The word has been given that we will move to Canvas Next Summer, and be fully on Canvas in Fall 2024.
I wasnt part of the discussion, or part of the decision.
I was hoping that I could retire in a few years without such a set of issues.
For anyone who has had to deal with all of these sorts of issues, what do you think? What are the biggest problems I will have to deal with?
What do YOU wish you had known before your classes had to make the jump?
What will I like about the transition? (What will I like most about Canvas?)
Advice? Good Wishes? Better me than you comments?
I can't remember specifics about when we did that same transition, but I do remember that I found Canvas much easier to deal with. I think you will be happy with Canvas.
We use Moodle. And although I have used Canvas, it was so long ago now that I don't remember the particulars.
I would just say: remember to save your course templates and files, and to save them in a non-proprietary file format. You don't want to have to rebuild quizzes and stuff from scratch!
Considerable time has passed since my place did the Blackboard>Canvas migration. This is what I remember.
Files that you upload to Blackboard, if they were "hidden" from students in Blackboard, won't necessarily migrate as "hidden" and will end up discoverable in Canvas, if you don't manually go in after the migration and manually set all the files back to "hidden."
This can be a problem if you keep test answers in the LMS.
I also had some problems with quizzes not migrating all of the auto comments on the auto-graded quizzes. It was really annoying when I discovered a lot of the comments were missing.
It took considerable time on each faculty member's part to make sure the class set up in Blackboard ran like it was supposed to in Canvas.
Most of the faculty were really pissed off about the cutover, because it was the faculty who were doing most of the work in the cutover. It was a lot of extra overhead, just so admincritters could save money and the useless executive IT managers who failed "Into to Programming" and became Business Administration majors (or worse, "Leadership" majors), could make it look like there were doing something "IT."
Canvas is the third LMS I've worked with, and I'm pleased with its features and ease of use.
I've done that transition. It takes some adjusting. There might be a way to import your courses to Canvas from Blackboard, but it is bound to be imperfect. You are probably better off starting afresh and manually setting up the courses.
Canvas is certainly more modern and mostly better than Blackboard. I'm not a big fan of its gradebook and I find its Quiz function to be a total pain in the neck. But they work ok once you get used to them. Avoid the "Curve the grades" function at all costs.
As with Blackboard, Canvas partly depends on how it is implemented at your institution. Mine has various functions which I haven't explored because IT doesn't do much to support them. So there's lots of potential there, which could take a lot of time to master, but it is easy to stick to the basics.
We made the shift last summer. Canvas is worlds better than Bb (and I say that as someone who had pretty much beaten Bb into submission over the years and was considered a "power user"). It's just way easier and more intuitive to set up most things in Canvas, though I'm not wild about their quizzes, but I don't use those much anyway.
One thing I have had to really emphasize to my students: when I do Discussions, I always have two deadlines--one for the original response to the prompt, and then a second one for students' replies to classmates' posts. The schedule that shows up in the Syllabus tab ONLY shows that second deadline, so I post notes all over each module (and in the early days, also send reminder email announcements) that they DO have that earlier deadline as well. (I don't accept any late work, so it matters.)
My school made that transition after a year of having selected faculty test competing LMS programs in their classes. I think that analysis was extraordinarily well done. If you want, you can consider that effort to be done for your benefit as well.
The transition took a rather large support staff in the first year to make sure the new LMS was working well in each class. Once instructors got the hang of it, which wasn't long, they were universally happy to have the new system. I have not heard of anyone longing for Blackboard.
Your university's academic technology unit should be on top of migrating pre-existing Blackboard content into Canvas. It's an easy content import process that you, as a faculty member, can do yourself. Download the course file in Blackboard to your computer, then upload it into the next iteration of the course in Canvas.
The only really annoying part of Canvas for me is the quiz tool. I strongly recommend building a question bank first, then drawing questions from it for each quiz in a course.
SpeedGrader, with its ability to use clickable rubrics for grading of writing assignments, is fantastic.
The Announcements feature is inferior in Canvas.
You can't turn specific Announcements on and off as easily as in BlackBoard. In Canvas, you can either leave each Announcement up permanently, set each one to a "delay" that you'll manually futz with on the calendar every time (very tedious), or you can switch off *all* the Announcements in your class page.
Since moving to Canvas, I don't use Announcements so much anymore.
We shifted from Moodle to Canvas a few years ago, but I have absolutely loved the update. One of my favorite features in Canvas has been the "email students who" feature in the gradebook. I can do things like quickly email everyone who hasn't turned in an assignment or who have not yet started the exam that is due in an hour.
And yes to the love for the SpeedGrader! So much easier, and the ability to build a comment library makes adding feedback a breeze. I do not love that "new quizzes" is still an external tool. I don't know why they haven't just made the features in new quizzes part of the internal Canvas quiz system. I also really like and use the Announcements feature (unlike another poster) but I have to remind my students to update the settings in their Canvas system so they get the Announcements in email - I can't force that. I never used Blackboard, so I still like the Canvas announcements better than Moodle, but I can't compare to Blackboard.
Quote from: Aster on May 11, 2023, 12:03:52 PM
The Announcements feature is inferior in Canvas.
You can't turn specific Announcements on and off as easily as in BlackBoard. In Canvas, you can either leave each Announcement up permanently, set each one to a "delay" that you'll manually futz with on the calendar every time (very tedious), or you can switch off *all* the Announcements in your class page.
Since moving to Canvas, I don't use Announcements so much anymore.
I am confused by this, since the only LMS I have used is Canvas. I post class announcements regularly. I can choose how many are posted at the top of the home page (I currently leave the 3 most recent), and there is an archive of all announcements I have previously made under the "announcements" tab. Most students have the announcements forwarded to their email accounts too. Is there some functionality that I should be wanting to use that I can't do in Canvas?
I made the transition and I found it better to just rebuild my course from scratch. Question banks and quizzes DO NOT migrate over properly. All of your slides, videos, etc. will come over as individual files in no particular order.
Here are the things that I learned the hard way:
Canvas is designed to work well for a class that is organized into "Modules". This is sort of like a header/big bin to post materials.
I use the approach that each week of lab is a Module. That's where I post the: pre-lab assignment, protocols, links to videos, etc for that week. I also have modules for things like "Welcome to class" that has the TA contact information, syllabus, etc. Or "Need help?" as a place to put links to the tutoring center, counseling, etc.
Know that there is no such thing as a "folder" in Canvas. If you want to share a bunch of images/.ab1 files/readings you have a few options:
1. Put the things in a Google folder & share a link
2. Set up a Module called "Readings" and upload each file individually
3. Use the "pages" to copy & paste the images/links to all the images on the page & publish that page in a module
Unless it's a .jpg or .pdf, images do not display properly.
Unless it's a file you upload, basically everything else is on a "page". I use those to embed videos, share links to Google folders, etc. You can do some really nice cross-references by putting in links to existing course files. Like a quiz that says "read the syllabus before you take this quiz" and you can put in a link to the syllabus that is clickable.
If you want an assignment to be in the grades, you MUST create an assignment. No more "add column to grade book" option. You do have the option to say that the assignment is "on paper" for things that students hand in during class (as opposed to upload). That's what I use for the in-class lab worksheets.
The default settings are annoying as all get out. I'd suggest eliminating any features you are not using (e.g. I don't use online discussions so I hide that from view). The "enable class grading scheme" will automatically choose a letter grade scale and show it to the students unless you turn it off.
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system. If you know that you want to have 30% of the grade from quizzes and drop the lowest 2 quiz scores, you need to set that up in advance using the categories in the "Assignments".
Anything that you want students to complete online that has more than one question should be set up as a "quiz". Trust me.
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 11, 2023, 02:24:38 PM
[. . .]
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system.
[. . . ]
I use a point system. The more points earned by the end of the course, the higher the grade. No fiddling with how much different categories of assignments are weighted.
If anyone knows how to hide the gradebook columns that contain percentage figures, please let me know here. No matter what I do, students fixate on the percentage instead of total points.
Quote from: spork on May 11, 2023, 02:41:02 PM
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 11, 2023, 02:24:38 PM
[. . .]
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system.
[. . . ]
I use a point system. The more points earned by the end of the course, the higher the grade. No fiddling with how much different categories of assignments are weighted.
If anyone knows how to hide the gradebook columns that contain percentage figures, please let me know here. No matter what I do, students fixate on the percentage instead of total points.
If your university has enabled it, this (https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-hide-totals-in-my-students-grade-summaries/ta-p/671) may work.
If not, this used to work for me: Put in a stealth assignment worth one point with no due date and set the posting to "manual". Give everyone a point but (and this is key) don't post the 'grade'. Since they have a graded assignment that they can't see, canvas (at least used to) disable the final grade column.
I do find it mostly better than other CMS I've used. Agree with others about Speedgrader. Like every CMS I've ever used, it doesn't seem to have been properly beta tested by actual instructors, and so about once a semester, I screw something up slightly and it ends up being far more complicated to fix than it should be.
Quote from: arcturus on May 11, 2023, 12:32:37 PM
Quote from: Aster on May 11, 2023, 12:03:52 PM
The Announcements feature is inferior in Canvas.
You can't turn specific Announcements on and off as easily as in BlackBoard. In Canvas, you can either leave each Announcement up permanently, set each one to a "delay" that you'll manually futz with on the calendar every time (very tedious), or you can switch off *all* the Announcements in your class page.
Since moving to Canvas, I don't use Announcements so much anymore.
I am confused by this, since the only LMS I have used is Canvas. I post class announcements regularly. I can choose how many are posted at the top of the home page (I currently leave the 3 most recent), and there is an archive of all announcements I have previously made under the "announcements" tab. Most students have the announcements forwarded to their email accounts too. Is there some functionality that I should be wanting to use that I can't do in Canvas?
In BlackBoard, announcements are much more versatile. You can click each one off and on whenever you like.
In Canvas, if you want to hide announcements individually, the only option is to go into the editor of each one individually and activate the "delay posting" function. Very tedious and micromanaging. Transitioning to Canvas from BlackBoard, this was perhaps one of the more unpleasant adjustment that I had to make.
It's puzzling why Canvas has ergonomic buttons for switching on and off pretty much everything else (e.g., grades, files, modules), but for some reason the developers did not enable this for announcements.
Quote from: onthefringe on May 11, 2023, 04:36:43 PM
Quote from: spork on May 11, 2023, 02:41:02 PM
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 11, 2023, 02:24:38 PM
[. . .]
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system.
[. . . ]
I use a point system. The more points earned by the end of the course, the higher the grade. No fiddling with how much different categories of assignments are weighted.
If anyone knows how to hide the gradebook columns that contain percentage figures, please let me know here. No matter what I do, students fixate on the percentage instead of total points.
If your university has enabled it, this (https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-hide-totals-in-my-students-grade-summaries/ta-p/671) may work.
If not, this used to work for me: Put in a stealth assignment worth one point with no due date and set the posting to "manual". Give everyone a point but (and this is key) don't post the 'grade'. Since they have a graded assignment that they can't see, canvas (at least used to) disable the final grade column.
My university has not enabled the above setting, which is not surprising, since we have no academic technology unit and IT is mainly concerned with ignoring pedagogical considerations in favor of "seCuRitY." It refuses to allow LTIs like Google Drive.
I don't know how stealth assignments work, or if we have that option either, but you gave me the idea of creating a fake assignment worth 500 points and giving everyone a grade of zero for it, which might completely tank the gradebook percentages.
Agree that Speed Grader is a nice bit of functionality. However, I find Canvas a bit clunky (though I wonder if there are versions that are less so). Opening a document can require multiple steps that seem indirect and unnecessary.
For students the biggest drawback has been that once a course ends all of their DQs and assignments disappear. I always download their assignments; but if they haven't copied DQs from a Word or other document they are out of luck, so I warn them multiple times during the semester. Again, this may be how our place has it set up; but something to check out.
We migrated several years ago. This discussion is bringing back the things that were majorly different. The big thing that I noticed was that while Blackboard is centered around the files you upload, Canvas is centered around the Modules and even more the Pages you create with those files embedded within it. This is particularly useful for online classes, but works as an organizational scheme for in person as well.
Think of each "Page" as a webpage of resources for that days class/ weeks class/ project etc. With the page you can create a series of instructions that utilize multiple, files, web links, YouTube videos etc. So for a particular class day you can have one page that directs students to embedded links to a pdf to read, a video to watch, and then to the assignment they need to complete. And you have the ability to add annotated text in between these elements telling them what to do. Just uploading files doesn't work nearly as well because the Canvas file organization on the back end is horrible, or massively time consuming to set up. And good luck ever deleting files! I have a canvas page for my research lab, and I am forever cleaning out files (that I thought I had already deleted off the server) to open up more space.
I agree that the announcement function is a bit wonky, especially if you have "canned announcements" that get deployed on a standard schedule. I also agree that having to remember to create an assignment for things like "Final course Grade" is minorly annoying. Tip- always make the final course grade worth zero points. Otherwise students will email you and be confused. It's also very difficult, but not impossible to turn off the running grade average. Overall, I like Canvas much more, but it has also been several years since we ditched Blackboard so I'm not sure how much they even tried to keep up.
We migrated in the middle of Covid - it was not fun. I preferred BB for the comparative flexibility in course design and unlike others did not find Canvas intuitive at all (the lack of training and support offered by the university because of the pandemic was part of that though).
I think you do have to work with the module structure even if it means a course redesign. But as the import of BB files ruins any logic they had before, you have to start over anyway. It looks nicer than BB at least. The biggest issues we found, although this might be because it's not been set up well, were that the Canvas email system doesn't not link to our main email accounts, so you have two inboxes to check, and if you continue to use non-Canvas grading tools (as we have to) the functionality is far worse than it was in BB.
Quote from: sandgrounder on May 15, 2023, 07:29:54 AM
The biggest issues we found, although this might be because it's not been set up well, were that the Canvas email system doesn't not link to our main email accounts, so you have two inboxes to check, and if you continue to use non-Canvas grading tools (as we have to) the functionality is far worse than it was in BB.
Actually, you CAN set the Canvas emails to deliver to your main email account. In Canvas, go to your profile - then Notifications - then scroll down to Conversations. You'll want a green bell (Notify immediately) to ensure the messages are sent to your email account.
At least, we can do this on the version at my school--I don't know if other places might be able to shut off access to this function.
Quote from: onthefringe on May 11, 2023, 04:36:43 PM
Quote from: spork on May 11, 2023, 02:41:02 PM
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 11, 2023, 02:24:38 PM
[. . .]
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system.
[. . . ]
I use a point system. The more points earned by the end of the course, the higher the grade. No fiddling with how much different categories of assignments are weighted.
If anyone knows how to hide the gradebook columns that contain percentage figures, please let me know here. No matter what I do, students fixate on the percentage instead of total points.
If your university has enabled it, this (https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-hide-totals-in-my-students-grade-summaries/ta-p/671) may work.
If not, this used to work for me: Put in a stealth assignment worth one point with no due date and set the posting to "manual". Give everyone a point but (and this is key) don't post the 'grade'. Since they have a graded assignment that they can't see, canvas (at least used to) disable the final grade column.
Yes, that's where you can hide grade column totals. Scrolling up is the option for "Launch SpeedGrader Filtered by Student Group", which the default for us is "off". I turn it on.
And under that is "Enable course grading scheme". If it's "on", then the students will see a letter grade even if they have only turned in 1 assignment. I'd say either turn it off or customize to the grading scheme used in your courses. Our school offers an "A+" grade, but anything below 60% is just an "F".
Quote from: AmLitHist on May 15, 2023, 10:06:58 AM
Quote from: sandgrounder on May 15, 2023, 07:29:54 AM
The biggest issues we found, although this might be because it's not been set up well, were that the Canvas email system doesn't not link to our main email accounts, so you have two inboxes to check, and if you continue to use non-Canvas grading tools (as we have to) the functionality is far worse than it was in BB.
Actually, you CAN set the Canvas emails to deliver to your main email account. In Canvas, go to your profile - then Notifications - then scroll down to Conversations. You'll want a green bell (Notify immediately) to ensure the messages are sent to your email account.
I was briefly very excited but they've disabled it...I've put a query into IT asking why though, now I know it is a possibility, so thank you!
At least, we can do this on the version at my school--I don't know if other places might be able to shut off access to this function.
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 15, 2023, 11:47:50 AM
Quote from: onthefringe on May 11, 2023, 04:36:43 PM
Quote from: spork on May 11, 2023, 02:41:02 PM
Quote from: the_geneticist on May 11, 2023, 02:24:38 PM
[. . .]
It's also tricky to set up the grades the way you want them unless you go by a straight point system.
[. . . ]
I use a point system. The more points earned by the end of the course, the higher the grade. No fiddling with how much different categories of assignments are weighted.
If anyone knows how to hide the gradebook columns that contain percentage figures, please let me know here. No matter what I do, students fixate on the percentage instead of total points.
If your university has enabled it, this (https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-hide-totals-in-my-students-grade-summaries/ta-p/671) may work.
If not, this used to work for me: Put in a stealth assignment worth one point with no due date and set the posting to "manual". Give everyone a point but (and this is key) don't post the 'grade'. Since they have a graded assignment that they can't see, canvas (at least used to) disable the final grade column.
Yes, that's where you can hide grade column totals. Scrolling up is the option for "Launch SpeedGrader Filtered by Student Group", which the default for us is "off". I turn it on.
And under that is "Enable course grading scheme". If it's "on", then the students will see a letter grade even if they have only turned in 1 assignment. I'd say either turn it off or customize to the grading scheme used in your courses. Our school offers an "A+" grade, but anything below 60% is just an "F".
I don't use letter grades in Canvas. Everything is points. I set the right-most gradebook column to show cumulative points earned. When I input final course grades into the SIS, I convert the point totals to letter grades.
Immediately to the left of the column for cumulative points earned is a column of percentages, which is some kind of calculation of average performance on all assignments submitted. This is what I want to hide/disable.
Today, I was cruelly reminded about a Canvas feature that I did not have to deal with in BB.
When I update a quiz question, I have to remind myself constantly that I have to save the changes locally within the question ("update"), and then I have to click a global "save" in order to save those local changes. IOW, in Canvas, you have to save updates to quiz questions TWICE.
If you don't remember to save twice, you could end up updating 20 questions, thinking that you saved the changes, but actually you didn't because you didn't scroll down to the very bottom and save changes globally. So, you could end up losing all your updating work, or worse, deploy a quiz that you thought was updated, only to find out later that all the students bombed the final quiz assessment because the students didn't take the correct version of the quiz, because you didn't save the changes twice . . . . . . .
For some odd reason, I kept thinking of Canva, the popular free tool design website. (https://www.canva.com/ (https://www.canva.com/)) They're separate websites but one is a letter short.
Quote from: lightning on May 25, 2023, 01:40:12 PM
Today, I was cruelly reminded about a Canvas feature that I did not have to deal with in BB.
When I update a quiz question, I have to remind myself constantly that I have to save the changes locally within the question ("update"), and then I have to click a global "save" in order to save those local changes. IOW, in Canvas, you have to save updates to quiz questions TWICE.
If you don't remember to save twice, you could end up updating 20 questions, thinking that you saved the changes, but actually you didn't because you didn't scroll down to the very bottom and save changes globally. So, you could end up losing all your updating work, or worse, deploy a quiz that you thought was updated, only to find out later that all the students bombed the final quiz assessment because the students didn't take the correct version of the quiz, because you didn't save the changes twice . . . . . . .
Given the scope for things like this to happen, I can see why students express the kind of paranoia and double- and triple-checking of instructions that are so often reported on the "Teaching" threads. No wonder they constantly expect things to go wrong, or second-guess themselves and their instructions.
Quote from: apl68 on May 26, 2023, 07:34:37 AM
Quote from: lightning on May 25, 2023, 01:40:12 PM
Today, I was cruelly reminded about a Canvas feature that I did not have to deal with in BB.
When I update a quiz question, I have to remind myself constantly that I have to save the changes locally within the question ("update"), and then I have to click a global "save" in order to save those local changes. IOW, in Canvas, you have to save updates to quiz questions TWICE.
If you don't remember to save twice, you could end up updating 20 questions, thinking that you saved the changes, but actually you didn't because you didn't scroll down to the very bottom and save changes globally. So, you could end up losing all your updating work, or worse, deploy a quiz that you thought was updated, only to find out later that all the students bombed the final quiz assessment because the students didn't take the correct version of the quiz, because you didn't save the changes twice . . . . . . .
Given the scope for things like this to happen, I can see why students express the kind of paranoia and double- and triple-checking of instructions that are so often reported on the "Teaching" threads. No wonder they constantly expect things to go wrong, or second-guess themselves and their instructions.
<sarcasm>Yeah, I should just use the same damn quiz every year and the same damn lesson plans, so they can learn obsolete stuff and get to cheat on the quiz, to boot. I get paid the same either way . . . . . </sarcasm>