Canvas and the Power of a Connected Ecosystem

The Power of Openness: Canvas as the Original Flexible LMS

Canvas is the original open LMS, purpose-built from the start with openness and flexibility at its core. When it launched, Canvas broke new ground as the first LMS designed with open APIs, setting a new standard for how learning platforms could integrate with other apps and systems. 

This foundational commitment to openness wasn’t just a technical decision, it was a reflection of our belief that every classroom, institution, and educator is unique. By prioritizing seamless integrations from the very beginning, Canvas empowered schools to customize their learning environments to meet specific teaching and learning needs. 

That early and ongoing focus on integration has made Canvas not just adaptable, but a truly effective and convenient hub for day-to-day instruction—bringing together the apps educators rely on while keeping the experience simple, streamlined, and centered on learning.

One Hub, Endless Possibilities: Canvas and the EdTech Collective

Our commitment to openness has helped us build a vibrant partner ecosystem, the EdTech Collective. With over 1000+ Edtech companies in the EdTech Collective, Canvas connects educators and learners to the apps they already use and love. 

On average, there are 54 LTI apps installed per Canvas account, and 30+ million LTI app launches occur daily via the LMS. Whether it’s assessment, content, accessibility, or analytics, the EdTech Collective brings together a diverse array of solutions to enrich every learning journey and extend the power of the LMS. We make it easy for institutions to discover and implement the best-fit apps for their unique needs because better connections create better learning outcomes.

With so many integrated apps in use across today’s classrooms, we recognize that educators and students need convenient, efficient ways to manage them all. That’s why Canvas LMS acts as a centralized hub for teaching and learning, bringing together disparate apps into a cohesive, user-friendly ecosystem. By simplifying access and streamlining workflows, Canvas reduces complexity and helps ensure that the focus remains on what matters most: effective instruction and meaningful learning experiences.

Smarter and Easier App Management: The New Canvas Apps Experience

For administrators, life gets even easier. The new Canvas Apps experience streamlines the entire process of discovering, vetting, managing, and monitoring integrated apps. With a centralized hub to search for and explore educational apps, admins can now quickly find the apps that best fit their institution’s unique needs. We understand that every school has its own vetting and approval process, so Canvas Apps surfaces the critical information upfront—from permissions and data access to visibility controls—empowering admins to make informed decisions with confidence. The Monitor page of Canvas Apps provides LTI usage data for the most commonly used apps, helping schools make better decisions around renewals, deepening adoption, and migration. Customers with a subscription to Impact will see even more data and will have advanced functionality such as the ability to view and analyze 100% of their apps, the ability to act on this data, and more. 

Canvas Apps is a smarter, more transparent way to manage integrations, freeing up time for admins while facilitating a cyclical approach to app vetting and implementation that enhances the overall teaching and learning experience. For more information on Canvas Apps, check out this product blog. 

Quality You Can Trust: Instructure’s Commitment to EdTech Excellence

With so many options when it comes to edtech, Instructure recognizes that ensuring access to high quality integrations is absolutely critical. That’s why we recently introduced our Canvas Certified Integration Program, which helps administrators recognize best-of-breed apps. Solutions that complete the program are awarded a badge for easy visibility in Canvas Apps, and administrators can trust they are built to LTI 1.3 standards, provide an outstanding user experience within Canvas LMS, and are committed to transparency around data privacy and accessibility. 

This commitment to quality is also why we’ve built an expert in-house research team with a combined 70+ years of education research experience. This team has worked with 100+ edtech partners to build comprehensive logic models for high-fidelity implementation and conduct context-specific empirical outcomes studies, all designed to help educators apply evidence-backed practices in the classroom. 

Want to learn more about Instructure’s industry-leading partner ecosystem? Get to know our Partners by exploring the EdTech Collective Marketplace and check out Canvas integrated app use cases on our Community Partners page.