Following a successful year-long pilot and recommendation of the Technology Advisory Committee, Wabash will adopt Canvas as our course management system, replacing Moodle. We will use Canvas for all courses beginning with the upcoming Fall 2013 semester.
Fall Course Availability
We are setting up Fall 2013 courses in Canvas now, and those will be available to faculty no later than Monday, July 8. Student enrollment will be synchronized later in the summer, around August 1.
Learning Canvas
We will offer a range of training and instruction to faculty and staff on using Canvas, including group workshops, online courses and video, printed documentation, and one-on-one help with building courses. We will announce a training schedule early next week. If you are anxious to get started, see our web site at http://www.wabash.edu/technology/canvas for links to online training materials.
To help ensure we have appropriate training resources lined up, I encourage you to take a brief (2-question) survey on what types of training you are most interested in. You can access the survey here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M2MBLHS
Getting Help with Canvas
Help Desk staff are familiar with basic operation of Canvas, so please contact the Help Desk for general assistance with Canvas (helpdesk@wabash.edu; x6400). For more detailed questions, such as how to best organize your course content, contact Kitty Rutledge, our Canvas Administrator, at rutledgk@wabash.edu or x6174.
Canvas Features
Canvas offers a clean, modern interface and simplifies many course management tasks, such as drag-and-drop file uploading. Faculty in the pilot were particularly positive about file management, assignments and quizzes, gradebook, and overall ease of use. Two faculty in the pilot, Lon Porter and Eric Olofson, offer their “top ten” list of Canvas features, which is available on our web site at http://www.wabash.edu/technology/canvas.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I import a Moodle course into Canvas?
If you are teaching a course this fall that is similar to a previous course, it is possible to import the old course content from Moodle into Canvas. Please note, though, that there are some differences in features between Canvas and Moodle, and to take full advantage of Canvas it is often better to recreate the course content than import. I encourage you to contact Kitty Rutledge to discuss migration options. Note too that IT Services staff are available to help migrate course content.
I still need access to old courses. Will my old courses be moved to Canvas?
At this time we are not migrating all old Moodle content to Canvas, but it will continue to be accessible through Moodle, in read-only mode. Students will have this access as well, for reviewing old course material or studying for Comprehensive Exams. By policy we retain courses for five years, and will continue that practice; we will decide at a later date whether to keep Moodle accessible for that entire time period, or whether we will migrate all archival course content to Canvas.
Why are we making this change?
In our 2012 campus technology survey, faculty rated their satisfaction with Moodle lower than all other campus technology. Working with the technology advisory committee, we decided to survey the market to see what options were available that perhaps were not at the point we selected Moodle in 2008. Following an assessment of Sakai, Moodle 2.2 (a newer version of Moodle than we are currently running), Moodle CLAMP edition (a special release of Moodle geared specifically for liberal arts colleges), and Canvas, we elected to pilot Canvas for the 2012-13 academic year. The pilot involved 19 faculty, forty courses, and more than 300 students. Faculty and students who participated in the pilot reported high levels of satisfaction with Canvas, with 83% of faculty and 86% of students preferring Canvas over Moodle.