changes the page where users will go to sign in if they aren’t accessing Canvas. 

Please contact canvas@gatech.edu if you have any questions!