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Canvas: Terms of Use FAQs
This document answers frequently asked questions by faculty and students about the Canvas Terms of Use document.
Q. When I first login to Canvas, why do I have to accept terms of use?
Rice University uses Canvas under the terms of the Internet2 Net+ contract which requires Canvas users to individually accept the Terms of Use.
Instructure is the educational technology company that developed the Canvas software.
Not at all. You keep complete ownership of all of your intellectual property used on the site. The statement which most people question is:
“Instructure does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, you grant Instructure a fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform, and publicly display, Your Content (in whole or in part) for the purposes of operating and providing the Instructure Properties to you and to your other Users.”
The key to this statement is at the end of the sentence- “for the purposes of operating and providing the Instructure Properties to you and to your other users.” This simply means Instructure/Canvas makes your content useable by the related Rice students and faculty.
No. Section 4.2 also states your content is “solely for the purposes of operating and providing the Instructure Properties to you and to your Entity’s other Users.” This just means Instructure can store your information and make it available to the Rice students and teaching faculty who are in or are a part of your class.
No. Submitting feedback to Instructure suggesting changes or features gives Instructure the right to use the feedback to make changes with no obligation to you.
While Instructure does not usually monitor content, and is very clear about not being liable for content you or anyone else develops on Canvas, they will investigate if they become aware of violations of user code of conduct (below).
4.4 USER CODE OF CONDUCT. As a condition of use, you agree not to use the Instructure Properties for any purpose that is prohibited by the Terms or by applicable law. Do not post, or permit others to post, content on the Instructure Properties or on your profile that (i) encourages illegal activities, is fraudulent, or is unlawful; (ii) defames, harasses, or threatens others; (iii) violates the copyright or intellectual property or privacy rights of others; (iv) contains obscene material (unless such material is made available for educational purposes); (v) impersonates others; (vi) advertises or sells a product or service. Do not attempt or engage in, any potentially harmful acts that are directed against the Instructure Properties, including but not limited to violating or attempting to violate any security features of the Instructure Properties, introducing viruses, worms, or similar harmful code into the Instructure Properties, or unreasonably interfering or attempting to interfere with use of the Instructure Properties by any other user, host or network, including by means of overloading, “flooding,” “spamming,” “mail bombing”, or “crashing” the Instructure Properties.
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