Please read the following update from Jerry Mize, term faculty member and online undergraduate program coordinator in the Department of Psychology, who is currently serving as the College’s representative to the Advisory Committee related to the Learning Management System transition to Canvas.
Timeline
Blackboard will be fully gone and nonexistent for GMU come Summer 2025 (just over a year from now). Starting this summer there will be pilots across the University. A team of CHSS faculty are piloting courses this summer. In Fall ’24 and Spring ’25 courses migration will begin for you to actually teach in Canvas - though you’ll still have blackboard access. All faculty are slated to receive Sandbox account access to Canvas sometime in April (hopefully). Migration will take place in waves in fall and spring. There will be volunteer options to do this. You should be on the look out for those opportunities.
What happens to my courses in Blackboard?
There will be some overlap where you have access to both Canvas and Blackboard. For anyone who has been listed as an Instructor of Record, you will get the most recent course section of whatever you’ve taught in the last two academic years, in addition to some select courses, automatically transferred to Canvas. In addition, ITS and Stearns center will be archiving all those courses, which can be requested when there’s an urgent need.
Kaltura
Several have reached out asking if Kaltura videos will be transitioning. I am happy to say that this morning I received confirmation videos in Kaltura will be transitioned into Canvas. One caveat is that videos uploaded in Blackboard NOT via Kaltura may not necessarily auto transfer.
Things definitely not coming to Canvas
The following features will not be in Canvas:
- Safe Assign - slated to be replaced with TurnItIn. Note while you may or may not know that this includes some AI checking software, it is not recommended to rely solely on this.
- Respondus Lockdown Browser - will be replaced by Honorlock
- BlackBoard Collaborate - not coming over and because we already have Zoom and MicrosoftTeams through the University, we do not have a new feature coming over for this
Trainings
There will be live/synchronous, asynchronous/on demand, and in person trainings. Jerry Mize, our CHSS faculty rep, will also be available to guide. There will also be 24/7 access to support during the transition period.
A few other things
- The transition plan for Blackboard Organizations is still in progress. It is possible that Microsoft Teams will be the best choice for some orgs.
- Sending midterm and final grades from the new LMS to PatriotWeb will work the same way it currently does.
- There will be a "Course Template” of some form made available for building new courses in Canvas. Not to the point of disrupting customization but still some form of uniformity, particularly with the welcome/front pages of courses. This is in particular based on student feedback that it can be difficult to learn new navigation and get oriented to a course when all of their courses are fully different levels of organization. However, there will still be a wide range of customization ability.
More information will be forthcoming as it is available!
Email is the best way to get in touch with the CHSS Canvas transition representative, Jerry Mize: jmize2@gmu.edu.
March 14, 2024