SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – A computer glitch last week gave thousands of students across the state the chance to change their grades.
The system that was breached was Canvas learning management system, hosted by Utah-based software company Instructure. Canvas is an online tool that allows teachers and students to review assignments and grades.
But on Tuesday, a software malfunction allowed students to have access to their peers’ grades as well and it gave them the ability to change their scores.
So, in the 105 minutes during the glitch, how many students actually made changes?
State education officials tell ABC4 of the 174,000 students in the Utah system of Higher Education, 278 were given special access and only 39 changes were made.
“I think it speaks highly of the students we have in this state,” said Eric Denna, Utah Education Network. “Given the opportunity, the vast majority said this isn’t right I'm not going to do this.”
Three of the changes occurred at Utah State, but officials say the students ended up putting the grades back to the original state on their own. As for the others, their grades were changed back only after school officials found out about it.
“We know exactly who saw what, when, how long, what they did and the few changes that were made,” said Denna.
One former student who used Canvas tells ABC4 the whole thing is unnerving.
“I think it's of concern because obviously it’s something that shouldn't happen again in the future,” said Kristin Lindsey, former U of U student. Education leaders say their taking action to make sure it doesn't.
“We view this as a serious incident,” said Denna. “We want to make sure we reduce the likelihood of this occurring again.”
Denna said the software is going to be reviewed Monday to see what went wrong.
The glitch affected the state's public colleges and universities as well as Ogden-Weber Applied Technology, Electronic high school and the Granite, Park City and Canyons school districts.
