Goodbye, WebCT. Hello, Canvas

It's official! Canvas is our new learning management system

This morning (October 1, 2013), Jon Driver, Vice-President, Academic, announced that the university has chosen Canvas as its new institutional learning management system. Here is the full text of his announcement.

On September 27, the Board of Governors was informed of the decision of the IT Strategies Committee that the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) replace WebCT as the University’s platform for course delivery and management. The Board reviewed the processes that resulted in that decision, and I am now pleased to release this decision to the University community.

Canvas is a recently developed, open-source LMS that emphasizes flexibility and easy integration with emerging technologies. It is designed to be accessible from various devices, including mobile devices, and enables and facilitates a depth of engagement and participation by its users.

The new LMS offers outstanding features for teaching and learning and for the range of course management functions. Canvas certainly meets, but also expands and elaborates LMS standards for grading tools, discussion groups, and multimedia content management, along with the ability to incorporate additional web-based capabilities. Instructors and students who tried the platform this past summer commented on its clean and appealing interface and its ease of use.

I’m very pleased with the selection of Canvas, and emphasize that community consultation has been at the core of the selection process. Indeed, the decision comprehensively reflects the input gathered from the entire SFU academic community through an extensive consultation that involved interviews, surveys, focus groups, forums, and more. The choice of Canvas clearly responds to the community’s desire for a flexible and practical, yet dynamic, and forward-thinking approach to our learning technologies. This choice gives substance, direction, and dedication to the University’s commitment to boldness, openness, and engagement in all of its endeavours.

Implementation planning for the new system is already underway. The University will provide full support for the migration of content from existing WebCT-based courses to the new platform and for the development of new courses within Canvas. The transition will be carried out in stages, and instructors will have multiple training opportunities. WebCT will continue to be supported until the transition is complete in 2014.

The Teaching and Learning Centre’s learning technology group, led by Lynda Williams, will be the first point of contact for instructors with questions about Canvas, course migration, training, and related issues. Instructors can contact the learning technology group by email at learntech@sfu.ca or through the learntech portal at www.sfu.ca/learntech.

I would like to thank the project team for its diligence during the selection phase, and along with the rest of the University community, I look forward to the new and expansive opportunities that Canvas will provide.

Jon Driver Vice-President, Academic