Instructure | Elevating Student Success | Steve Daly

“The acquisition of LearnPlatform underscores Instructure’s commitment to building an open global education platform,” said Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure. “K-12 and Higher Ed institutions need an efficient, research-based, insight-rich solution that drives the selection and ongoing management of the sprawling learning technology landscape. We believe that adding these solutions gives our customers and partners even more ways to measure the impact of their investments and drive student outcomes for each and every student.”

Based in North Carolina, the LearnPlatform team has approximately 70 employees. Since 2015, the company has equipped educators, leaders, policymakers and edtech partners with the tools to modernize their learning environments.

“We’re thrilled to join Instructure, a company dedicated to amplifying the power of teaching,” said Karl Rectanus, CEO of LearnPlatform. “As institutions and districts seek to understand and improve the effectiveness of their digital learning environments, the combination of LearnPlatform and Instructure will accelerate access to the trustworthy, independent evidence they need to inform decisions, providing customers and partners unprecedented insight into the learning journey of students.” 

With this acquisition, Instructure is building upon its commitment to a robust partner ecosystem. Instructure currently has more than 600 partners. By adding LearnPlatform, Instructure enhances capabilities for current and future partners who serve the educational community. With over 10,000 EduApp provider listings in the LearnPlatform ecosystem, Instructure can now offer even more value to its partners.

Instructure Announces Exclusive Partnership with K16 Solutions, Bringing Seamless Archiving to All Canvas Users

 Instructure, the leading learning platform and maker of Canvas, recently announced an exclusive partnership with K16 Solutions, the industry leader for content and data migration and integration, extending access to a simple yet powerful archiving solution to all Canvas customers. Institutions have long been overwhelmed with safeguarding student and course-level data while maintaining an efficient Canvas environment. The solution, Canvas Archiving Powered by K16 Solutions, is available immediately to Canvas customers worldwide.

Cluttered databases with sensitive student data present security risks and cause administrators to spend hours each month ensuring compliance with data governance policies. Canvas Archiving Powered by K16 Solutions gives Canvas users a simple way to control access to sensitive data and back up all student and course data with the click of a button. The proven archiving technology allows administrators to automate time-consuming manual tasks while adhering to complex governance policies, which differ from state to state. Unlike typical cold-storage archiving methods where data is difficult to access and restore, archived data from Canvas Archiving remains completely accessible, making it easy for institutions to restore full, readable content to Canvas.

“It’s essential to protect student data, but the complex and time-consuming process has made the job more difficult than it should be for administrators,” said Liz Crawford, Vice President of Partnerships at Instructure. “This partnership with K16 Solutions creates a powerful, yet simple solution to a common problem for educational institutions worldwide. And represents part of our robust Instructure Learning Platform, designed to meet the evolving needs of institutions to help amplify the power of teaching and learning.”

Historically, during an LMS migration, administrators were forced to back up their data by zipping files and storing them offline. In response to this need, K16 Solutions created an archiving solution to assist customers in moving to Canvas from other LMS platforms. After incorporating feedback and expanding the solution over several years, K16 Solutions has now created a Canvas-specific backup and archiving solution for existing Canvas users. 

“We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Instructure by offering Canvas customers a sophisticated archiving solution that allows them to archive their aging content and back up sensitive student data,” said Steve Mildner, Chief Operating Officer at K16 Solutions. “A more user-friendly archiving platform in higher education has long been overdue, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of this breakthrough with Instructure.”

“We needed a way to back up and secure our course content and data–and that’s what we got,” said Sam Kelly, LMS and senior systems administrator at Seminole State College of Florida, who piloted an early version of the product. “With Canvas Archiving powered by K16 Solutions, we can secure our student data, stay compliant, and remain in good standing for accreditation purposes.”

Positive Impact of AI

The company also conducted a survey about the experiences and attitudes of educators and students on generative AI. The survey, conducted by research firm Justkul Inc., found that while its over 1,000 respondents, comprised of students, educators and administrators from K-12 and higher education institutions, feel generative AI helps students understand their strengths and weaknesses despite the fact that it is “likely used sometimes” to cheat. Respondents feel generative AI is more helpful than harmful and makes students feel more confident.

According to the survey, sentiment about AI is primarily positive, with 54.5% of teachers, students and administrators feeling either very positive or positive about the technology, with 29.9% staying neutral. While both teachers and students agree that the biggest risk of generative AI technology is cheating in the classroom, teachers (76.4%) are more concerned about the risk of cheating with this technology than students (43.5%). Despite the rapid adoption of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in K-12 and higher education, the survey found that over half of respondents (57.4%) have not used AI for their schoolwork.

“The results of this survey show the majority of educators and students are beginning to see the benefits of generative in a classroom setting,” said Ryan Lufkin, vice president of global strategy at Instructure. “Used correctly, this transformative technology can elevate student success, empower educators and enhance the ways we teach and learn. When implemented with an intentional, secure and human-driven approach–generative AI has the power to save educators time and promote impactful learning experiences for all.”