Hi, we're currently evaluating our LMS (Blackboard). I'd like to know what the main factors were when you decided to adopt Canvas. If this is the wrong place to ask this, please let me know.
Thanks.
John B.
John,
We've been using Canvas since June 2015. We were forced to change LMSs because we were using ANGEL, which had been purchased by Blackboard a few years prior. ANGEL was coming to end of life, and we had to choose a replacement. We looked at Blackboard, D2L and Canvas. We used a rurbric we developed that listed all of the features and items that were important to both our Online Education department and our IT department. We asked each of the vendors to go through the migration process of a couple of our courses into their LMS, and then show us how to navigate that content in their LMS. The Canvas migration was pretty smooth, and the structure made sense. It software is extremely intuitive and easy to learn. We havent' regretted our decision once, even when we had a somewhat major catastrophe a few months after switching. We are still thankful we have Canvas. The transition was a lot smoother due to the guidance we received from our CSM. Our IT department loves how open Canvas is about their code, and encouraging of the integration with our other systems. My department, Online Education, loves how easy it is to support Instructors and students. It has been great!
Thanks, Tracey. I appreciate your comment. Were there aspects of D2L that were positive? That is the other LMS that we are seriously looking at, and because the cost is markedly lower than Canvas, it has a lead in that regard and we want to give it a fair shot. Also, we are concerned with the learning curve for instructors (we're not so concerned about students...they can handle anything) moving from Bb to another LMS, and want to know how much kick-back you got from instructors. What were the stumbling blocks? Thanks again.
John
