On January 9, 2023, KU Information Technology updated user accounts in Canvas to assign the KU Online ID email address (“permanent email address”) as the default email. Previously, a user's email alias ("primary email address") could have been the main email address in Canvas. The change was made to ensure each KU Canvas user account has a unique email address and to help correct issues with connections to third-party, or external, tools such as Zoom.

To identify your KU permanent and primary email address, please refer to the Email Aliases page at myidentity.ku.edu. Users with KUMC email accounts were not affected by this change.

Screenshot of email aliases page at https://myidentity.ku.edu/services/email/alias

This change should have little or no effect on most users' experience in Canvas. For a small group of users who added multiple versions of their KU email in Canvas, this change may have affected their previously set notification settings. KU Educational Technology encourages all users to review their Canvas notification settings to ensure you are getting notified by the system according to your preference. Please review our guides for both instructors and students on setting notifications in Canvas.

For instructors, this change will have little effect on the email you see displayed for students in your courses. The email visible on the People page and Grades Export CSV was already the student’s permanent, KU Online ID, email. Instructors will see a change in these features:

The email visible in the student tab and roster report in the New Analytics tool.
When manually adding users to a course, an instructor will need to use the permanent, KU Online ID, version of a user’s email or the student ID. Learn more about manually adding users to a course: Users – People in Canvas.

If you have questions about this change, please contact KU IT Educational Technology at itedtech@ku.edu.