Dear Colleagues,
As the summer begins winding down, we are pleased to provide this month’s updates about the Canvas migration. As a reminder, all fall courses will be in Blackboard unless you choose to use Canvas. For those eager to use Canvas in the fall 2024 semester, complete this opt-in form. New course sites could take up to three days to appear in Canvas after you submit your request.
Canvas Course Types
There are several types of courses in Canvas you should be aware of as you begin navigating the new platform. They include:
- Semester: created through Banner/Patriot Web and populated with your enrolled students.
- Sandboxes: instructors can explore the tools and features of Canvas without disturbing a course used for instruction. It can also be used to prepare courses and/or modules before copying them into live courses.
- Migrated: copies of Blackboard courses transferred to Canvas through an automated process. These courses are not accessible to students and contain no student data.
- Development: for the development of a course expected to be used as a source course for most sections of a course – often managed by a department/course coordinator or course designer. The course is jointly accessible and is not tied to one specific user.
- Community: available for activities that support student training, student program or degree resources, student cohort sites, and instructional technology training. Please note for community sites, your intended use must meet the Canvas Use Guidelines.
Requests for these courses can be submitted here.
Course Migration Files
The first wave of course migrations is complete and includes recent courses from summer 2022 through spring 2024 and additional courses identified by individual instructors. The next opportunity to identify courses that have not already been migrated is September. This wave will be an opportunity for Blackboard Organizations activities to be transitioned as an approved use of Canvas. To learn more about the automated migrations, visit the project website.
Fall 2024 Activities
- Training & Support: Sign up for the Canvas Bootcamp on August 13, 14 & 15 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. daily via Zoom. The recordings of the June bootcamp can be found in the “Growing with Canvas” course in your Canvas course list. Sign up here.
Also, 24/7 support is available within the Canvas platform by logging into Canvas at Mason and clicking “Help” on the bottom left. You can also review additional training and support resources. - Student Communications: for the next two semesters students will need to navigate the possibility of using both learning management systems simultaneously. While the project team is preparing a communication plan to help orient students for the fall, we encourage all faculty, regardless of the LMS, to include this information in any communications to students enrolled in your courses.
As always, we appreciate your continued support and attention as Canvas is implemented. We encourage you to visit https://lms.gmu.edu/getting-started-faculty/ where you will find many useful resources for instructors, whether you are transitioning this fall or in the spring. As always, we invite you to contact the project team at [email protected] with questions or concerns.
Charles Kreitzer
Executive Director, Mason Online
Office of the Provost
Joy Taylor
Executive Director, Learning Support Services
Information Technology Services
2 replies on “July Faculty Update for Canvas Implementation ”
Hello Joy, here at CVPA we’ve been wanting to enquire about progress on finding a solution for moving the pdfs that are stored on BB, where we create a public-facing URL and use them on all our Drupal sites. Thanks.
The project team, which includes members of the Office of University Branding’s web team, has gathered requirements to document the needs of sites that have linked web content stored in the Bb Orgs environment. The team expects to identify and announce the transition plan for this use case during the fall semester.