Appendix: Canvas Pilot Survey Results Canvas Pilot Faculty Report 1. For each of the following tasks associated with constructing your course in Canvas, please indicate how difficult or easy it was to accomplish the task.
# 1 2 3 4 5 6
Question Creating assignments Creating quizzes Building the gradebook Creating discussions Building modules Uploading documents
Very Difficult
Difficult
Easy
Very Easy
Not Applicable
Total Responses
Mean
0
0
8
9
1
18
3.61
0
2
3
2
11
18
4.22
0
0
8
7
2
17
3.65
0
0
3
8
7
18
4.22
0
0
5
10
3
18
3.89
0
2
4
12
0
18
3.56
2. Overall, how would you rate the ease of use of the instructor interface for constructing your course in Canvas? # 1 2 3 4 5
Answer Very Difficult Difficult Neutral Easy Very Easy Total
Response 0 0 1 9 8 18
% 0% 0% 6% 50% 44% 100%
3. For each of the following tasks associated with using Canvas while teaching your course, please rate the effectiveness of the instructor interface.
4. Overall, how would you rate the effectiveness of the instructor interface for using Canvas while teaching your course? # 1 2 3 4 5
Answer Very Ineffective Ineffective Neither Effective nor Ineffective Effective Very Effective Total
Response
%
0
0%
0
0%
1
6%
7 10 18
39% 56% 100%
5. How does Canvas compare to your previous LMS (Blackboard or eCollege) in terms of:
6. Of the following Learning Management Systems, which do you prefer? Why? # 1 2 3
Answer Blackboard ECollege Canvas Total
Response 1 0 17 18
% 6% 0% 94% 100%
Blackboard Only because of the announcement issue as described above.
ECollege
Canvas So much easier to use! Intuitive Design, things are where I expect, few clicks to accomplish something, multiple views (syllabus, assignments, modules) Integrates well with Google Docs. Modules are easy to create. Ease of use. Clean, easy to use and update, can get more down faster. It is much easier to manage, update, works faster and ESPECIALLY, the SpeedGrader feature allows me to give extensive and detailed feedback to my students. Matrix nature of interface allows much easier navigation. no experience with ECollege, but Canvas is much, much simpler and more intuituve than Blackboard, and faster, and doesn't go down when Blackboard does. I would very much rather continue using Canvas and very much would dread returning to Blackboard. I like the module interface and there is better "browser indifference". The equation editor is also better, and students were able to easily add to/edit pages themselves when I did a group review sheet that way. I like Canvas, and I feel there is really good potential. But I want to try more 3rd party integration because a blog would have been a big step up from the discussions. Though the discussion threads in Canvas are impossible to organize, I find the ability to give extensive feedback easily
through speed grader to make up for it. Canvas is a better platform for creating content -- the integration of written, video, audio, file downloads, etc., is much better. Seems much more advanced and is actually friendly to use. Less clunky than BB or eCollege. It is very easy to use for me, and students seem to find it easy to use as well. Easier to develop courses, especially to upload and embed video lectures created in Camtasia. It is more intuitive and streamlined than Blackboard. Just natural. If you can Wiki, you can do this. Integration capabilities with external web services make Canvas a potentially very extensible LMS.
7. If you feel Canvas compares poorly in any area (Worse or Much Worse), please indicate more specifically why Canvas is not as good in that particular area: Why? Why not? Text Response Had some really struggles with setting up initial quizzes, felt the learning curve a bit steep, because of adding old materials. The speed grader is still a bit cumbersome and needs updates for adding comments. It gets bogged down. Also, would love to be able to draw on the screen with Samsung tablet, but it hated that concept. The mobile app is a bit of a downer, the discussions should be clearer to follow. I use LMS systems primarily to make announcements to class and post practice examination documents and answer keys. One aspect that I would like to see changed is in the announcements. I like how students can choose how they receive announcements but there does not seem to be a way for me to see my own announcement! If I send the 87 students in my class a message, there is no way for me to know they received it through e-mail since the system does not e-mail me! I would strongly recommend this minor change to the system. Emails do not get routed to the user's email inbox; they stay in Canvas. We need to therefore check multiple inboxes, including Canvas to read email. The "worse" to me is the discussions, which since the other interaction tools are better, didn't hit my radar as worse in my eval above. But the discussion board feature has a few problems. One, graded group discussions show all the students as having posted when really only a few have, until you go through the Speed Grader. Two, since groups can't have me in them as a faculty member, I am not able to subscribe to group discussion boards. So if I want them talking in smaller groups, I still have to check everything manually--the whole "easier notifications" thing is annihilated. Then the lack of thread titles is a problem; I think next quarter I am going to use some third-party application that still allows for threads, because it is difficult to know what someone is responding to in notifications and it is challenging to go off-topic. Lastly, when you do go in to "group" discussions, to navigate back to the learning module in which the discussion appeared requires going back to the "home" button and then reselecting the course, then back into the module. This may be an instructor-only problem, but since I can't be notified when groups post and have to navigate in and out a lot, it's definitely one that bothers me. The Canvas web interface is not as operationally stable yet as eCollege, and often shows slow performance. It often takes too long and too many clicks to get to a certain page or function in the class, e.g., for reaching a specific discussion thread, switching on the Test Student View, or reaching a specific part of the SpeedGrader. The click-through design must be strengthened.
8. Please provide any other comments that you feel might be helpful in the LMS evaluation process: Text Response Learning how to use Canvas is much easier than learning how to use Blackboard or eCollege. I think the move to Canvas will be a positive change. Using both this quarter at the same time, I found myself wishing my Blackboard course was also in Canvas due to user interface and ease of organization and grading. I was able to grade quicker using the Canvas interface. Tutorials are great. Session for getting familiar with the interface with other faculty would be helpful. Even a monthly CANVAS share session. If the Office of Teaching and Learning could help with the best practices for integrating learning outcomes in to the system would be great. This could have some wonderful assessment tools. Canvas has a cleaner interface than Blackboard but I don't use either system's capabilities to full function. Either system is fine with me if the announcement system in Canvas is changed so that I may see a copy of my own announcement. Thanks. I hope I can use Canvas again. I use it already at the University of Colorado at Denver and they are NOT going back to Blackboard because Canvas has much more support for new (i.e. current) technologies. Students report that the groups feature is outstanding. The missing features in the Canvas tablet app are a serious concern, and the inability to hide the "feed" on the left of which pages have updated, which pages are "common", and "all pages" is pretty frustrating because I get the feeling I don't know how my students are using it. I wish I had a way to know students have actually received emails/announcements. There are certain types of quiz questions that would allow for images or notation in Blackboard, such as matching, but won't in Canvas. I had to use multiple drop-downs instead and it was clunky from the student perspective as it made the question not all fit on the same page without scrolling. Another thing that makes me nuts is the fact that content pages, if created before adding to a module (which makes more sense to me, since I want it to be perfect first), can be a total pain to find and add to the module since the list of content pages from which to select is not ordered in any order I can understand. It isn't alphabetical and it doesn't seem to be by creation date, and the window that you work from will only give you 5 titles of pages at a time. I have around 100 pages. This is insane. When I tried adding blank pages to the module, then editing, sometimes it ended up not saving the edit as the version in the module but instead made an edited duplicate, so then I would have to back in and search the content page list for the wrong one anyway. I like how clean Canvas is and I feel it sets up a better structure, but it certainly isn't the universally amazing improvement I would have assumed to get. And since it isn't trying to serve everyone differently with all those different scaffolded structures (best for discussion courses, best for lecture courses, modules, etc), I feel the average faculty member has to know more of Canvas to be able to use it than was true of Blackboard, whereas in Blackboard, the basics were no different than creating an email (text, links, attachments). The analytics that show when students submit on time/late etc only really work for online submisssions; I have so many fake red flags on my course analytics for assignments with either no submission or paper submissions, so i don't even know how that part could be helpful. And since my participation is included in the full participation tally, I don't fully know how to tell when it's my students who are doing more. Ok, that was a lot of griping considering I really do like it better. Perhaps you should call me up and ask me to list all its wonderful features instead. I liked using Canvas...especially the notifications when something had changed in "class." The speed grader was wonderful and cut the feedback/grading time substantially. I set up the class under Ryan and Alex's watchful eyes, so the setup was not bad, once I got the hang of the new vocab. I never found the interface to be slow. My 2 wishes:1) Canvas would allow individual threads in the DB. In a class of
any size at all, even 10 or so, the DB becomes very difficult to follow, since the comments are organized by time/day rather than topic as Bb does. 2) Conversation and the inbox instructions would be clearer. I had to be very careful that I was only replying to the person/people I intended to email. I didn't care much for that interface. Overall, I think Canvas is the better choice, even with the issues above and the bit of ramp up required to use it. The rich content editor in Canvas should have a back button -- when making a mistake with, for example deleting a paragraph, rather than just a sentence, there is no option to "go back" as in Microsoft Word. This leads to inefficient re-typing. I wish Canvas worked better with the iPad. I can not grade quizzes using my iPad. Navigating the discussions is very difficult in the iPad. Scrolling does not work well. Navigating among the various student discussion forums is difficult. There is no easy way to move from one student group discussion to another. Canvas is way better for use of video , audio, and real-time interactions, which is what I want most in online teaching. It also has a cleaner look to it. I find Blackboard superior, however, in its design of course analytics. I assume we will be adopting this. I would recommend to engage with the Canvas team on (1) mobile app development to insure that instructor functions are added to the Canvas app in the next 1-2 years latest, and on (2) operational service level agreements. Overall, my class had an extremely positive reaction to using CANVAS. Overwhelmingly, they preferred CANVAS to blackboard. I used assignments, quizzes, and discussions in the course. I also created several pages with different types of information (book review questions, paper information). From informal surveys, I think their preference with CANVAS related to the ease of use (I had links multiple places so they could click in the syllabus and go to an assignment of quiz) and finding information in the CANVAS system. They also like getting announcement via text messaging and setting up how they received information. Finally, they frequently commented about "loving" the fact that they can see what's due and what's coming up in the course.
Canvas Pilot Student Report 1. Are you an Undergraduate or Graduate student? # 1 2
Answer Undergraduate Graduate Total
Response 80 40 120
% 67% 33% 100%
2. About what percentage of the courses you have taken at the University of Denver have used a Learning Management System (LMS), such as Blackboard or eCollege? #
Answer
1
LMS Usage in all DU Courses taken
Min Value
Max Value
1.00
100.00
Average Value
Standard Deviation
Responses
80.32
28.15
117
3. How easy was it to get on to Canvas to complete class assignments? # 1 2 3 4 5
Answer Very Difficult Difficult Neutral Easy Very Easy Total
Response 0 4 17 40 59 120
% 0% 3% 14% 33% 49% 100%
4. What tools within Canvas have you used in your course(s) during the Pilot? (check all that apply) # 1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9
Answer Conversations (Messages) Discussion Board Assignments Feedback on Assignments Turnitin (antiplagiarism software) Collaborations (Google Docs or EtherPad) Quizzes Web Conferences (Big Blue Button) Chat
Response
%
88
74%
81 119
68% 100%
91
76%
26
22%
32
27%
53
45%
0
0%
29
24%
5. How does Canvas compare to your previous LMS (Blackboard or eCollege) in terms of content organization? # 1 2 3 4 5
Answer Much Worse Worse About the Same Better Much Better Total
Response 1 11
% 1% 9%
20
17%
45 43 120
38% 36% 100%
6. How would you rate your overall satisfaction with Canvas? # 1 2 3 4 5
Answer Very Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied Very Satisfied Total
Response
%
1
1%
11 16 47 45 120
9% 13% 39% 38% 100%
7. Of the three LMSes, which do you prefer? Why? # 1 2 3
Answer Blackboard eCollege Canvas Total
Response 18 8 93 119
% 15% 7% 78% 100%
Blackboard
It is laid out better.
better organized, better tools for collaboration
I do not prefer any of the three LMSes. These LMSes are poorly designed and not user-centered.
I'm more used to it.
Easy to use, layout is designed well, and functionality is easy to comprehend.
more familiar with it from undergrad work
Most common template used by majority of classes I am familiar with Blackboard. Although it is slow and unreliable, it is easier to navigate.
eCollege I found turn it in MUCH better with eCollege. The discussion boards on Canvas are clumsey and a pain in the neck. Canvas was down for a period yesterday when I was attempting to post a required assignment - that was frustrating. I haven't used Blackboard, but I like the easy-to-navigate format of eCollege. It's easier to go directly to the week that I need for assignments, discussions, etc. I like how it's organized by week. This system as interfaces that work well to support learning and communication. Intercaces with social media are easy to use and augment static material on the site. It allows to upload word documents in the Discussion area. That is priceless when courses require peer to peer feedback.
Canvas
1st choice - ease of use and loads quickly
user-friendly and better accessibility to everything
Everything is organized and I am ableto understand what assigments need to be done.
Better flow of activities within a weekly module or unit.
Better organized, more specific/personalized notification system
because it shows you due dates and reminds you when things are due and is very easy to access everything.
Easy for a professor to set up groups and then communicate and collaborate with group members. I love the "modules" set up by my professor. Makes everything easy to find. I love the calendar feature and the little list of upcoming assignments that I need to turn in that shows in the right hand pane. Canvas is limited only by a professor's ability to use it. It's an easy spot to see everything you need for any given class. It's easier to manage and we get notifications on when things are graded or when things are due. I also like that it gives us a green
checkmark when we've completed assignments and submitted on discussion boards. The URL is easier to log into than Canvas which uses "instructure.com" which is confussing/annoying I am indiferent. It is the system that I have become accustomed to It is simple and effective. Everything is easy to find and the layout is way better. Canvas is a pain to navigate through. used to it I am more familiar with it and I haven't experienced any issues or problems like I have with Canvas although few. Is simpler and seems like there is less room for error and malfuntions than canvas Much better communication services for professors and students, and doesn't really lack anything that you can't do elsewhere.
The tabs are more organized and it is easier to find content that the instructor has posted Modern layout that feels like a good WordPress site. Unlike Blackboard, Canvas functions all the time once the class was set up. Cleaner interface, more intuitive navigation, stores login info cookies unless otherwise specified. Canvas is much more interactive than Blackboard, as well as userfriendly. Canvas provides many more options and organizational abilites to make work easier to follow than the others. Personalizing notifications is a nice feature
Lots more options, more put together, less bugs! It helps highlight what the upcoming assignments are, which makes it easier to keep track of them. And it is simpler to use Seems a little more advanced than eCollege. I like the collaborations and being able to work as a team. The platform is very well organized, and easy to use. It did not take me long to get used to. easy to keep track of due dates, easy to use, quizzes The module layout is simpler, it syncs the calendar to your phone/computer, everything is
easier to find, etc It is much easier to use and it is better organized. There is a lot less clutter, easier communication, etc. Sends emails to remind you of assignments and seems to update faster I like the way you can customize it and everything is organized and easy to find. It isn't as cluttered as Blackboard. Canvas has more options to collaborate with your classmates, and engage with the Professor. It's a lot more interactive and easier to navigate. It was so much simpler than blackboard and far better organized. If all my classes used this, there would be no more going back and forth through syllabi. Canvas makes my life so much more organized! So easy to use, and allows more communication between teacher and student. It is a little confusing at first but so much easier to navigate and I enjoy the extra tools offered through canvas. It was organized better Canvas is the best because of its intuitive layout and ease of acess to asssingments, grades and scheduling i have never used ecollege, but i certainly prefer canvas to blackboard The grading, scheduling, reminders, and interface are all easier to use Extremly smooth and fast. Easy to learn and manage. Lots of different tools and apps that can be utilized with Canvas. More flexible system and easily
to see assignment feedback and scores. Seems to be slightly more responsive and intuitive than blackboard after the learning curve it is slightly better than BB It is much easier to use. I like how it can send me notificantions, preview .pdf lectures, and general navigating between folders is easier More organized interface than Blackboard--easier to use. because it is never down like bb much easier to use and more consolidated and capable than blackboard Canvas displays grades more transparently than Blackboard, which makes it easier to keep up in my classes. I'll be happy if this is our LMS in the future. Easiest to use and more tools that are helpful Blackboard is very hard to navigate and canvas is much easier much easier to use I love the reminders/updates/calendar component! I also enjoy the collaborartions feature and the ability to see pictures of classmates! Nice and simple layout with easy submissions and feedback. Please switch to Canvas! More functionality; or rather, BB had most of the same, but Canvas was MUCH easier to use Simpler user interface Easier to submit assignments. A lot more user friendly and it is Easier to help communicate with professor and other students More practical, and organized, helpful
because it allows you submit assignments oline and then recieve feedback from the professor It was less glitchy. It is easier to find things and you can collaborate with classmates A lot more user friendly and the layout of it is really nice. I also like that you can control more of the settings. It's easier to use and has more features Very user friendly and I like the ability of interaction with groups. easy and organized. Much more user friendly More user friendly. Very friendly to use, great to see your grades for assignments easier than to wait for them to come up in the grade area in Blackboard The email function - the collaboration area including EtherPad. Easy to navigate and is better to communicate through than Blackboard. The ability to plug in hypothetical grades to see how final grade may play out There are more possibilities for usage particularly for hybrid classes Best interface Canvas seems like it provides more opportunities for online work and communication within individual courses, but it's difficult to compare it to Blackboard's management of all my courses since I have only used Canvas for this specific class. doesn't log me out. easy to access and use.
It's the least frustrating to use.
8. Please provide any other comments that you feel might be helpful in the LMS evaluation process: Text Response After seeing the pathetic offerings overall for online "learning" I don't have a lot of hope. They all seem to be of remarkably poor quality, considering the population they're intended to serve. Canvas is good. We should use Canvas instead of blackboard, because blackboard isn't a very good system. I wonder how easy canvas would be to navigate when having more than one class to keep track of. I like the announcements on blackboard, but the way the grades are posted on canvas is more organized and helps the student understand the weightings of each assignment and what their overall grade ends up being. The only thing I don't like about Canvas is that when you're in a "group" within a class, your menu changes on the left. If you click Discussions, you only see the discussion for that group. You have to click back onto the main class just to see all of your options on the left navigation. Avoid Blackboard. Use any other teaching platform but Blackboard. As such I highly recommend Canvas I have used Blackboard (a lot) and Moodle. Blackboard is a much more 'polished' system; Moodle is second to Blackboard; Canvas a distant third. Canvas seems to be something that someone in college created as a starting point for such software and never put any polish on it. I have not used eCollege. Had some difficulty with following all discussions because everything was expanded out. Would be easier to follow if each post was minimized and you had to choice to expand each post. It was hard to determine when a new post starts and where is ends. The communication mechanisms for Canvas are difficult to find and use. Emailing is very challenging. The left-hand column of modules is not intuitive and do not all function well. Cavas has a mobile ap that is good, but has a few errors (ie When viewing discussion boards, you can't see previously posted comments, you can only post a new one) The ap allows me to complete some school activity from my mobile devices such as readings, and quizes. I believe if the app is patched, Canvas would be a superior tool and a more comfortable experience for students. Why don't you research the LMS systems Universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, etc., are using? These universities understand the importance of investing in high-performance and welldesigned LMS. I'm not sure if it is just because I am so used to BB, but it just seems more user friendly. Canvas can be difficult to navigate when I am looking for one thing in particular. Furthermore, my greatest annoyance is that I am unable to use the main login page to log into my account. I have had to save a link posted by my professor such that I am able to get onto my actual account. There's not technical support. I emailed Canvas asking for their support and I never recieved an answer My preference was Canvas, however I like the viewing of docs better in eCollege. eCollege allows you to capture instructor comments and bring them to your desktop better. For mobility Canvas is the best. I found Canvas was very easy to use on the iPad. Canvas looks nicer but for me the upload of documents in the discussion area is a much needed capability. The Cavas menu system was confusing to many people in my class. Clicking the same link would take you different places depending on where in the menu hierarchy you were when you clicked. For example, clicking discussions under the course menu would bring you to all discussions for the course but clicking the same link while inside an assignment module would bring you to the discussion for that module only. Because the menu options never changed, it was trick to navigate for many in the class. This is much easier than Blackboard to navigate and submit assignments and communication and
grading is even easier. I love it and wish all my classes used this instead. I like Canvas much better. The class I'm piloting it with doesn't really use the extra features much, we don't have to turn in assignments online or chat because it's a statistics class, so I can't speak to the effectiveness of those, but from what I've seen of it it's more intuitive and less cluttered than Blackboard is. Mobile site freezes when commenting on discussion boards from iPhone and iPad Canvas seems to be a better host. However, it is extremely difficult to navigate through what the instructor posts; this is especially true if you are looking for a specific posting. Although Blackboard it is slow and unreliable, it is much, much, much easier to navigate. I love how it shows the assignments that are upcoming. I definitely prefer Canvas now. I have used it for two courses and its interface is much more user friendly. I strongly recommend it. Canvas makes it so you ALWAYS know exactly what's due, when, so on and so forth. It makes my life so easy! I used Canvas at my last school and loved it as well! Canvas seemed to have more issues with mobile devices. We could not figure out how to turn off the "threading" in messages. Also, the notification when messages or collaboration was used seemed to be inconsistent, even though I had not changed any settings. I dislike that the entire email messge does not come across in my email, but requires that I log into Canvas to read it. Once class is finished, it would be nice to have a feature that will automatically archive the class so that we can retrieve discussions/materials at a later date. I've only used Blackboard, not eCollege. Moving to Canvas will involve a learning curve. There will certainly be frustrations. For example: I am only taking 1 class on Canvas right now, but in the case of multipale classes, I think it will take some time to discern the announcements on the home page sorting out what is needed/necessary for each class. That being said - I support the move to Canvas for the following reasons: 1. Uniform tabs on left side. Bb is great in that you can customize them, but now I know in Canvas if I want to see what is coming up for the week, I go to Modules - it's not some other name or hidden elsewhere. Discussions means discussions. 2. The discussion boards are much more user friendly! 3. Video posting is much easier. 4. I've not given or had to take a test on Canvas, but I am interested to see how that compares. I seriously don't have an opinion. Whatever is easier for the professors, since usually the ones who don't use Blackboard say they can't figure it out. canvas is easier and more convenient to use than blackboard Canvas is superior to blackboard in every way. It is easier to use and has more features. Stay with Blackboard it works just fine Just go with whatever is easiest for professors. It doesn't make much difference to me as a student. Never go back to blackboard! Its absolutley dreadful. Since we're feeling a little crazy and switching to a service that actually works (Canvas), you should probably go ahead and fix myWeb and PioneerNet as well. CAnvas rocks! I think many professor so not like to use Blackboard and do not update scores. I think it's cool to see "score detail" and feedback. I've had fairly limited exposure to the full capabilities of canvas, but it seems to be at least as functional as blackboard. Regardless, an alternative to blackboard would be very good. If thee is a LMS program that is able to save notes for individuals without downloading onto the computer, but saves online Classmates have commented that they don't like the Canvas structure because it is "different and confusing." My opinion is if we are learning something new, it is going to take some getting used to. Overall, I enjoy Canvas better than eCollege. Canvas allows for paragraphs spacing rather than ecollege running all the sentences together. Better
presentation. Always able to log in without errors. LMS would be more efficient than Blackboard because it allows for me variety in things that you can do with the program. It's better than the others since I can download the app on my phone, and received the notifications on it, or on my Facebook account, and even in my email box. It's helpful when I want to see my grades, and receive feedback from my teacher. I highly dislike canvas. I think Blackboard is a way better choice to use. I wish every class used blackboard. It is quite easy to use, but it would be nice to have a training session on how to navigate everything. The collaboration tools are a bit weak and not user friendly. Compared to ecollege, canvas is 1000% better on the iPad, which makes my life easier so that I do not need to lug around a heavy PC to do my work. There are a few querks, but as soon as you know how to work around them you are good to go. Good move, it will be hard to go back to ecollege next term. I wish they would fix the inbox of mail/messages otherwise much better experience then blackboard. Canvas is very user friendly compared to Blackboard. Easier to navigate through each item and to submit assignments. Most of my classes use threaded discussions, however, this class did not. I would need to see what the threaded discussions look like in Canvas in order to make a decision between Canvas and BB. I am not thrilled with how "groups" work in Canvas OR BB, but prefer BB. Was completely unaware of antiplagarism feature (where would I find this)? Dislike how the inbox works -- much prefer BB sending entire message to my email -- also dislike how I cannot turn off the "threading" feature on the inbox. I was unclear as to how (or even if) I could combine the Canvas calendar with my personal google calendar. I rather use Canvas for our LMS I think Canvas is more complex than Blackboard and therefore may be more intimidated to newer less experienced students/users. I have taken most of my undergraduate and graduate classes online. I took me a little bit to get used to Canvas, but I think Canvas would benefit classes moving forward specifically with communication and collaboration. Canvas could be more organized. There are assignments and modules multiple times and they serve the same purpose, condensing it would help. While Canvas is incredibly helpful and has more capabilities than Blackboard, I found it to be frustrating that there is no central announcements board for classes separately. In addition, the email capabilities of Blackboard from the professor to the students is intensely better than that of Blackboard. The interface of Canvas is very easy to use but I do not think it is worth the school-wide switch. In my experience, hybrid courses are unnecessary and waste resources. There is no operational difference between a student being told to read pages 1-50, and reading the words "read pages 1-50" on a website, nor is there a benefit to forcing students to keep track of an online database along with their usual classwork. While there are likely benefits for larger classes that cannot make use of in-class discussions, in most cases online services complicate things needlessly.
