How ThingLink is Powering Instructure’s Engaging and Accessible Certified Programs

Kyla Ball January 15, 2026

Instructure is the global EdTech organization used by over 19 million unique users annually. It’s probably best-known as the home of Canvas, their flagship product and the world’s #1 LMS. Five years ago, Instructure launched the first of their new professional certification programs, the Canvas Certified Educator program. 

Since then, their array of certified programs has grown to five – all built using ThingLink. We spoke to Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs at Instructure to understand how ThingLink has been key to program design and delivery, and learner success. 

The Challenge: Keeping Learners Engaged in Technical, Asynchronous Learning

Instructure’s certified programs are all delivered asynchronously, so the main challenge in each course build was to ensure that they were all interactive enough to keep learners engaged. Secondly, it’s also vital that Instructure can deliver learning content in a way that avoids overwhelm or confusion. One part of this is ensuring that content is fully accessible for all learners, regardless of language, visual, learning or sensory differences. 

Solution: Interactive and engaging courses created in ThingLink

From the outset, all the courses were designed with ThingLink at their core. As the courses have been added, ThingLink’s new products and features have been incorporated into them to enhance learner experience and success. 

“ThingLink has become the tool I reach for in my toolbox whenever I need something interactive or engaging. As ThingLink has developed to include scenarios, branching, and all kinds of wonderful features where people can choose their own pathway to learn about a product. It’s a reliable tool — no downtime, no issues, and works flawlessly when embedded in Canvas. It truly bolsters the quality of our courses.”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure

Key benefits:

Creating an optimal learner experience: Clarity and interactivity

One of the Canvas certification programs was a technical program: Canvas Certified Power User, which launched in fall 2025. To effectively demonstrate the required click-pathways for advanced Canvas functionalities, Erin and colleagues determined that ThingLink was the optimal content creation tool due to its clarity and high level of interactivity. This approach allows users to pause, engage in reflective thought, answer questions, and consider the practical application of the skills within their own course designs.

“At the end of the course, we asked learners to reflect on one thing they learned that they plan to implement. One of the first graduate’s response was that they were going to ask their school to purchase ThingLink because it was amazing!”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure.

Erin has used ThingLink’s Scenario Builder tool to build branching scenarios, enabling learners to choose between learning about Canvas’s Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes for example. Learner feedback to this branching function has been particularly positive. Learners have also reported that:

• they feel very supported; 
• the ThingLink content is clear; 
• they appreciate being able to move at their own pace, go back a step, or rewatch an element. 

The Canvas Certified Educator and Power User courses are primarily taken by educators and instructional designers across both K-12 and higher ed. However learners in the Canvas Certified Technical Admin  program are often non-educators, so not regular users of pedagogically structured training. For this cohort of learners, it was especially important that the Canvas courses were clear, easily navigable and manageable. 

“Using ThingLink, we were able to easily pivot the design to include more interactive, smaller pieces for these courses, which made it easier to navigate the learning, and this made a big difference.”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure.

Flexibility for every asynchronous learner

All learners on all courses are provided with both the embedded ThingLink experience inside Canvas, where the tool “embeds beautifully and feels like part of everything we’ve created” – and also with the direct link, for accessibility and convenience. Both methods work well in different ways and provide the flexibility and versatility that asynchronous learners need and expect from any online training. 

Delivered additionally as a direct link, Instructure learners are bookmarking and returning to the self-contained lessons on specific topics, whenever required. In fact this method has been so popular that despite incorporating 200,000 views for the year to cover the number of learners and lessons, this was later extended as learners were revisiting the courses to refresh, sometimes multiple times. 

Accessibility: Breaking language barriers with seamless translation

A university in Spain expressed interest in enrolling participants in the Technical Admin  program and inquired whether the content was available in Spanish. Although the program was originally developed entirely in English, Canvas’s Immersive Reader and ThingLink’s built-in and AI-powered translation features enabled the institution to translate all necessary materials. As a result, their participants were able to complete the course successfully without encountering any language-related barriers. This function could be duplicated for any of the 40 available languages that ThingLink content currently supports – and the list is expanding every year.

“We have people from all over the world taking our courses, and I feel confident that the translation tools in both Canvas and ThingLink make it accessible.”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure.

Accessibility: Adapting effortlessly for diverse learning needs

Accessibility is an essential consideration for instructional designers and course creators, particularly given the new laws coming into effect in the U.S. concerning accessible content. However, ThingLink’s built-in accessibility features meant that Erin and her colleagues are able to provide accessible versions of all courses without any additional updates or alterations and without losing the interactive elements that help make these online courses so engaging. 

ThingLink automatically generates a web link to an accessible format of the course content via its dedicated accessibility player, a special viewing mode designed to enhance the accessibility of images and videos. The  player complies with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, ensuring content is accessible to a wide range of users. Key features include screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, alt text for images, high contrast mode, and adjustable text size.

“Creating accessible content on your own can be hard, but with ThingLink and its accessibility player, I know that’s covered. I feel very safe and confident using it.”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure.

ThingLink: Key to the success of Instructure’s Certified Programs

For Instructure, ThingLink has proved to be more than just a course creation and authoring tool for immersive learning experiences; it is an integral partner in ensuring the ongoing quality and success of Instructure’s global certified programs. The ThingLink integration has helped this sector leader meet the challenge of delivering engaging, clear, and accessible asynchronous professional training programs, allowing it to expand its interactive courses internationally, and effortlessly meet diverse learning needs. 

“I’ve said many times that I don’t think our programs would have been as successful without this tool. ThingLink has helped bring the content alive and kept it from feeling flat or disengaging, as asynchronous courses sometimes can. If we couldn’t use ThingLink, it would be devastating because it’s become so integral to what we do.”

Erin Keefe, Program Manager for Certified Programs, Instructure.