BYU-Idaho students and faculty will receive an email from BYU-Idaho IT Services regarding the university’s continued use of Canvas following reports of a widespread security incident affecting the platform.

The timing of the email remains unclear, according to Nathan Hellewell, IT shift lead.

BYU-Idaho IT services also updated their phone message on Thursday, saying "Canvas is accessible. At this time, we are continuing to monitor the situation closely in coordination with Instructure."

Previously, a yellow warning banner appeared on the student dashboard stating:

“Canvas has notified BYU-Idaho that it is currently unavailable due to a widespread security breach. Please do not attempt to log into Canvas at this time. Your instructors have been encouraged to work with you to accommodate deadlines and assignment submissions. Canvas is working to fix the issue. An estimated time for restoration is not yet available. Check for updates at status.byui.edu.”

As of this afternoon, Canvas remained under a yellow status on the BYU-Idaho IT Help Center dashboard, meaning the situation is still being monitored while the platform continues to be accessible.

Zander Marshall, a sophomore, majoring in computer engineering and an employee at the Information Technology Help Desk, in the Manwaring Center, encourages students to communicate with their professors and to remain patient.

"Just keep looking at whatever the school posts out, they'll keep updating us whether or not we can continue using it, or whether we should ever stop using it. But for the meantime, according to the site, it says that we should be good to go." said Marshall.

While university officials continue monitoring the situation, many students said the outage caused stress and uncertainty regarding assignments and deadlines.

Abigail Mason, a Junior majoring in English, said she felt overwhelmed when she learned that Canvas was down last night.

"I'll be honest, I cried a little bit". Mason said. "It's stressful having any sort of interruption to homework and classwork. There were assignments I hadn't completely looked ahead at and things that were due right away, but I had no way of submitting them."

Faculty members also experienced difficulties navigating classes without access to course materials, assignments and student submissions.

Keri Smith, a professor in the Department of Home and Family, said professors across campus have had to quickly adapt to the continue instruction.

"This impacts us in the fact that we too use Canvas heavily for what we need to accomplish as professors, and so it feels as if we're kind of adrift right now and not able to move forward." Smith said.

Smith said she plans to accommodate students by extending assignment deadlines while technical issues continue.

"What I'm going to do is adapt and push back the due dates of specific assignments," Smith said.

Teaching assistants have also worked to keep students informed during the outage.

Sri Gubbala, a sophomore majoring in business Analytics and a teaching assistant for two classes on campus, said he used Microsoft Teams to communicate updates and information with students.

"We need to communicate with the teachers and teaching assistants." Gubbala said. " I'm a TA for two classes and was worried about what would happen to the students in the class. So I gave them in Teams the link to the status page so we could all keep updated, but it was a little overwhelming."

Despite the uncertainty, Gubbala said staying informed has helped him remain calm throughout the situation.

"If we are prepared, we don't need to feel fear. I think that's what keeps me going. We should still be cautious about looking at these updates and what is going on." said Gubbala,

Students can continue to find updates regarding the status of Canvas on the BYU-Idaho IT services status website.