UPDATE, 5/8:
Baylor University shared on update on the status of the Canvas system.
Access to Canvas will be available starting at 1:00 p.m. today.
Finals scheduled for today will now be held on Thursday, May 14. They will done online.
You can find more information here.
UPDATE 5/7:
Baylor has announced they will be delaying finals taking place on Friday. At this time, they have not announced a new date for finals.
ORIGINAL:
Canvas, the widely used learning management platform, is currently unavailable university-wide at Baylor, Texas A&M and other universities across the country after Instructure took the system offline May 7, 2026.
The outage follows reports from multiple universities that their access to Canvas was blocked by a ransom notice. Instructure took Canvas offline in response. The universities say users should not attempt to engage with or respond within the Canvas system until further notice.
Baylor and Texas A&M teams are actively monitoring the situation and working with the vendor toward resolution. For Baylor, updates are available at systemstatus.baylor.edu.
On Friday, as commencement ceremonies are underway, Texas A&M said it's monitoring the situation.
Texas A&M University’s IT professionals are addressing a nationwide data incident affecting Canvas, our learning management system. University officials are monitoring the vendor-related situation alongside Canvas’ parent company and will provide updates via the IT Status Alerts webpage. Texas A&M asks students and faculty to be alert for scams and report any suspicious communications to Help Desk Central at 979-845-8300 or helpdesk@tamu.edu
The outage comes after Baylor ITS was notified on May 6, 2026, of a data breach at Instructure. Canvas supports learning at 41% of higher education institutions in North America. The breach impacted Baylor's data stored on Instructure's servers, along with data from an undetermined number of other higher education customers.
Universities are advising students and staff to:
- Beware of suspicious messages. Do not click links in unsolicited messages claiming to be
from Canvas or Instructure - Access Canvas and other websites directly. Avoid clicking links whenever possible to
- access online resources.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
