Strategic Plan and Vision & Learner Record

A lot of a lot of information about what was necessary and what was important. And so one of the things that was first step for us was looking at every single one of those ideas and themes in the community. Right? There were over fifteen thousand posts, that we sat down as a team, and we went through every single one of them. To categorize them and and group them into, into buckets. And there were some obvious ones that jumped up to the top. There were some not so obvious long tail ones that are are different from institution to institution, but that process really helped us crystalize, things that are important things that were categorically, grouping well together.

And then the other lens that we had to apply was how complex some of these things were. Right? We have our infrastructure of Canvas has grown up with it, and it is tremendous where it's gotten. But to help us go to the next generation, we're gonna need to move in a more efficient way to be able to make more progress against these. And so, while we certainly had some successes, right, knocking out ideas, we've had over ninety eight ideas, since the launch of ideas and themes, early in twenty three. We've we've seen a lot of things that have come out both things that have been prioritize things that have been easy for the team to tackle, but we also realize there have been some challenges.

And I'll I'll be, the first to admit that me and Kalpa on this. We I I I take accountability for the fact that when we looked at the most recent round of prioritization. Right? There were a number of things that got a lot of votes and did not get prioritized. And so that is something that we are remedying. Right? I've, as I've, gotten to understand the the rationale for why that is, and there were good reasons for it.

But regardless, I think, building trust with this community is important to us and, asking you all to prioritize things and vote on them and then not working on them right, jeopardizes that trust. And so that is something that I am working with the team on. So look for a blog post update from me, in the in the very near future, not the next couple of weeks or so. On how we can actually tackle, the top most vote getter, which we know is really important for everyone. And as we work our way through, And and we're also, we're also going to benefit from some of the tech modernization that we're doing that will allow to move more quickly through those ideas.

Right? A lot of the reason things don't get prioritized sometimes is because the the space and the capacity associated And we wanna make that less of a challenge so we can work through more of those ideas. So to challenge one research of what we addressed, in in one age, in the first half of two thousand, twenty four, not what you all most prioritize. So challenge one, we're we're tackling that challenge two, we've heard some feedback about it not being fully representative of all of the users, all of the administrators, not everyone's going there. And so we're not using it exclusively as a source of prioritization, but we are soliciting inputs, from other places. And I think we need to reflect some of that better.

Right? So when we've got inputs, from other sources from conversations like this, etcetera. We wanna make sure that they were sharing all of the things we're hearing so that folks understand where we've prioritized. And the third sort of big one is the the weighting of the votes is overwhelmingly in favor of canvas, and sort of sort of it dominates the vote getting. And so we need to almost think about categorization of things that are all things Canvas LMS versus everything else because they'll they'll be voted on and sort of two cadences. So some work to be done here on ideas and themes.

We think it's progress, right, some from the, the previous iteration of it, which was just, you know, abandonment. Right? There was not a lot of attention being paid to those. At least there is some focus and attention, and recognizing, of course, that there is more to be done. So, certainly look for that, certain games there. The other piece, I heard loud and clear was, hey, we don't have a visibility to what coming.

We need, we need some transparency. And so one of the things we launched, we actually launched in q four of twenty twenty two, was a public road map. Right? So I made a commitment to you all that we would publish a twelve month rolling road map. Right? The first quarter ahead of it would be explicit concrete and very clear. Two, three quarters out, you know, would be planned, but not always, not always for sure because there were some evolutions that would happen, but giving you some visibility and then the other part I heard around the road map was that's great if you publish a road map, but are you actually gonna fulfill, on the things you're committing to? And so in that time, right, in this past year, year, and a quarter.

We've had over a hundred, major on time road map releases. Right? Things that we said we would do and committed to doing and then delivered, and fulfilled And for those of you who were, at instructurecon, you probably saw sort of the litany of the ones, of the things that we do. So we we definitely do feel like we're creating more transparency. I think a couple of, you know, criticisms will lobby against, our road map here, right, is we're still we're doing a lot as I mentioned to scale up our platform as we start to think about larger core sizes, being able to create, you know, stability and performance of the platform are paramount for us. And so, those have always been non negotiables, and they are taking up some space on the roadmap.

And we wanna make sure that they take up less and less space, so we do have more and more space for innovation. And we also recognize that, especially as we talk with, with faculty, right, there were things that were beneficial for administrators that were, weighted higher. And so there are some things that faculty are looking for just in the in the everyday course of administering and managing, and teaching and learning, how can we make, make things better for for faculty as we're going? So we've we've got that accounted for as we think about, the road ahead here that I'll share in just a minute. And the final piece is sort of this, idea of partnership at kind of a tactical level was really engaging, with the community. Right? And, you'll see more and more engagement from product managers on the team one of whom is, I think, gonna be already there or, we'll be presenting a little later today.

Right? Just sharing what we were doing, sharing the Now you may not always agree, but at least we want you to understand the why behind some of our decisions. And and I think we're seeing some signs and reflection that there is a lot of that engagement that's starting to happen in the community. One of the other things that we were looking to understand was in our community, how do those map to, each of you, your customers, each of your institutions because we need to understand if there's feedback that's coming that's over weighted from a subset of institutions or that's feedback that's coming from all of the institutions, which just helps us sort of rationalize. So we think there's some increases in the engagement that's happening there. We also recognize, and and I certainly I have a visceral, pain of this, that there is information in a lot of different places across our community and documentation and posts, etcetera, and making sometimes some sense of that, figuring out which post to go to.

Is something that is challenging, right, to to know where to go, for which piece of information. And so, we're we're doing some things to try to make sure that we don't have you know, really, really aging posts from years and years ago suddenly resurrected because I think that that throws people off, without context. But at the same time not losing the information and the nuance that's in there and helping to organize this, and this is where I think, we can also take advantage of improvements in technology for searches and ability to to parse things and organize things, to make it better. So I think that's one the other piece I've heard around our documentation is we do have some opportunities there. Right? So so certainly power users of our documentation love it.

But there is a lot of it and it's not always accessible, and it's not always, digestible. Right? So being able to get quick snapshots of the information, being able to to consume the information in different formats, at a short ten second video of the change, illustrating the change may be as easier sometimes to process than a five page technical document. So, we're looking at ways to enhance how we think about our documentation, and making it such that you can find it. Right? Because there's I'll tell you I've been in a number of conversations, where someone said, hey, I really wish you all had x, y, or z in the product. And I said, well, we actually released that a quarter ago or two quarters ago, and to me that says, hey, we're we need to do better about communicating the things that we're already doing just to make sure that, there is visibility.

Right? So, I appreciate you all. Going on this journey with us, your partnership with us, and your patience as we've learned along the way what's working, what's not. It's an it's an always always evolving work in progress. And so we're taking some of our learnings and applying them and thinking about how we, we bring them to deepen further our partnership because, you know, as I've said, when I joined, then I'll continue to say, right? We'll be we are building this product with you for you. And we wanna make sure that it is reflective of the things that are most important.

Again, we can't prioritize every single person's thing at every single time but we we do strive to make it, as thoughtful, as possible. And and speaking of sort of kind of the thoughtfulness of this interaction. So a lot of what I'm describing here is sort of the very tactical, nuts and bolts kinds of conversations. We talked also about setting up more deep conversations, right, in the context of, of those changes. So I'll I'll talk a bit more about strategic conversations as well.

But but I wanted to make a point about, some of the big changes that have happened. Right? So I I mentioned there's a number of of things that have been in the works for for many years, you know, new quizzes going back quite a ways. And I think it's important for us to, to acknowledge that that does create some challenges for you all. Right? So you you'll hear mentioned about this. It was coincidental, convergence here, but you'll hear a mention of, the work of Doctor.

Coubler Ross around change. Right? But I just thought it was helpful for us to kinda look at it in context the the change cycle, I'm sure not new to all of you. But if you think about, this this cycle of change, I think one of the things that's often talked about, right, is this valley of despair as you're going through, the change cycle before you come out of that change cycle and get to the point where, things are are making progress. And and one of the things, that I recognize that we're doing as a function of the number of changes. Right? We've had some big changes.

Right? So we've got new quizzes, that's offering this really big value of change. But we've also had other things, right, in in the last sort of twenty four months or so in the context of the move from CD one to CD two. And that's introduced some change, into the process perhaps a little less dramatic than new quizzes, but still change nonetheless. I know there's been some discussion around discussions. Right? And, pardon upon there.

But, again, I think, it is of the changes. Right? Something that is pointed at the most minimal impactful change would try to make it as seamless as possible, but still change to manage. And so as these things have been stacking together, right, and as you think about the the last six months and the next six months, we're in this you know, this peak concentration of a lot of change. And and I I want to fully acknowledge the fact that that might mean that you all are navigating the change yourselves, but you all also have constituents, that you're navigating that change with. And it's against the landscape, of trust that is being rebuilt.

And so, I wanna just acknowledge and call it like it is. Right? There is a lot of change that is happening. And as I've said, we're we're moving as a team towards not having big bank changes because that's just not, the way modern software ought to be built and it's not productive for you all. And so making changes be a little bit more evolutionary as opposed to, revolutionary, I think, is really critical. And so, again, I just I call this out only to say, I know it's on your minds.

I want you to know I know, and and the team knows, and we're all viscerally aware And we're doing lots of things to try to make the change, as painless as we possibly can, recognizing that it is in fact changed, and so kind of embracing that. So That sort of reflects, sort of the the practical realities, right, of how we've been doing. I think the other piece that I I've been really excited about is the more strategic conversations that we've been able to have with you all. So we've had, you know, a number of different venues and forum for having these more strategic conversations. We've had customer advisory boards, a number of you, our participants of them, where we've talked a bit about some of the things that, are most pressing for you.

I think we've learned some things. Right? We launched with a virtual cab. We learned some of the challenges with having a very global audience, and what we needed to do, how we best needed to facilitate and having subject matter expertise we moved to more regionalized cabs, and we did a mix of in person virtual ones. Right? It was it was really powerful from a relationship building standpoint. Certainly, in person, way more engaging two hours over a Zoom can be, can be intimidating.

I can imagine, from folks. So, lots of learnings from there. And we're moving as we think about the next year, this year ahead here, to having more of these conversations and mixing them up. So we do have some in person and actual time and be able to get together, and instructure Khan, and be able to do more meaningful deeper dive things in there by doing some pre work upfront and focus thing. So so lots of great high level strategic things.

You'll see some of the thematic learnings that have come out of the, the CAB sessions. And we've also gone deep in a couple of areas. Right? We know there are things that are top of mind as folks are thinking about, you know, non traditional learning or the new modes of learning, consumption as you think about the impact that has on enrollments and the type of enrollments you all are navigating as you think about, state mandates, right, for, badging and credentials and workforce readiness and those kinds of things. We've we've sort of gravitated around this nexus non traditional, lifelong learning, learner passports. I'll talk a bit more about that kind of in our future section.

And, of course, lots of discussion around, you know, making sure that the core canvas product, still does all of the things we need it to and continues to evolve to do all of the things. There are lots of different working groups, across different communities represented here, that have yielded lots of great insights for us. Right? So, we we've gathered and synthesized a lot of the insights. We've also looked at sort of what the market landscape looks like, talked a lot about sort of the, the things that are important, as we've seen in in the research and the conversations that we're having. And they've all sort of coalesced, around some thematic areas, right, which I'll I'll share here.

These six sort of persistent trends that we're seeing in multiple of the conversations, that we've been having in the research that's out there that we spend time with, in in coming out of these strategic conversations. These are six things, that are common across many, many, many of you. And some of these, you may look at, and some of you may say some of these resonate. Others of you may say, well, I don't know if that's the top topmost thing that's on my mind. And that's and that's common.

Right? There are some things that are more resonant for some institutions than others. But in the main, these six are the things that are top most of mine. And so I won't read you every single one of them, but I'll I'll just sort of sort of vignette it, around core learning management critical, right, making sure that it remains contemporary for the learner, ways to evaluate skill and competency, right, as we think about all of the different ways that is done today and all of the ways that it's gonna move to in the future as we think about workforce readiness and micro credentialing and macro credentialing and so on. The shift in enrollment patterns, right, as as enrollment is shifting toward, more modalities of learning, right, more more sequences and more formats, all the different, forms of learning from a traditional matriculating program to the certificate in the online programs. So lots of shifts happening there.

Data continues to be a priority, but what is true about data is that it is becoming overwhelming the volume of it. And it's not about the data. Right? And it's not even about the pretty dashboards that you can make out of the data. But it is actually being able to mine those insights, right, being able to consume that data to be able to mine the insight and then turn it into that next action. Whether that action is identifying a student who maybe, needs some attention or identifying a course, or a faculty member who may want a little sup a little more support or identifying some some institutional patterns, right, so being able to make sense of that data.

The the tool ecosystem out there is phenomenal. It is great. There is a lot of great niche solutions, but it is also very sprawling. It is time consuming to understand manage, to to navigate the one z two z, like, hey, I'd like to try this tool types of requests in the context of an ecosystem of tools. Particularly when you are also thinking about how to manage those tools and the budgets associated with those tools.

So something that's coming up a lot. And then finally, the idea of being able to translate these educational, pursuits into career outcomes. Right? How how can we reflect that how are these things, and, again, in some cases, being driven by, more direction from, state level, authorities or in some cases driven by institutional motivation or very often both, right, working in in tandem to help learners demonstrate their needs and their accomplishments. So these are the things kinda coming out of. So a lot of those strategic conversations, we identified these themes and and we kind of workshop a few of them together, which is sort of shaped, where we're gonna go.

Right? So that was sort of the the reflection on the year past the things that we've learned, the, the opportunities we have to keep getting better and and the insights and the the strategies that are topmost of mind for you all and how we're thinking about what that translates into into the work ahead. So as we start to think about the work ahead, right, as we sort of think about the the future facing roadmap and the and the strategies we're thinking about. We took these trends, these these thematic areas, and we sort of mapped them to the universe of product we have. Right? We talk a lot about, the instructor learning platform. Right? And so, you may have seen versions of the Instructure Learning platform, this ecosystem, but they really map to these these areas of value.

Right? And there are multiple products in each of these things. We don't wanna talk about individual products. We wanna talk about the problems that these products can solve and how best we can help solve particular needs. So whatever the needs are, how best do we translate them, into value for you? And so you'll see throughout, the the conversation today how things kind of organically map to these value solutions you know, certainly I'll talk about them at a really high level and you've got some really good deep dive sessions planned with a a robust group of folks from instructure, who I'm I'm super excited you get to hear from, just talking about some of the elements in each of these areas. In particular, we'll spend time around the lifelong learning learning passports piece I'll I'll touch on a little bit, in the conversation.

What is new, right, with the conclusion of the parchment acquisition and how that will fit into the larger sort of platform piece. We'll also talk a lot about, this idea of, lifelong learning and and all the pieces that show up in there. And and in a couple of these spaces, you'll spend some time deeper dive, with a number of our folks. So That's the highest level, sort of view of how we've translated the trends into the solution offerings, that we are, thinking about for the year ahead. Right? So how does that look, in the context of that multiyear journey? Right? So I I mentioned this is a multiyear journey because there's some things that we've already done, and you'll start to see things skew a little further and further in the timeline towards twenty twenty four, but also hinting at some opportunity space for twenty twenty five.

There are things that we continue to do in our core products that will continue into twenty four But one of the things we need to do more of, right, and we started it. Right? We started it in the tail end of last year, is restarting, or reinvigorating the innovation engine not just to do innovation for innovation sake, but to be focused on, some of the top most needs, that are that are on your minds. One thematic thing that I didn't talk about as a trend, because two reasons. One, you're gonna hear a lot more about it, in a session later today. But to our philosophy to how we're approaching it is is AI.

Right? So rather than thinking about AI as this temporary isolated thing, you'll hear more from, you know, my amazing colleagues, Ryan, and Zach around how they're, how they're describing our approach to AI, but it's really about infusing it through all of these elements. So as I kind of go through, each of these areas, you'll see, some some spray colings of AI. Again, I won't spend a lot of time on it, not to, to steal thunder from the great conversations that will come to follow. But, you know, if you think about where we're innovating, right, talked about lifelong, nontraditional learning. Right? That's a core area that we've gotta think about.

We know we've made a lot of progress on analytics, right, with getting the foundational layer in our admin analytics offering, but we know we've got more to go. There's more insight that we can help you get to because again, it's not about the data. It's not about the dashboards. It's actually about being able to identify those insights and turn them into action. So we've got work to be done, work to be done there.

We talked about the the sprawling ecosystem of tools. Right? And we have, we have opportunities to help navigate some of that sprawl, navigate the efficiency of the the ecosystem of tools, both working with you to help you navigate that, but also working with our partners. And so we'll talk a bit about that. And, of course, all of that can't be done if we don't spend more time on the core LMS. Right? Because that is the bread and butter, of of many of how you all are thinking about the implementation for many of you.

And so, spending time talking a bit about what we're doing in the core LMS and the areas that are most present and most relevant, which, I believe are true for you, but also are true for many of our customers, which is areas of focus around larger and larger courses being able to support, new forms of grading, all kinds of things in addition to the things that we've talked about around discussions for brick and grading. So we'll talk a bit now here about where we're planning on innovating. And I'm actually gonna start with the LMS because I think that is the the foundation on maybe as top of mind for you all. Before we go into some of the the sort of more future facing things. So let me start, first, as I talk about the core LMS, with a question that I got which I thought was a really profound question.

And I thought it'd be helpful to share. Right? I I got a question about what things do we choose to build versus what what things do we choose to buy? Versus what things do we, you know, leverage with partners given that ecosystem of partners, that's out there. And so what I thought I'd share is kind of a quick rubric for how we think about, our our decisions around building, buying, or partnering. So there there are two axes here in this two by two. The x axis reflects complexity of integration that's required with the LMS.

So some things require really deep hooks into the LMS to ensure grading is following all the way through and it's respecting cohorts and sections and things like that. So it's really complex and other things are lighter weight and don't actually need much beyond an LTI implementation. So you've got this low to high spectrum on the x axis of the complexity of the integration. On the y axis, you've got the urgency of the need. Right? This is something that we need to solve right now immediately.

It's an immediate challenge for us, versus something that sort of, you know, it's important, but it's coming soon, but not immediate, or or things that might take a little bit more time to mature. It's a niche need only for some, portions of the institution, some departments, maybe even an individual faculty member. And so if you think about it creating this this two by two matrix, The things that require really complex integration and the things for which there's not a burning deadline, right, because building things, takes time to build it. Right? So where we've got some time to discover to iterate, those are the things that lend themselves really well to building because they are core to the experience. And getting them right is really important and making sure that we don't create too much change, right, that that that value of despair, value of uncertainty.

So making sure that we have time to work on it. So those are the things that we look to build. There are things that we know, are really complex to do, but maybe would benefit from being able to get something off the shelf. Right? And so when I say buy, that could be buying an entire organization, an entire company, that could just be buying technology. Right? And you'll see some examples of this as we go through, I'll I'll call them out.

But there are some things that we've been able to accelerate typically around data by simply buying technology, integrating it deeply, and then customizing it to suit, which allowed us to get from what I heard was a really big pain point, late in two thousand two, or, excuse me, twenty twenty two, to being able commercialize something, in twenty twenty three to say here it's generally available and it's incorporated and then it's included with the elements. So being able to move more quickly, by buying. There are niche partners out there that do really interesting things, particularly things that solve an immediate need that don't necessarily need really robust integration beyond just LTI. We wanna work really well with those partners. Right? Canvas was built from the ground up to be able to, integrate widely with its open APIs.

And so we've enjoyed a network of a thousand plus partners who all work really closely to build products that work with us, but I wanna stress that partner doesn't necessarily have to mean commercial entity we have a number of institutions, who have also made really interesting things, in their ecosystems plugged into our APIs, and we wanna continue to support that so that your solutions equally can solve the needs that you have, especially when they don't require too much complex integration, simple LTI are using our APIs will work. And and then the final piece here is this future where we think there's gonna be a a a range of tools available that are really interesting to a number of folks and we wanna make that process easier. Someone says, hey, look, I've got this interesting thing. It's not super urgent. Doesn't need a lot of complex integration how can we make it easy for people to find those, whether it's faculty finding them and then approving it through a workflow, whether it's administrators, selecting them But how do we make this process easier? And so we've got this concept of a marketplace of, great tools out there.

There's there's lots of starts to it, right, with EDU App Center from the past, but really making it turnkey, for the selection and implementation process. So I'll talk a bit about that, but I just thought it would be helpful to frame our work and how we approach solving the problems that you all have flagged for us are important through a build by partner lens and I'll kind of point a few of those out as we, as we get through it. So starting first with the things that, we build. Right? So as we think about the things that, we've heard as really important, being able to have more granularity with modules, right, being able to release modules selectively because more and more, of the courses have multiple sections, have multiple instructional units are trying to create variable learning pathways. And so being able to turn things on or off, independently is something we heard really important.

It's something that increases usability because you're not overwhelming, students with, you know, all of the information you can selectively release it creates a lot of flexibility in modules, which we know is important for how you all are structuring your courses. And it does create the, the foundation, right, for a lot of these adaptive, learning journeys. And I think, you know, our poor infrastructure of canvas requires a lot of work to be able to do more and more of these things. So, while these things might feel like pay pretty obvious. Like, we ought to be doing these things.

These have been more complex than we would than when I would certainly would like, because of the core infrastructure needing to be extended to serve sort of his multimodal module. So selective module release is something that, is, coming, and a lot of what I'm gonna share here is all coming for the to be generally available before the start of the next school year. Right? So typically, by the end of June, early July, which gives you all time to sort of get familiar with it, decide what you wanna do, turn things on or off. A lot of them are actually already in beta right now. So for folks in should, definitely reach out to, your CSMs who you can enable, some of the functionality for you.

Other piece we've heard a lot about is around Rubrich work to be done around making our rubrics, more scalable, being able to scale them with criteria, being able to align them to outcomes, being able to provide more ability for interaction, comment, being able to move them around importing, exporting, supporting multiple rubrics, enabling students to be able to look at a rubric and create self assessments and peer reviews, and lots of those kinds of things. Again, the cornerstone of, evaluation, right, a rubric. And so, making it a priority is important as we think about continuing to extend. And again, rubrics, will continue to evolve, especially as we think about the relationship between rubrics, and defined competencies and those defined competencies turning into, micro credential, micro credential, badging, that can be on a pathway for learning. So lots of different connective pieces here, as we think about rubric.

So just getting started with rubric enhancements, but we're we're working through, rubric discussions or, rubric conversations. No. Certainly, no shyness around discussion checkpoints. Right? We've heard a lot about multiple due dates. That's definitely one of those thematic things that's come up a lot.

Being able to support multiple points of interaction, being able to support initial reaction, initial comments, secondary comments, replies, etcetera, that can all kind of grow into, an overall score. So we're spending a lot of time, bolstering up discussion checkpoints, being able to enable more peer to peer interaction, creating an opportunity for deeper conversation, more meaningful discussion, as we think about, the the criticality of discussion, in the contemporary classroom context for teaching and learning. So, another area of focus for us, around discussion checkpoints. We've heard this a number of times, certainly, true for, folks who are in more remote areas with more bandwidth challenges, right, but being able to support, learners anywhere, everywhere, wherever they are. And so being able to support offline or low bandwidth connectivity, while not allowing a student on a mobile device to be able to participate, actively, right, to be able to consume the content.

Obviously, it's constrained. Right? So only certain things can be done, that don't require a live connection. But it's really, a cornerstone of making sure that every part of what we build, and this is important to me. Is this an to us is making sure that we continue to focus on equitability as we think about all of the modes of learning. So, thinking about, support for mobile devices, As we think about, being able to do more enhancements focused on faculty, right, thinking about ways to, provide feedback in the context of grading, so being able to provide video commentary, being able to provide screen capture, you know, just sets it apart from some of the other solutions that are out there.

To just really help with the grading process. Right? Sometimes it's easier to just explain something, in a quick video than it is to write a whole bunch of commentary. So lots of things that we, can think about doing in the context of, SpeedGrader. Enrollments with, substitutes, alternatives, guests, etcetera, is another piece that we've definitely heard a lot about. So how do we ensure that we can, have other people participate in the courts without actually having to have an instructor role.

Right? So being able to create temporary roles with finite dates for guests, for someone who is a substitute, who is helping out with a faculty member who's not able to be there. And we think this is just important for the continuity of the learning. Right? So being able to, to be able to continue no matter what happens, this is important for a guest who may want to provide some content, respond to something, being able to do that. So creating, time and re reducing some of the administrative load around these edge cases, which are not so edge cases because they happen, more often than we think, being able to support those, those pieces. And speaking of, making things easier, I think overwhelmingly, one of the things we've heard about is making it easier to just go create content.

Right? How do we make it? Certainly, so you don't need to have facility with HTML to use, the HTML editor, but being able to make it really easy to create compelling, and engaging content that is compelling, engaging, and and visually interesting, but also needs to be accessible and also needs to be responsive. And all of the things that go into building great content. So, we're early in the stages here. So this is one that will probably go past start of the school year around block editor, and we're working to ensure that we create something. Again, the the key part here is when we created, making sure that everything that's created using a blocked editor remains accessible and works with, and a sex accessibility checker make it easy to, to create it and make it feel like a more modern experience, which, we know we've heard a lot and making sure that the learning experience is very of a very high quality.

Right? So that's something that, we've we've definitely heard a lot about. So as we move into, working with, partners, right? This is one that, I'm particularly excited about. We we heard a lot of needs for diagramming and whiteboarding and those kinds of tools. I think this moved into the high urgency bucket, for those of you who are using and are familiar with Google's jamboard product. You know that they've made a decision late last year to end of life that product.

As of the summer. And so it moved it from the do we need to think about it? And do we have time to the higher urgency bucket yet needing to integrate deeply? And so I'm excited to share that We are partnering very closely with Lucid, who makes, incredible whiteboarding software for learning contexts. They've got, great amount of usage in a higher ed context, but also in the workplace, which is really built about building skills, durable skills that learners will have. So, it'll come with, you know, obviously, the default collaborative whiteboard, the ability to create interactive assignments, as part of it. There'll be templates in there for faculty to draw from in the library of templates that are out there.

But really it's it's deploying these contemporary skills in the context of learning, which sets them up, for success and being able to use it for robust and complicated things that are best served with diagrams, visual maps, etcetera. And, of course, making sure all of the, all of the pieces of, the importance of protecting student information, remain compliant, right, for, in particular, for you all, obviously, Capa more for, lower grade areas and GDPR for for our international customers, but making sure that every part of this product is as good as as protected as, our core infrastructure products. And this is something that, is important. It's critical. So when we make the evaluation about where something lives, if it's something that has is an add on product versus something that's in the core hour mess.

We think about the the usage and the utility, and again, making sure it's it's an equitable solution for all. And this is something that is so important to the learning and so critical to the modern skills that It is one that we've worked really closely with Lucid so that we can actually include this in Canvas LMS by default. Right? So, again, this is available. Coming in the school year will be soliciting data, customers who are interested in participating in it, but the goal is, to, to widely distribute the ability to do, lucid programming, or diagramming in the context of, a core canvas, core canvas experience this last one, and I won't spend a ton of time on this, other than, you're gonna get more of it later. But search is something that we've heard a lot about.

And search is also something that is can be, if not done right, really frustrating if you're not able to find the thing you're looking for so being able to leverage, right, the gains that we've gotten from the semantic meaning that generative AI can extract. Again, I I will try not to explain it because Zach will do a much better job of it later, but the idea here is bringing those two things together to create a, robust search that can search across all things, whether it's course content in modules, whether it's transcripts of lessons, and all of the pieces associated with it, how that, it can be done well. And and, obviously, you'll hear more about our approach to it, but anything we do with generative AI or AI in in a general sort of way, is one that we take, very seriously about protecting the privacy of information around. So Again, you'll hear more, but that's some of, what is coming in our core LMS, right, as we think about, the journey ahead there. I'm gonna talk a bit about enhanced analytics because that's, again, one of those places, we hear a lot about.

So I'll start first with the the Canvas core analytics. Right? So again, this is one where we heard the urgency. We actually, acquired technology that would enable us to move more quickly, dashboarding software, essentially, which allowed us to move quickly, to deliver the things that were most important. So at a course level, so that individual faculty can understand sort of, what's happening, at an administrative level to to understand cohorta courses, or understand for our department how things are performing. Right? And so this is even though it is something that we, we are actually paying for technology in order to enable some of this as critical, functionality.

As I said, we make this evaluation about things that are critical functionality and important pieces And so we've included, access to this admin analytics, which is now already generally available. So everyone, wants it, it's defaulted on for you. But this is something that is included by default also with your LMS. Right? So we're we're trying to ensure that the core LMS that you have continues to keep getting better with the, things that we are building on it with the things that we bought and added onto it with the things that we are partnering to just make it a core learning experience that's so much better. So that's the core sort of analytics that is sort of the default.

But we did see interest and demand in more, engaging analytics for some folks. And so there's a couple of places of interest, that we've been looking into, that we think we found some resonance with with our early alpha customers. And so, these are things that we're gonna be prioritizing. So, again, you'll hear more about this later, but being able to use the power of generative AI to answer questions. Right? Cause as I said, it's not about the data.

It's not about the insight. It's actually it's understanding that insight to be able to take the action. So if you could use conversation to ask a question, about something like what students had not completed an assignment, who were struggling, etcetera, and be able to turn that request, that conversational request into a query that could get run and return results. It would make it easy for everyone truly democratizing the data to be able to answer questions, take some of the potential load off of administrative reporting teams on the one z two z questions so that you could focus on the bigger things. So, this is something that we'll be introducing, as part of a suite of enhanced analytics offerings as the ability to, to ask questions of your data through our enhanced analytics offering.

Alongside the, sort of, being able to ask questions, we know there there are a couple of questions that are constantly being asked. And so creating some pre canned reports, some pre built analytics around, the top area of request, right, is me if there are students who I should be paying attention to. Tell me if there are students who we need to, to do something with. So, being able to do that, but at the same time, being able to have you set your own institutional criteria for what that means. So not a black box model that says, oh, here's the the algorithmic prediction of who's at risk, but rather you being able to determine criteria, using your own LMS data to be able to say for our institution, this is what we define as a student who might need attention and then be able to take that, and, do something with it.

Right? And we'll talk about what we could do with it in the context of of impact in campaigns, but being able to trigger communication, etcetera in there. The other sort of most common request coming up was, course readiness. Right? How ready is this course to start? How ready are the departments for the upcoming semester. So being able to, again, using your own data to determine what that looks like, but being able to say, here's what's ready here's what's not, here's who might need a little bit more support from an instructional and design team to get going, those kinds of things that will, help us. So so all of these, reports, as well as the ability to ask questions of the data wrapped together in a enhanced analytics offering, that will be, is in beta now.

Number of folks have expressed interest in our trying. And so, again, if you're interested definitely reach out to your, your CSMs here, but, you know, something that we expect to be generally available coming this summer. Okay. So that's the the ecosystem of products inside of infrastructure as well. Right? So the the things that we have we recognize, though, that there is, a ton of tools that are being used, outside of the walls.

And we've encouraged that. Right? We've always said, look, there's institutional learning needs And there's a whole ecosystem of partners. And the more we can push those things together, the better it's going to be for learners. The more we can make it so that they can live and breathe inside of Canvas instead of having to go outside all the time, the more usage you're gonna get, the more engagement you're gonna get, the more learner value, and hopefully the more outcomes you're able to achieve. And so critical to being able to do that is being able to see the universe of tools that's out there.

So one of the things that we're doing is we've got a number of different places where you can go to edger App Center. You can go to community listings. Many of you got your own curated lists. I know some of and Sorsha have shared lists, but how do we share a universe of all of the LTI tools that are out there, that are available and and distinguishing ones that are, one dot one versus one dot three, right, being able to get, one dot three supports as part of this library. And the goal here is to be able to give you a one shop.

You can say, here's all the tools I can I can search through? I can filter through this information, this taxonomy of tools, and find the ones that are aligned the ones that have adhered to the latest standard of one dot three that have other information about them, like, you know, v paths and security questionnaires and those kinds of things that'll help you make decisions when someone requests a tool you could quickly look at and see how this is and manage it from within, Canvas dashboards. But being able to see the tools and manage them is insufficient. Right? You're like, great. Now I've got these tools. I still got a robust process.

And so, with the acquisition of Learn platform, we've got, some of the capabilities. And while Learn platform is oriented at k twelve, a lot of those abilities were extensible. And so we've been, working towards making them extensible for higher ed use case. And really it's about now that I found those tools, How can I make them really easy to install? Our our goal, I I've set this, bold target for the team is how can we make it a one click install? Right? I'd like this tool install. But how do we think about things like workflows? Right? Is there a security approval process that we need to account for? Is there a privacy approval process that we need to account for? There a set of accessibility criteria that you wanna check for? So being able to ensure that it can work through, those flows and then become a simple to implement, as one click.

Right? So you you can find the tools. You can now implement them, and know that their experiences are well implemented. Inside of Canvas. But now that you've got those tools installed, right, how well are they performing, which is the other sort of, request that we hear a lot about is give me more information about my LTI tool usage. Right? So, bringing together the usage data, not just launches, but also, interactions, etcetera, being able to bring that data together, to be able to use it, to understand you know, what is happening, being able to explore it, with conversational AI again, and then enabling you all to be able to make that data available to other parts or parts of the products.

Right? So to have turned it into an impact campaign, to incorporate it into Canvas, to be able to make it part of your decisioning, all of that data coming together in one place as part of, the LTI tool data. And then once you've got all of that data, right, so you identified the tools. You've selected and implemented them. Now you are looking at how they're being used. You can pair that obviously with the ability to drive adoption of those tools.

Right? So, again, this ecosystem of tools, we think very valuable, and we think it all works together, But how do you ensure it's being used most effectively, right, creating campaigns, to drive that usage, being able to use that data to then create a targeted campaigns for specific tools, specific sets of users, specific learners, that aren't being used, which will help you, be able to maximize the value of the return on you're you're getting from those third party tools in your ecosystem. So thinking about, how all of those pieces sort of fit together. In in one cohesive, view as we think about that partner ecosystem. Right? So that was the effectiveness, tools sort of bar in thinking about kind of the the roadmap ahead. And then the last piece, which is one that we we have certainly hearing more and more momentum around is this idea of, you know, lifelong or nontraditional learning journeys, we we'll talk a bit about the things that we already know and have a need to work on here, and then I'll talk a bit about kinda what the future looks like.

Right? So, catalog is a product that we know we need to keep improving. Right? I think the ability to make it more e commerce like create more flexibility, more supports for branding, being able to enable browsing and searching for things by badges, by credentials that are offered those kinds of things is critical for all of you. Right? How do we make that experience consistent? How do we make it seamless to move from the selection into the actual learning begin for, particularly, for a certificate type courses that may have a rolling cohort start, those kinds of things, and then administrative tools. Right? To understand how things are going to be able to get more granular, into department level views of how things are performing, financial reporting associated it, and and a number of those pieces. Similarly, we know credentials, is something that we're continuing to work on, right, particularly the relation between credentials and canvas, core canvas, and the other parts.

So how do we, simplify the creation of workflows, right, so being able to blueprint courses alongside the credentials, right, so being able to have that that seamless connection, to be able to set expiration dates and then create notifications, right, for things that are expiring, particularly around, limited life limited shelf life credentials, And then making sure that this is something that remains interoperable remains, you know, connected to the out the career outcomes by know, adhering to the standards, the open badging standard, associated with it. We think it'll it'll make it a an easier to administer set of offerings particularly as you all. I know our, Vanguard and and kinda thinking about credentialing, being able to support all of these different learner pathways and driving, you know, repeat use, with expiration, through those, retention drivers and then, of course, ensuring that it's connected to workforce outcomes, right, is, is something that's critical. So these are things that we're already doing now. Their plan.

These are all things that are are in progress or in beta, on our roadmap, right, as we think about the year ahead. But we, as we kind of, took a step back and looked at kind of this idea of nontraditional as a whole, And as we start to think about what made sense, we we started to look right beyond twenty twenty four. Right? So, you know, kind of the third, the third bar of the multi year journey is sort of thinking about what's ahead. Right? How do we think about accelerating all of these journeys? How do we think about accelerating the success that you all have? How do we how do we focus on things that create cohesion? Right? So we know our user experience can continue to improve it's something that we're spending a lot of time and energy on improving that experience. We wanna make identity something that is, much more, usable and shared across products and one that allows a learner to come in and out of journeys, for learners who are currently duly enrolled.

How do we support those kinds of things? So how do we think about those friction points of production? And, of course, we've got parchment, right, in the mix. And so we're thinking about what's the best way to incorporate parchment into, how we're thinking about it. So we're thinking about where we might want to, to focus on the non traditional journey. Then, of course, those strategic conversations were so, so valuable. Right? They they really helped us think about the things that were important and prioritize the year.

And so we wanna continue to do those conversations throughout this year as we start to think about what's going to come on the horizon so that in the back half of the year, we start to think about next year, we can start to incorporate some of the things that are topmost on your mind. Again, that's gonna be a mix of things, right, that are emerging trends that we need to pay attention to. That are, durable trends that have lasted over the last couple of years. And then there's core foundational things that continue to be important And and we will do all three things, in parallel. Right? We've gotta work on the core ecosystem and the core Canvas experience while also thinking about some of these these trends as we think about, what's ahead.

So to kind of contextualize all of these pieces, I'll just show you a quick diagram is schematic of how we're thinking about this this learning ecosystem. Right? So we've got, you know, a number of our product offerings you sort of see here, and you see parchment is now in the mix as we think about, incorporating that alongside the LMS, our quizzing offerings, our catalog, our credentials, and so on and so forth. But important to bookend, both of these, with a experience that is consistent for every learner. Right? So It doesn't matter where you are and what course and what stage of your journey, whether it's, an in their early matriculating stages, coming back in, professional learning, all of those use cases are accounted for in that experience, being able to have a common identity and data layer so that you all can see across all of these different things, how things are being used, how things are engaging, how do we drive towards those outcomes? So We we are working explicitly on kind of thinking about the the bridge of those two. We're also accounting for what parchment's going to do as we think about it.

And so as we sort of think about, the relationship parchment has with the number of things we have, we really see it in kind of like three core areas. There's there's technology to drive enrollments. Right? So they've got a lot of great interesting things around their, cross institutional listing, the ability to support dual enrollment, their credit equivalency, evaluation tools, number of tools around recruiting from the k twelve space. Right? So they've got a number of things that will pair really nicely with the catalog offerings that we have today. Right? So a cohesive sort of bringing learners into the equation.

Then we've got our core LMS, which, you know, we know we've gotta do things to drive more and more, large course scenarios and online only course scenarios. Right? So there's continued work that we're doing there. The second sort of piece that we see parchment really adding to the mix is driving, the outcome side of the equation. So certainly pairing the credentials and the portfolios that we have with some of the comprehensive learner record capabilities they have with the diploma awards that they have today, the macro credentials, sort of what we're calling it. And the ability to continually verify.

Right? So verification, and if we do it right, it's a loop right back into the enrollment. So this is how we're thinking about, parchment and how it fits into the mix. Obviously, parchment's gonna be, interesting to a number of additional personas, across your institutions. Right? A recruiting and marketing registration type audience, a student success type audience and sort of kind of thinking about how each of these work in tandem to drive ultimately learner success, to drive institutional success with increased enrollments, increased outcomes for learners, as we think about those those things in tandem. And just to go just a little bit deeper into learner passport just to kind of contextualize all of these pieces.

Right? So The idea of portfolios and pathways of learning, right, all of the work products that you're demonstrating along the way, including assignments that you complete and projects that you complete in the LMS. Pairing that with badging, whether it's at the macro level, highest award level of a diploma all the way down to the most micro credential that you can stack and sequence together. And then pairing all of that with a a learner record that is aligned to the industry standards of CLR two o, and plugged into verifiable credentials, but also have the detailed detailed listing of all of that learning. So you pair all three of these things together. You get what we're calling, the learner passport, which just really kinda sets us up for being able to support the learner needs of the future.

And and that can be, again, a traditional matriculating from K twelve learner. It could be a nontraditional learner of every flavor. Right? The the stats are startling forty million, learners in the US out there with some college, no credential, nothing to show for that? How do we bring them back into the fall and get them into outcomes, being able to support, readiness for workforce as you think about sort of state level initiatives. Right? So all of this is enabled, by this learning password. So we're we've got the foundational layers as we're thinking about this, but it's something that we're starting to plant some seeds and think about.

As we move into the future and as we benefit from pushing together, all the things in structure offers with the greatness that parchment brings to the table, into what is kind of that that future state. I'm gonna share a couple of quick sort of visuals to just sort of show. And I I caveat all of these by saying these are all concept but just making our our LMS feel more contemporary. Right? So updating, the visual feel of them so that they, again, for learners coming in, it feels like a contemporary consumer grade offering. So these are some of the ways that might show up.

Again, caveat of concepts subject to change. Thinking about this idea of this learning to earning passport. Right? How do we how we connect skill to workforce readiness to jobs and so on and so forth? So some some concept exploration, as we think about that here. And then some concept worked around, data and insights, right, being able to push notifications about alerts that you might want to be able to go into and look at, things that require some attention. So being able to to take that vast universe of data and really fine tune getting to the needles in those haystacks, to be able to set that up for the future.

We think these are some some concept views of the future. And I hinted that this before. Right? So we've got, our products that we have. They're built on top of the technology that we've made available to partner. We're gonna continue to do that.

Whether it's open APIs or it's our student information system connectors, the data and insights tools as we start to do that. But by making that available to partners, we think it's gonna help them be able to consume them So we wanna make tools so that it's easier for partners. And again, these could be commercial partners, these could be you all, right, building these tools, but enabling, our partners to build tools distribute them through that marketplace concept I described and then, deploy them directly inside of Canvas so that they're deeply integrated. So This is very early for us, but we we did an experiment, last summer, particularly around AI by introducing, a marketplace concept, which enabled a number of, partners who were interested and raised their hands and said, hey, we wanna align with your principles. We'll we'll be able to hear Zach and Ryan talk more about our principles for AI, but they align with them, and we're collecting demand and interest for them.

And so that sets us up to then be able to say, hey, there's a really seamless way you could get partners deeply embedded inside of learning experiences, and all of the goodness that that brings There you have it, and I think that is, my time. Excellent. Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate that. Only have a couple of minutes.

Any questions quickly? Any time frame on that video as to when we might start to see that. No. As I said, we're we're starting to work on the the design modernization. And so you're gonna start to see some of that come to life. And a lot of those pieces are actually things that are being worked on.

So badging our ability to be able to workflows around, provider tools, right, like you saw in those use cases that work around data. So we're we're working on the building blocks And so I don't have a specific time on how all of that perfectly comes together, but it's certainly something we're actively working on. It's not a far concept. Right? It's, it's it's near and we can almost touch it. So question about, enhanced analytics and students in need.

This is actually more for my deans than for me. How can the structure make a such a big equity piece and put a price tag on it when we've only had admin analytics under a year. Can you say a bit more? Are you are you saying, how are we associating value? Yes. It will be, it will be an incremental cost. And so I think I understand your question.

So I think the reality is this. Right? The technology that powers data And you you all are probably navigating some of this. Right? Any kind of scaled software technology, whether it's Amazon, Google, etcetera, that infrastructure costs money. And so for us, this is more mostly about covering, the cost of infrastructure on data, which is expensive infrastructure, compute cost, etcetera. And so, for some things where it makes sense to when we can fit it into the the carrying cost of the LMS, it makes sense.

And for other things, like the robust calculations around things like students and need of attention, etcetera. Those are all things that require compute, and so that there's some things that we just, you know, we have to account for. Yeah. And kind of a follow-up on that. Are you guys still discussing about separating that package from the AI package? The AI conversational analytics.

Yep. I think they they probably work pretty well and in hand, I think it's not been completely finalized, but I think they they lend themselves well well to, working in tandem. So, they'll likely be, combined offering. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Sure. Is the lucid diagramming and the AI powered searcher, those gonna be additional costs also? No. Those will be default included in the LMS. Excellent.

Sharon, thank you so much. Great presentation. Thank you for having me virtually and looking forward to meeting some of you in person. Excellent. And I think Elizabeth Durrenzo just jumped in as well.

Hi. Good morning. How are you? Good good. Let's see. Domma's joining us as well.

So she is yes. Donna is joining. So Domma's on my team and just gonna join in. I wanted to bring her along. She's been doing some of the work on on this initiative.

So, but yeah, hi, everybody. My name's Elizabeth Derenzo. I'm a director of product, on Sharon's team. I lead our lifelong learning product portfolio, which includes Canvas catalog, Canvas credentials, Portfolium, and some new products that we are, incubating right now. And so I'm excited to talk to you about the future of lifelong learning at instructure and specifically around how we are going to be supporting CLR.

And I brought along one of my team members, Domah Snell, who has been supporting some of our incubation of our new products and, just wanted her to have an opportunity to also connect with you all and and support, any questions you all might have. So I have a presentation, and then absolutely we'll have some time to chat with you all after I think. I think I have an hour, and I doubt that my presentation will take anywhere near that. So maybe you'll get a bio break breaks, squeezed into. Okay.

Let me go ahead and set up my screen share. It's very helpful to see the room and see my screen. Alright. So we're gonna talk a little bit about our vision for lifelong learning. We have recently rebranded, from nontraditional, and I forgot to update this this first slide, but we have, you know, really been thinking about as a portfolio what all of our our mission is, and it really is to support that lifelong learning journey, whether that is somebody who is enrolled, you know, when they're twenty in a higher education institution or, you know, forty and they're continuing their education in order to up skill and unlock more skills in their career.

And so we really wanna be thinking about this, from the lifelong learning perspective. Just a disclaimer for for you all that this presentation is includes forward looking, information, everything is subject to change as we learn more, timelines, all of these things are these are not commitments. These are estimations and predictions based on where we are today. But as we know, things are always changing. So please, If things change, we will of course communicate with you.

But we just wanna make sure you know that. Okay. So Instructure has spent, quite a long time really investing in the learning experience in higher traditional higher education and k twelve. And we have made a very in pensional investment, in recent years and moving forward in supporting the lifelong learning journey. We want to be the infrastructure for the learning experiences of all learners, not just in that hay through twenty space.

But for all of the learning we undertake in a in our lives. And so our vision and lifelong learning is that we are here to support the program discovery, for lifelong learners that are tied to their learning pathways, and align to micro credentials that they want to unlock in order to, expand their skills to align to their goals. And typically, we see this as career goals, but these goals can really be anything. And so we wanna ensure that learners know that they can come to instructure identify the gaps in their skills profile for the goals that they have. Know what those skills are.

Find programs that support those skills and then do the learning to unlock those skills and knowledge. Earn the credentials aligned to them and enhance their, comprehensive learner record as they are looking to continue on in their careers, and beyond. And so this is really that that loop that we are aiming to unlock. And and here's why we're investing in it. We're so fortunate to work alongside so many institutions and learners, employers in in this really robust ecosystem.

And we've all seen a change in the traditional higher edge landscape. We know that distance learning is here to stay. There are so many learning opportunities for folks, to enroll in, and do right in the comfort of their own home. And so we're seeing more and more non traditional learning experiences to support, this demand from learners today. We also see that traditional institutions in an effort to meet the needs of their learners are turning to more of these solutions.

Right? And so while we're seeing that traditional enrollment on, declining, we do know that traditional are starting to turn towards some of these, more non traditional solutions in order to meet the needs of their learners and support their enrollment. And we also, excuse me, we also see on the employer side of the house that there's a continued report of a widening skills gap. And so where do we come in? We we have identified that it is crucial to partner across the entire ecosystem so that's institutions, that's learners, and that's industry employers in order to bridge the world, and we see a really exciting opportunity to continue to be a partner to institutions like yourself as well as these other players in the ecosystem in order to bridge this gap. And so we want to offer what we're calling this suite of learning to earning products that enhance the way that institutions are, communicating and awarding achievements to their learners, learners are able to self identify and self drive their learning journey in order to align to their career goals And employers have a better insight into the verified skills that their learner their candidates are bringing to the table. You know, employers are reporting that today resumes are about forty percent on average, inaccurate.

You know, they're self they don't really give a full picture of the candidate's verified skills and experience, and it's very hard to match the skills required for a specific role and the verified skills of a candidate. And so bringing all of this together, we know that we're constantly engaging in learning in order to fill the skills gaps and progress in our careers or whatever other goals that we have. And we wanna ensure that we're the place where learners have that insight in institutions have that insight into what employers and learners need in order to close these gaps. We can help institutions surface the learning experiences two, interested learners, and, they can engage in that and continue enhancing their profile. So We're really excited to be bringing some of our existing products together in a more seamless way in order to support this and then adding in some new products to enhance this end to end experience for lifelong learning.

So this is just a very simple slide to boil it all down into what we see, the top priorities of these different players in our ecosystem system as, through tons of market, research and customer conversations and being led by your expertise and industry's expertise and learner's expertise. So we know that learners need to earn stackable credentials in order to communicate their skills and knowledge. They need to be able to track their learning journeys and understand what the next step in their journey is in order to unlock their career goals And they need a way to showcase all of this. They need a way to bridge their academia experience to their industry. And so this is really what we're looking at from the learner perspective.

And we know that institutions are on a journey to map curriculum to skills and the credentials in order to better support their learners in proving their competence, their knowledge, and their skills in the areas that they have, mastered. And they need a way to create pathways, right, in order to bridge together all of these learning experience, curricular, co curricular experiences into these programmatic, experiences for learners resulting in these credentials that are being earned. And we also know that institutions have a desire to know their the outcomes. Right? You wanna know are your learners being successful? Are your program successful? Where are learners getting stuck? What credentials are needed from the industry? Where can you enhance the programs that you offer in order to be a more desirable option for learners in today and in the future. And so these are some needs of the administrator.

And then on the employer side, they're looking to really ensure that they're finding the right qualified employees. Right? And so a way that we can support that is, show giving candidates a way to showcase their verified skill credentials that are most relevant for the roles that they are applying for. And in the future, this is a space that we also envision employers being able to leverage in order to help guide the professional development of their employees. So here are four key components that we know are crucial to the solutions that we're building. The first is portability and integration.

As you all know, lifelong learners are transitioning from many institutions over their lifetime often in parallel, but often concurrently, we might see learners who are enrolled in a few different institutions at a time, taking micro courses and doing micro learning in order to enhance their their profile. We also know that there are investments being made, at the national level in many countries in order to ensure that people's comprehensive learner record is part of their, official, you know, profile that the the government has is able to manage. And so there's all of these different systems cropping up globally, at the government level, at the institution level at the employer level. We know that folks are gonna be moving in and out. They need this really robust solution that can work with any tool that they're going to use, and it should be a very seamless experience for all players in the ecosystem, learners, employers, and institutions, to take all this data about a learner and, move it around.

And so this is really top of mind for us needs to be very easy for a learner to say, okay. Here's my record. I'm able to bring it in and out wherever I'm going, pushing in, pushing out. We also know it must be driven by the learner. As we think about lifelong learning, there is the need to surface the most relevant next experiences that the learner wants to undertake in order to align their career goals.

Personalized learning is absolutely top of mind, understanding, and giving space for the learner to craft their goals, get insight into their profile against those goals and where to go next is really top of mind. This self driven aspect is crucial to the excess of the lifelong learning experience in these products. Industry alignment. So It's not just about the players who are really focused in the learning experience, the institutions and the learner. We're now introducing the employer into this ecosystem and ensuring alignment with the employer connecting the dots, right, between, hey, here are the skills that we really need and are we're seeing gaps in bringing that data and insight back to the learner, the institution, to help craft the learning experiences and credentials most relevant for the future of work, are pieces that we want to bring together and must bring together in order to make, this really successful.

And last, but certainly not least, and this is pretty simple, but, you know, doesn't always happen. There must be a comprehensive offering. So we're really just the backbone of this experience for institutions, learners, and employers. And this end to end experience being seamless and comprehensive is crucial. So it shouldn't feel hard to for anybody in this space to identify, you know, what learning they need to undertake, enroll in that learning, experience that learning, earn their credentials, bolster their learner record, apply to jobs leveraging that learner record.

All of that needs to be comprehensive. So from program discovery to enrollment, to learning, to earning, all of that needs to be a seamless experience across a very vast product suite. So all of this culminates in what we're calling the learner passport. And this is really to support the learning to earning journey. And it will be a competency, based, profile of the learner that contains verif find micro and macro credentials, learning evidence, self reflection, pathways skills analysis in order to help them along their learning to earning continuum, which we know isn't really linear.

It's very cyclical. And so there will be tools in this experience to help learners along the entire path. So these are the three main areas and I have a slide after this that illustrates a bit more how we're envisioning, how the products all fit together in the learner passport bundle. But these are the three main solutions that we know need to come together in order to support our learners. So solution one, we need support the development of portfolios and pathways.

So learners are going to be able to showcase their verified skills, their academic and co curricular achievements with evidence. They'll be able to use these portfolios to communicate between the institution and themselves as the learner in order to demonstrate their mastery and earn, these verified skills. They'll also be able to leverage pathways so that they're very, very clear on where they are in their learning journey, what is next, and what could be in the future in order to unlock their career goals. Digital badging is badging is the next piece in which we know that learners need to be able to showcase their verified skills whether that's to their institution, a graduate program, or an employer. We need them to be able to showcase these skills with the attached verified learning evidence, against the curriculum that they've under undertaken.

And then all of this really results in their comprehensive learner record. So we are currently in our team working to toward Openbadge three dot o and CLR two dot o compliance tracking toward the end of the year in order for all of those standards to be met. So that we can provide all all of our learners a comprehensive learner record. That that that's easy to share portable easy to integrate with other solutions as well and plug into the workflows that employers have today in order to hire. So we're looking at partnering with applicant tracking systems so that learners are able to, showcase their match score and relevancy to a career, job hosting.

So what does this actually mean? So there's three core key three of our products, which are in various stages of development. And we see these as the learner passport and what we're driving toward being available for fall start twenty twenty five. And so today, we offer Canvas credentials, and This is, you know, an ad this is the admin focused product. It enables institutions in, creating, managing, and issuing their credentials. So this will continue to be this product that we offer.

To the institution in order to start this journey of having a credentials based, program. Portfolios. We have a product, that supports portfolios today, and we are in the process of taking the best of that portfolio solution and rebuilding it that it can scale, to the level that we need for our, customer base. And so Canvas e portfolios will seamlessly plug in with Canvas LMS and Canvas credentials. It will be a solution shared between the institution and the learner in which learners are able to create portfolios demonstrating, curations of their learning evidence against programs defined by the institution as a means of assessment and and feedback.

So these two pieces really also have inroads into the learner experience. So on the credential side of the house, the learner when they are awarded these achievements and they accept these achievements, they will be populating their CLR, their comprehensive learner which will be one of the features, which is the basis of our future CLR product naming Tbd. So today in Canvas credentials, you know, learners get a backpack or my badges, but we'll be replacing that learner experience with the CLR. So Really, the credentials product is for the institution as a way to create and manage and issue awards. The learner experience will be part of their CLRx.

Arians. And so they'll receive all of those awards in Canvas CLR. And then on the e portfolio side, as learners are developing these portfolios, they'll be able to choose the elements of their portfolios that they want to also leverage for, applying to jobs And so while we don't anticipate a learner taking an academic portfolio in its entirety and implying to, you know, a job with that. We do anticipate that the learning evidence associated to the credentials they've earned and other demonstrative, you know, elements of their experience will be really relevant for their, you know, resume two point o. We've been calling it internally.

A portfolio that's really aimed at helping learners communicate their verified skills, the evidence of those skills, their work experience, their education experience in order to better communicate their fit for a role to the employer. So we envision the ability to analyze a learner's, po we're saying portfolio, but it's kinda confusing. Their their resume two point o, that the resume portfolio against a job, give that learner insight into their match between the skills required that role and their unique portfolio, giving them feedback on how to enhance their portfolio along their career trajectory as well. And so this is really a tool for the learner to help them continue Having success in the learning to earning trajectory between applying to roles, but also identifying their skills gaps and finding programs that will help them and, close those skills gaps. So imagine a world in which the learner comes in, they're not actively enrolled in any institution at the time.

They wanna apply to a career, they get insight that there's three skills that they're missing. These are this is a pathway that they can enroll in. And here are institutions who offer this course. They're able to self enroll in those courses and begin undertaking the the learning experiences on Canvas LMS in order to unlock these credentials, enhance their portfolio for the jobs that they seek. And this now we have a cyclical experience of learning to earning versus a linear.

And all of these products will be underscored and supported by our learning pathways. There is learning pathways in all of these products They're in credentials, they're in portfolios, and they're in the CLR. So what we what we will have is a base pathway that when populated feeds all of these products. And then there will be product specific, pathway features that are only a part of that specific product. So that that is in development right now and in discovery.

And here is a look at our strategic timeline, and this is what we know and see today. So we are planning to announce our portfolio and CLR product and demo that at Instructure Con, which is in early July. And this will accompany our credentials product. So Canvas LMS credentials portfolio and our CLR product will all come together to showcase that seamless experience for learning to earning. We will be planning to undertake a pilot, a limited pilot in North America in winter spring start, excuse me, of twenty twenty five.

And we anticipate a global implementation available for a general audience at ball start twenty twenty five. So what we're targeting more around, the availability being in late spring in order to prepare for a fall start. After that first year, we anticipate that we'll need to ensure that this learner product continues to stay available for your learner So if they move on from your institution, we wanna give them the ability to continue, retaining access to this learner experience so that they can continue using this tool. So this is when we anticipate offering a consumer, subscription. And then twenty twenty seven and beyond are is uncharted territory, for sure, but this is really where we want to invest in enhancing that learner driven continued education through program discovery enrollment aligned to their career goals.

So this is just a high level look at where we're going when we anticipate getting there. And, last but not least, I have a few design explorations. We've been prototyping the solution partnering with a product council over the last six or so months. And here are just some quick, design explorations to share, to share with you. So Here's an example of our pathways that we've been investing in redesigning.

So pathways are a a way that institutions are able to, build out, a program or a credential or really just an end to end variance and pea and mapped together seemingly disparate pieces into into this pathway. And so these pathways help them to align a program credentials, learning requirements, the evidence required in order to unlock these, it gives insights into program for the institution, but also to the learners so that they can manage and track their learning journey. Institutions are able to add instructors and administrators and faculty to these pathways as well as learners who are enrolled against these pathways. And so here's a little bit of a design look at what this it looks like here. And then on the teacher and learner side, there will be the ability to, track progress along the learning pathway.

So you can see here that we've got insights provided to, the institution around how learners are progressing along this pathway this valuable insight helps institutions in order to support student success and also do program, evaluation. So here's a look at achievements. This is the CLR that we are developing. So in this CLR, learners will be able to house all of their micro and macro achievements from a badge aligned to a skill that maybe they, unlocked doing a short course. All the way up to a diploma or a transcript.

And of course, you know, this record will get quite unruly over time, and so we will have technology, supporting, sorting, filtering, searching, and also elevating the most relevant information depending on what the goal of the learner is at that time. It should also say I've mentioned it already, but we are moving toward o b three dot o and c l r two dot o it. Today, we are OB two dot o aligned. And here's a quick look at the portfolio. Kinda, you know, looks a little bit like a resume, but portfolios are really powerful in the way that the learner is able to select the elements of the portfolio that are most relevant for the use of that portfolio.

So the academic portfolio is gonna look a lot different than a portfolio used to apply to a job. So you can see that this learner is able to attach achievements and learning evidence to this portfolio. So when they go to apply to a job, the employer is able to say, okay, We've got this match here. This is the percent match. I can take a look at the verified achievements that they have that are relevant for this experience.

I can see evidence. Used to earn these achievements, and we can now close that gap and give employers a better, look at the candidates applying to these jobs. So this is some of just our early design explorations, and and that's it for me. I think we have about thirty minutes left, so I'm happy to chat more and ask answer questions, whatever is top of mind for folks. Thanks, Elizabeth.

Questions in the room. Yeah. There was a lot of talk about the ecosystem between the institution, the learner, and the employee. But I'm not not hearing anything that says, here's where the employer here will go and look for credentials or or say, here's what what we could put in this job subscription. So employers may struggle to identify the specific skills or badges.

Is there a portal or is there a vision for how employers might use this to match competencies to hiring. Yeah. It's a great question. And what we're learning from employers at this point is changing their hiring workflow is is really not our goal. You know, we wanna work into the way that industry and employers are already hiring and enhance that experience.

So we're not trying to oust LinkedIn. Right? We're not going to change the way that they recruit But what we can do is enhance that experience. So what we can do is leverage technology to scan the job listings and the jobs that they need order to extract the skills and the competencies required in that job, we can also use taxonomies around job title and descriptions. So there are taxonomies out there that have already done this work so that we have better insight into all of these jobs today and actually in the future. So that's like the technology and the taxonomy that we'll be leveraging.

And then we match that information by scanning, a job against the learner's profile. So we're actually not going to the employer and saying, hey, like, come change the way that you create a job description or come to this portal to do your recruiting. We're saying, you have your job descriptions. We have technology that's able to better understand what you mean by this job title and this job description because of all of the data out there, and we've developed these axonemies, and we have the learner's pro portfolio. So we can provide you a match score in the systems you're already using and insights into these candidates who are a fit for you.

So imagine you're an employer and you're hiring for a job and you go into your applicant tracking system. Let's say it's greenhouse. Right? And you go into greenhouse and you've got five hundred applicants for this one job. One hundred of them have a match score next to their name. They've risen to the top of the, of your list.

And the they're ordered by match score. You can click on that and see all of the verified skills that have aligned. So that's really the vision that we see. We've we really do think working with employers that changing the way they recruit and hire is not as feasible as enhancing the way that they do it today. Yeah.

So long term the short answer is long term. Yes. That ability to instead of having three thousand resumes, look at the top. Fifty candidates based off of the that search is is maybe not be us. We may just be the dataset that they're looking at.

There are a lot of third parties that are looking into that. But we're definitely looking that as a vision. Yeah. Our institution currently uses parchment for our our registrar's office for our our or macro credentialing. I'm just wondering what affects this acquisition will have in the short term, if any, for us.

Yeah. Absolutely. No impact to you in the short term. We are so excited that parchment has joined the Instructure family, and We are operating business as usual. Our customers will feel no impact, you know, in the short term.

And we're really excited to begin co planning and road mapping to bring you an even more enhanced experience of of credentialing, bringing together the world of macro credentialing and micro credentialing. Parchment has really excelled in the macro space, and we've really invested in the micro space. And so our our vision is to bring those two worlds together for a seamless experience for for you and your learners. And so long story short, no impact to you in the in the short term. But hopefully, delight to come in the in the near future.

We'll start actually, as I mentioned in the beginning, you know, we just closed the acquisition even though we announced it last year, just closed a week ago. So now we start the process of of that program planning and how we've been in products together. So certainly not in the near future, not in the next year, but beyond that. Start you'll hear more from Elizabeth Brown what that looks like. Yeah.

Hi. Is there any, plan migration from Portfolium to Canvas portfolio or migration plan? We do not have a migration plan in detail quite yet for our portfolio. Customers, but there will absolutely be a migration plan, and we will be working closely with our Portfolium customers to support them in as pain free migration as possible. So we have many, Portfolium customers who are advising us on the development of these products and helping us, understand their needs and the migration. But we do hope, we do plan to invest in that migration for you all so that it's as painless as possible.

And, I guess the fault of that is the Canvas evidence based part of your portfolio, supposed to be, like, parallel to the, you know, petroleum project space. It must be the same idea. Can you say that again? I'm so sorry. No. No problem.

How's the part it's pretty much, you know, the resumes project. Right? So the canvas based evidence for their portfolio, is that supposed to be, like, the same thing but just rewarded? It's like a migration question, but just trying to figure out like everything's project based, right, portfolio? Yeah. That was something that would be your evidence. Oh, yeah. All the all the elements that now make up your projects, whereas those, collateral elements that are in there will be your you're evident.

Yes. Yes. So just mapping the language that I was using is what you were asking. Got it. Yes.

Yeah. So, Correct. So, yes, learning evidence, is just the terminology we're using, in the learner passport. Credentials, require, you know, evidence and have requirements. And so we when we talk about the learner passport and the experience having all of these products together.

Of course, portfolio will be able to be will be very valuable on its own. If you're not, you know, engaging in credentialing program yet. But when we when I was just talking about it, I was talking through the lens of having a credentialing program and tabling having portfolio as well. So when they work together, we consider it learning evidence for the credentials that the learner is unlocking, separate using portfolio separately without a credentialing, experience at the institution, you may not be referring to it as learning evidence at that point. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Absolutely. It's good. The impression I get is that it's record for a student at a single institution. We have students that cross institutions all the time.

So I'm wondering how that would be reflected in your processes. So if a student goes to another school, especially if that institution does not use Canvas, how they might be able to pull in their work. So the the CLR, the learners' learner record is theirs, and it's actually not really associated to an institution. So the learner's identity is like, they could be connected to multiple institutions in parallel concurrently, and all of these institutions can award a statements to them, and it can populate their learner record. But it is the learners' learner record.

It's actually associated to them not the institution. The awards that an institution awards would be available in the credential product. So let's say that you are an institution, you have created, you have credentials, you have a credentialing program, You are an institution who awards credentials. You are able to always see the awards that you've awarded to learners in your experience. The learner will see what they've been awarded and accepted from all institutions that have awarded to them.

They can also bring in awards like, this is it's separate from Canvas LMS. So, the the alarm does not need Canvas LMS. So we're draining things like that. Yeah. They become that lifelong record or everything they did.

Not just what they do at your institution or the next. Correct. And that's why we work so closely with one ed tech. The open badges standard, just making sure that a badge that's issued by one institution, you know, everything's transferable. So I have a weird question.

If they belong to the learner and not all institutions use the same ID for the learner, how is the learner plugging them in? Because the learner have to go somewhere and put in their USF credentials, US past credentials, Valencia. How are they how would they all go? Yep. Sorry. One second. I'm recovering from a cold and I think I have a cough coming.

Okay. I'm sorry. So actually really exciting. Our team is undergoing an identity management initiative right now in which learners will, have a single identity and will be able to map all of their tuition specific identities to their single identity. So our products as they support lifelong learning will be, the first products to benefit from this, exciting initiative.

And so that's being led by our platform team. So we're moving toward single identity for the learner and we'll be able to match all of those institution specific identities. In addition to that, a learner is able to copy, of course, we want it more easy to use experience, but today, the current state is they're actually able to copy the URL of any awarded achievement. And bring it into a learner record, whether that's via us or our products or another product. And as we have states that are creating their own wallets and things like that, that some of the process is still to be worked out.

But as long as we're mapping to those open standards, we should be able to create relatively easy paths like Elizabeth said to to actually pull those in. Any other questions? Thanks, Elizabeth. I appreciate that. You did a great job? Yeah. Absolutely.

Oh, go ahead. No. I was just gonna say, we are as we develop new products, we are always hungry for insights and feedback. And so if If anything piqued your interest here and you'd like to share more about your experience, we we'd be happy to connect further. We have multiple product managers working on on these spaces, spaces, so lots of people to plug in and talk with if you're if you're interested in learning more or providing some feedback.

So Excellent. Yeah. Okay. Well, just a minute, but before we do, I promise Tommy could have ten minutes. Quickly address everybody.

I don't wanna get between you in months. Just, two things. One, welcome to UCSF for those who haven't been here before. You are in the research park. You are in the digital learning center, which is the largest of relocations where staff from the division of deep learning work.

There's a bunch of UCF people around the room. If you have any questions, about us and what we do, feel free to ask any of them or any. The second thing is many of you have already discovered this, but we do have bathrooms on this floor. I mean, there are three on this floor. So I'll point them out a little bit of housekeeping in before we break.

If you go out the doors and go right, there are a couple of small ones just on the other side of the hospitality room where you got your breakfast. You go all the way to the end of the hall and go left, there's another small one there. If you go out and go left on the opposite side of the building, there's a larger bathroom, that's both men and women. We have both. So, hopefully, there will be a possibility of everybody to use at any time.

That was really it. Oh, thanks. That was Tom's best, flight attendants, information. So we're gonna come back at twelve thirty and talk a little bit more about discussions with Sam. So thank you so much.

And again, thank you to UCF for having us, Tom. Thank you so much for being our host. And we'll see you guys in a few minutes. Client client is the break an hour or less than that? I heard you say twelve thirty. Time. This credit card doesn't have college name. It's the same hotel brand.