After an often-heated debate, the Academic Senate has voted to erase Blackboard and give faculty a new Canvas.
Canvas will replace Blackboard as the college’s Course Management System (CMS), software currently used by hundreds of SWC instructors and thousands of students. Canvas is also the CMS of the Sweetwater Union High School District, though SDSU uses Blackboard.
Tracy Shaelen is SWC’s distance education faculty coordinator and a member of the CMS Selection Committee. She said California Community College’s Online Education Initiative (OEI) selected Canvas after a careful evaluation process and reached a nearly unanimous vote on a basis of the software’s “intuitive student and instructor experience, exceptional faculty adoption rates, flexibility for students and increased student success and completion rates.”
Canvas will replace Blackboard at SWC in a phased-in 18-month migration period, Shaelen said, so faculty and students can make an easier transition. By summer 2018 all courses will be in Canvas, she said.
SWC’s Academic Senate agreed with the state and approved Canvas over Blackboard Learn Ultra, an upgraded version of Blackboard. Larry Lambert, SWC’s Online Education Support Specialist, insisted it was an unfair comparison because Blackboard Learn Ultra is still in development.
“Blackboard has a brand new version that’s coming out and it won’t be ready really until summer, possibly fall,” he said. “What the Academic Senate is going to compare with Canvas is ridiculous because that version is going to be gone shortly after they decide to make the decision. They’re going to try to make Blackboard command demo a system that’s not ready to be shown yet.”
Shaelen disagreed.
Canvas was the obvious choice for students and faculty, she said, and the vote was “unanimous as unanimous could be without being unanimous.”
“One of the things that is built into Canvas is the sharing between colleges,” said Shaelen. “Instructors will be able to connect with other instructors at other colleges and share resources (such as units, assignments, tests, quizzes and notes). An instructor can say hey, I’m proud of this, and if you want to use it in your class go ahead and download it and with one click they can. Sharing across the system is going to be very easy.”
Canvas features an intuitive interface for desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, Shaelen said.
“One problem that (our) CMS has had is that it is so difficult to use,” she said. “Students and faculty both are focusing on wrestling with the technology instead of teaching and learning.”
