» Canvas is Coming Soon

Last fall we kicked off a project to evaluate whether Blackboard Learn continued to be the right software to support teaching and learning on our campus. Since then we've gathered data from students and faculty, conducted numerous hands-on focus group sessions, and held an all-campus Town Hall to discuss this issue. In April 2019 we convened a Request for Proposal (RFP) Committee to formally evaluate three different cloud-based Learning Management Systems on their ability to meet the needs of our campus. Canvas emerged as the favored platform from the RFP Committee.

Last fall we kicked off a project to evaluate whether Blackboard Learn continued to be the right software to support teaching and learning on our campus. We evaluated three different cloud-based LMS platforms (Blackboard Ultra, Brightspace, Canvas) to see which would meet our campus needs. From that assessment we learned that Canvas was the preferred LMS for our campus.

LMS = Learning Management System. Our LMS for the past 16 years has been Blackboard Learn.

• Jeff Goad - School of Pharmacy
• Jana Remy - IS&T Educational Technology Services
• Ron Steiner - Faculty Senate President and Fowler School of Law
• Lynda Hall - Faculty Senate Secretary and Wilkinson College
• Samantha Gonzalez - student
• Brett Fisher - Leatherby Library
• Eric Chimenti - Wilkinson College
• Michael Fahy - Fowler School of Engineering
• Bruce Dehning - Argyros School of Business
• Caroline Wilson - Crean College
• Dorcas James - IS&T PMO
• Sheryl Hathaway - IS&T Instructional Technology
• George Viegas - IS&T Information Security
• Lauri Mantooth - IS&T Enterprise Applications
• Austin Lee - School of Communication Studies

As soon as the Canvas integration with our systems is complete, we will select faculty who wish to be early adopters of Canvas. Course sites will be available for spring 2020.

Faculty are not required to use a learning management system (LMS); however, most find it a great tool to support the content, communication, and assessment needs to support student learning. We highly recommend using Canvas for its great learning support and learning analytics. Starting Spring 2021, no course sites will exist in Blackboard Learn and they will only exist in Canvas. 

Yes, your courses will be migrated to Canvas. The migration schedule is dependent on the timeline for your campus division. 

You can choose to have us migrate your content, you can migrate your content yourself (which often gives you more control over what and how it is migrated, or you can choose to start fresh and build your course from scratch on Canvas. We have information available to help you make this decision.

Faculty can take an online course on Canvas through LinkedIn Learning (sign in with your Chapman username and password)

Students can become familiar with the Canvas interface through this tutorial video (sign in with your Chapman username and password)

Self-paced training materials are available for those who would like to teach themselves how to use Canvas. As soon as the integration is complete, faculty will have access to the "Growing with Canvas" learning module, as well as a sandbox course for practice. In addition, Educational Technology Services (ETS) will have numerous training opportunities and workshops available.