The Latest

May 8, 2026; 5:45 p.m.

Thank you for your patience as university teams worked to restore Canvas access during this national outage. Canvas is now back online at UW–Madison, although not all connected tools may be available immediately. Please visit outages.doit.wisc.edu for current status information.

If you continue to experience issues, clear your cache and cookies in your desktop and mobile browsers, then contact the DoIT Help Desk.

If further updates are appropriate, they will be posted at alerts.wisc.edu.

With this type of high-profile outage, there is often an increase in related phishing attempts. Please be alert and use caution when interacting with unsolicited emails that create a sense of urgency, contain grammatical errors, misspelled URLs, or have unusual “From” or “Reply-to” fields.

While this event was beyond our control, we do acknowledge the stress and inconvenience that it may have caused. We hope this information is helpful, and you have a successful end to your semester.

Students

We have told instructors that it is essential to remain flexible on tests or assignments that were scheduled for May 7 and May 8, 2026. If you still have pending exams or assignments, please wait for instructions from your instructor. If you have questions, you should contact your instructor directly.

Instructors

If you have any outstanding assignments or exams that were disrupted or postponed by this outage, please be in touch with affected students.

As we have previously shared, it is essential for you to remain flexible on exams or assignments that were scheduled for May 7 and May 8, 2026. Please keep in mind that beginning yesterday afternoon (May 7), students did not have access to materials in Canvas to prepare for their remaining finals and assignments.

The grading deadline has been extended to 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, 2026.

If you have questions, please contact your department chair and/or dean’s office.

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May 8, 2026; 11 a.m.

Thank you for your patience as campus teams work to address the impact of the national Canvas outage at UW–Madison. We understand this disruption creates significant difficulties and, despite reports from other institutions, Canvas is still down for UW–Madison.

Graduation ceremonies and celebrations will continue as planned and students who have pending exams should participate in ceremonies as planned.

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May 8, 2026; 10:15 a.m.

The platform used to order official transcripts is once again available.

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May 7, 2026; 6:30 p.m.

At around 3 p.m. today, the Universities of Wisconsin Administration and UW–Madison became part of a nationwide Canvas outage.

We are aware of the outage and multiple teams are working with the Universities of Wisconsin Administration and UW–Madison to address this issue on behalf of our students.

We recognize this is occurring at a very challenging time during final exams and grading, and we’re committed to providing you with support and flexibility as we navigate this significant disruption.

Important: If Canvas prompts you to perform any action – such as clicking a link, logging in, resetting your password, or completing any tasks – do not proceed. These prompts may not be legitimate while the system is down. We will send a follow-up notification when Canvas is back online.

The original breach, first reported May 1, affects the cloud-based system operated by Instructure, and affects UW–Madison and all other Universities of Wisconsin (UWs) campuses.

As we know more, we will share it promptly. Thanks for your patience.

For Instructors

It is essential that we all provide flexibility to students with any outstanding exams and assignments. As of 3 p.m. Thursday, students lost access to all materials in Canvas to assist in their exam or assignment preparation and submission.

Final Exam Concerns

• If you are unable to administer your final exam or you feel students cannot prepare adequately without access to Canvas, you should use an alternative option, such as, basing grades on work completed so far. You are encouraged to consult with your department chair, academic dean’s office, or other colleagues as you weigh the options.
• However you plan to proceed, please communicate with your students as soon as possible.
• If you are administering a final exam that does not involve the use of Canvas, please continue as planned.

Grading Concerns

• If you are able to submit final grades without the use of Canvas, please continue as planned.
  • Refer to our KnowledgeBase (KB) for guided steps to grading in Faculty Center.
• The deadline to submit grades for all courses has been extended to 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, May 14.

As we know more, we will share additional information about final exams and grade submission.

For Students

If you have an upcoming final exam:

• If the exam does not involve the use of Canvas, please continue as planned.
• If the exam was to be administered in Canvas, please watch for communication from your instructor.

As we know more, we will share additional information about final exams and grading.

Transcript Orders

Ordering official transcripts is currently unavailable.