Analytics: Canvas New Analytics features are unlike anything that Blackboard currently offers within its platform. With these analytics, instructors can view weekly online participation data of their individual classes as well as a comparison of participation and course grades of all of their sections. Instructors can also compare this data assignment by assignment. Students can be sent a message automatically based upon a specific course grade or participation criteria, making instructor outreach a proactive instead of reactive process. This would be a critical tool for retention purposes and would allow faculty greater ease with identifying students who need more support.
Assessment: With the Canvas Outcomes feature, Bryant can work together as a community to develop initiatives, protocols, and frameworks for assessment, that can be implemented into any type of assignment. Instructors can use these individual artifacts to compile an outcomes assessment report of individual students within their classes and can evaluate this material with department chairs to assess learning objectives for their courses and department programs. Rubrics can be shared across the institution, providing instructors with guidelines as to how to orient their methods of assessment for assignment types.
Accessibility: Canvas has an integrated Accessibility Checker in its Rich Content Editor, which allows instructors to not only check files, but also content such as images, tables, charts, graphs, and code. Canvas is compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level A/AA. This facilitates our inclusion initiatives by assuring that the content of our courses is accessible to all.
Course Management: Instructors can merge sections of the same course on their own, without the need of an LMS administrator to do this for them. This would allow instructors to only need to post material to one section of a course instead of to multiple sections. In addition, department chairs can create blueprint courses that can be re-designed, reviewed, and updated each year.
Mobile App: In comparison to Blackboard’s mobile app, the Canvas mobile app provides a greater variety of features for both instructors and students, including the ability to grade assignments, edit course settings, post announcements, view course analytics, and participate in discussions on the instructor end. For students, the Canvas student app allows them to submit assignments, take quizzes, review their course calendars, send and receive messages, and watch course videos.
If Bryant implements Canvas as its platform, over a 5-year period the university will enjoy a cost savings of approximately $100,351
Apart from the new features that Canvas offers, the differences between Blackboard and Canvas will manifest primarily as interface changes – i.e. to accomplish the same function in Canvas that one performed in Blackboard, a different sequence of actions may need to be taken. One area that highlights this difference is in the Gradebook. In Blackboard an instructor can create individual Weighted, Average, or Total columns. Instructors can also weight individual assignments. In Canvas, the gradebook is organized by assignment groups. Instructors give percentage weights to each assignment group (but not individual assignments) within their syllabi, and the gradebook organizes assignments based upon these groupings.
Yes. Instructors and TA’s can download the Canvas Teacher App for iPhone, iPad or Android devices, while students can download the Canvas iOS Student App for iPhone and iPad or Android Canvas App.
Canvas is being used by over 3,000 institutions worldwide, including many of our peer institutions and top-ranked universities in the country.
For comparison, among the community of Internet2 higher education institutions, Canvas is being used by 78 universities, while Blackboard is being used by nine.
Yes. Authentication with Canvas will work the same way as authentication works now with Blackboard.
We reached out to Turnitin support and they confirmed that the Bryant Turnitin database is independent of the LMS. New Turnitin assignments created in Canvas will be checked against all the papers that were submitted via Turnitin assignments created in Blackboard.
Canvas is more tightly integrated with Banner and one of the new aspects of the integration is terms. With terms, Canvas courses will follow Banner with respect to when the term starts and ends with a padding of 2 weeks prior to the start and 2 weeks after the end. If there is need for a course to have access outside of these timeframes, a request by the instructor of the course will need to be sent to the CTE with the name of the course and the desired opening and/or ending date.
Terms in Canvas are set up to mirror the duration of our terms here at Bryant that are set by the Registrar’s office. This setting enables classes to be active or concluded in Canvas during the duration of the term. When a class has concluded, it is available in read-only format to the instructor of that course. After a course has been concluded, students no longer have access to the course.
While it is possible to import your course material from Blackboard to Canvas, the material will not appear the same way in Canvas as it does in Blackboard. We suggest that you consider rebuilding your course in Canvas, so that you can better organize the content of your course. We are here for individual appointments to assist you with this process.
This function has been disabled for faculty to ensure the accuracy of our information for evaluations. Often times, instructors will like librarians to be inserted into their courses as course designers. The librarian you are working with will be able to add themselves to your course in this capacity, so please do reach out to them if you would like to include them in your course.
Absolutely! Please email cte@bryant.edu if you would like a Sandbox course to be created for you.
We have an asynchronous, self-paced course in Canvas that is available 24/7.
Canvas Support also has 24/7 assistance available via phone and online chat.
The CTE is holding virtual trainings on Canvas and will continue to do so throughout the spring, summer, and fall.
Canvas also has instructor guides and videos that explain how to use different features of Canvas.
We have an asynchronous, self-paced course for students in Canvas that is available 24/7.
Laptop Central will be supporting students who have any questions relating to Canvas.
Canvas Support also has 24/7 assistance available via phone and online chat.
Canvas also has student guides and videos that explain how to use different features of Canvas.
Yes, you can! The Attendance feature is located in the left-hand navigation menu in Canvas.
Currently, Canvas has VoiceThread, Respondus Lockdown Browser, Turnitin, Panopto, and Zoom integrations.
Please email the CTE at cte@bryant.edu if you would like a publisher integration in Canvas.
If you are experiencing an issue with publisher material in Canvas, you will need to contact the publisher’s customer service support team, as the CTE does not support publisher material.
Currently, we have McGraw Hill, W.W. Norton, Cengage, and Pearson.
Absolutely! If you need to provide a student with extra time due to an accommodation, Canvas does have the ability to grant extra time for a specific student. Please reach out to the CTE if you need help with the implementation of this process.