Canvas links grades to social networks
The Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching (FACT) begins training faculty this week on how to use Canvas, the new learning management system (LMS) that will fully replace Blackboard by summer of 2012.
“We’re running in the ballpark of about 30 courses in Canvas this summer,” said FACT instructional designer Neal Legler. “We’ve got some new classes that faculty just don’t want to develop in Blackboard, or we’ve got classes that are taught by faculty that are eager to try out the new system.”
Legler said the training, which is open to all instructors who would like to attend, will take place in the Merrill-Cazier Library from now until the end of the semester. For those faculty members who will remain here throughout the summer, training opportunities will also be available.
Any professors or instructor who would like to incorporate Canvas into their curriculum for the Fall 2011 semester can contact FACT and become eligible to do so. He said the aim is to have around 200 on-campus courses using Canvas by the fall and have most of the online, distance education courses changed over as well.
“We’re hoping that over the summer we’ll have done enough testing that we’ll have worked out some of the kinks on the new system,” Legler said.
Part of the change from Blackboard to Canvas includes integrating the new system with Banner so students will be able to access it by using their A-number and Banner password. Legler said it is likely some students will end up having to use both systems – Blackboard for some classes and Canvas for others – until the changeover is complete.
Since December 2010, when USU liaisons for the Utah Education Network (UEN) took part in a network-wide decision to find a replacement for Blackboard – because the UEN contract with Blackboard ends in summer of 2012 – a handful of instructors on campus have already been using the new software.
“I’ve been teaching with it this semester – 35 students,” said internet development instructor Kevin Reeve. “It’s a piece of cake for them. I’ve maybe gotten three questions all semester.”
Reeve said he also had a chance to teach using one of the other new program options UEN was considering, but all others pale in comparison to Canvas.
“I think Canvas is going to be so much easier than any of the other tools,” Reeve said, “for faculty and students.”
The time it takes him to grade assignments for his online Internet development course has been cut in half, Reeve said. The advantage is that Canvas allows him to view submissions regardless of their format (e.g. Word, Excel or PDF) by incorporating built-in document viewing capabilities.
Another instructor that has had the opportunity to work with the new system, assistant professor Kelly Fadel, said former USU student Ryan Shaw was one of the original developers of the Canvas software. Shaw commissioned Fadel to try out the new software shortly after it was designed.
“He showed me their interface and what they had built up to that point and whet my appetite,” Fadel said. “I started using it the next semester and have been using it ever since. This is my third semester using it.”
Though Fadel teaches computer-oriented courses in which students may already be tech-savvy, he said anybody, whether they are a student or faculty member, should be able to adapt to the new program quickly and easily.
Individual users are able to receive notifications about their classes, like course announcements or when grades are posted, through e-mails or text messages, all depending on how they personally tailor their account. Canvas even interfaces with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, Legler said.
“I’ve gotten very good feedback from the students. Canvas is very user-friendly and really a pleasure to use,” Fadel said. “There were initially some hiccups as you would expect with any new system, but one of the great things about the Canvas team is they’ve been very responsive to any problems – fixed them right away.”
Originally, it did not seem very likely that Canvas would be the selected system, Fadel said, since it was made by a small start-up company called Instructure. He said he thinks the product is good enough and genuinely different from the other software in its market, he said, which puts it ahead of the pack.
By the spring of next year, Legler said, the majority of classes taught at USU, on-campus, online and through distance education, will be using Canvas instead of Blackboard. By the summer of 2012 Blackboard will not be utilized at all at USU.
– dan.whitney.smith@aggiemail.usu.edu