Blackboard nears end, Canvas to fill role
Signs around campus have warned of it, and next semester it will happen.
USU will join other public colleges and universities in Utah by dropping Blackboard Vista as its primary learning management system (LMS). It will be replaced by Canvas, a product of the Sandy, Utah-based software company Instructure.
Blackboard’s license with Utah schools expires July 1. Rather than renew its license with Blackboard, a multi-million dollar software company that in 2006 bought out the company that created Vista WebCT. The Utah Education Network opted to instead find a new LMS for its public schools.
“In 2009, we started looking around and started realizing that this was coming,” said Neal Legler, and instructional designer for USU. “We started looking around at all of our different options. In 2010, the whole state put out a proposal for vendors to submit bids for licensing new systems.”
After the July 1 deadline, USU teachers and students won’t be able to access the site, Legler said.
Teachers have had the past year to retrieve content from Blackboard and are being encouraged to remove any remaining content before the July 1 shutdown, Legler said. Any information that is not transferred to Canvas or to their own computers will be lost once the July 1 deadline passes.
According to Legler, several companies put in bids for the UEN license. These included Pearson, MoodleRooms, Agilix, Desire2Learn and Instructure. Blackboard was also in the running, putting in a bid for its newest LMS, Blackboard Learn.
Legler said Blackboard Learn was completely different from the version of Blackboard USU runs now and would have been just as big a change as if UEN were to switch to a brand new LMS.
“We went through this process of saying, ‘Well, if we have to make this radical change anyway, let’s look and see what’s out there and see what we can get that might fit us better,'” he said.
Focus groups of instructors narrowed the final choices to Canvas, Desire2Learn and Blackboard. Canvas was the most appealing choice, having received input in its design from USU during its creation. Canvas also bundled features such as text message notifications in with its package while Blackboard charged extra for such features.
Legler said instructors were impressed by how quickly Canvas support technicians responded to instructor input.
“All of the schools came together and cast their votes over which LMS they liked better, and Canvas just won out,” he said. “There was a bit of a split between Blackboard and Desire2Learn, but Canvas was the one that everyone agreed that they could go with.”
Canvas is more modern, Legler said, and it was designed with newer technology. Blackboard is a repurposed and updated version of older software, he added.
“Anything like Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle and related were all developed on 1990s technology,” Legler said. “They were all built on ’90s web technology and were just being repurposed or built on some more. We were attracted to the fact that Canvas was a platform that was developed with the same technology stack as the Facebooks and Twitters and the like.”
Canvas can connect users to social networking websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, automatically sends email updates to students, is mobile phone friendly, has mobile applications in development and is an open source platform. These modern features helped Canvas gain the attention of Utah schools, according to Legler.
Another factor in the decision to adopt Canvas was that it is a local company and allows for school versatility.
“Everything is run out of the data center at UEN, which is on the University of Utah campus,” said Tyler Clair, an instructional designer at USU. “What’s cool is that they run the same code, but each institution is able to manage their institution on their own. We don’t have to conform to the way that everybody does it. We can have our own way of managing our courses.”
Legler said UEN’s decision to go with Instructure was a bit of a very carefully calculated risk, taken with significant contractual safeguards that provided confidence the transition would succeed and be a long-term benefit. He said he feels this has been the case.
“Canvas was the youngest vendor on the market, having started in 2007,” Legler said. “When Utah came on, we were their big client. When Utah signed on with them it gave other schools the confidence to sign on with them. We have a very good working relationship with Instructure.”
– ej.jungblut@gmail.com