California State University Bakersfield Canvas Pilot Report 10/4/2019 - California State University ...
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California State University Bakersfield
Canvas Pilot Report
10/4/2019
Report to Academic Senate and Associated Students Inc.
The following report is provided based on a request by Academic Senate to provide a report on
the Canvas Pilot by October 1,2019.
The report is complete except for three items that are still outstanding. We continue to
complete the details required by the Canvas Pilot Committee.
1) The results from Fall 2019 for the Course Instruction Survey
2) The results from Fall 2019 for the Students Learning Survey
3) The completion of the Course Migration Survey – slated for Oct. 11
Overview
In Spring 2016, three LMSs were evaluated as part of a CSU system-wide evaluation conducted
by the Chancellor’s Office, campus members of the Directors of Academic Technology, and
faculty. Results from the evaluation (brief overview in Attachment A) showed that for students,
Canvas offered an enhanced, contemporary learning experience. For faculty, Canvas offered
superior performance in terms of ease-of-use, analytics, grading, course migrations and
openness.
In Spring of 2017, in preparation for the upcoming end of the Chancellors Office Master
Enabling Agreement for Blackboard on 6/2021, CSUB’s Information Technology Committee
added a Canvas Pilot to the list of recommendations provided to the Information Technology
Advisory Council. This recommendation was approved in May of 2018. Since that time, CSUB
has participated in 4 terms worth of pilots (Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Summer 2019, and now
Fall 2019).
Our focus is to provide the best possible systems that enable student success.
For additional information on “Why Canvas” please see Attachment B.
Facts
Blackboard
• CSUB currently uses Blackboard as its Learning Management System
• In total for the 4 terms below we have had 617 individual instructors using Blackboard
to deliver 2058 courses.
§ Winter 2019 – 18 individual faculty offered 22 courses to 175 individual
students.
§ Spring 2019 - 409 individual faculty offered 859 courses to 9528
individual students
§ Summer 2019 – 77 individual faculty offered 91 courses to 1257
individual students
§ Fall 2019 - 481 individual faculty offered 1086 courses to 11061
individual students
• CSUB pays $85,630 for Blackboard. We do not have any support for Blackboard.
• CSUB is using the current Chancellor Office (CO) contract which expires on 6/2021.
• The Chancellor’s Office is working with Blackboard to renew a CO contract extending for
2 more years. Price will stay consistent.
Canvas
• CSUB is currently piloting Canvas
• In total – 85 unique faculty actively evaluated or are evaluating 215 courses enrolling
5551 unique students
§ Winter 2019 - 3 individual faculty offered 2 courses enrolling 14
students.
§ Spring 2019 - 28 individual faculty offered 50 courses enrolling 1382
individual students.
§ Summer 2019 - 14 individual faculty offered 16 courses enrolling 283
individual students.
§ Fall 2019 - 70 individual faculty offered 147 courses enrolling 4275
individual students.
• Canvas would cost CSUB $109,019 annually.
Canvas Engagement
• CSUB had two canvas demos for faculty in Spring 2019.
• CSUB had nine faculty focus sessions
o 3 in Spring 2019
o 6 in Fall 2019
• CSUB had migrated 2,020 Blackboard courses for 551 instructors to address course
migration concerns.
o 63 faculty provided feedback on our migration survey
o 156 courses were reviewed by these 63 faculty
o 41 faculty (65%) were satisfied with the course content migration
• In response to request by AS&SS and the larger Academic Senate, three Faculty Canvas
Liaisons (Kim Mishkind, Tim Burke, and Tracey Salisbury) were selected to enhance the
support for the pilot program for Fall 2019 semester. They will start assessing the needs
for support, offer office hours, individual consultations and workshops to their
colleagues.
• Faculty Teaching and Learning Center provides an outstanding support to faculty and
staff. From July 2019 to September 2019, FTLC provided nearly 200 individualconsultations sessions, 12 workshops (additional 22 various workshops are scheduled
for the Fall 2019 semester). The team has resolved over 200 Canvas service tickets since
the pilot program started.
Support
• Blackboard Support provided by CSUB
o There were 124 requests for Blackboard support in the form of an Incident or Request
since July 1st, 2019 (to date). The majority were from students accounting for 62.9% while
faculty requests for Blackboard support accounted for 32.2%.
o Most of the requests for support were handled by the CSUB Helpdesk staff accounting for
nearly 87.1% of those requests. Calculated by counting requests assigned directly to the
Helpdesk and those that were never assigned (resolved by HD prior to assignment).
o Further, of the 124 requests for Blackboard support, 48 (38.7%) were related to students
and faculty having problems accessing courses. Another 42 (33.8%) were directly related
to students and faculty having trouble logging into Blackboard.
• Canvas Support
• Canvas support portal (students and faculty contacting Instructure directly) shows 107 student
and faculty requests for support from July 1st, 2019 (to date). There were 27 (25%) requests for
login support, and 44 (41%) requests for support related to courses, assignments, and quizzes.
All other support requests did not fall into specific trends.
• During the same period, there were only 15 requests for support from the Helpdesk. 11 of the
15 (73.3%) related to students and faculty having problems logging into Canvas. Three
requests were related to the ability to view a course. All instances were referred to Canvas
support.
• Interesting Support Facts:
o Helpdesk Hours – Blackboard Support
§ Mon-Thurs 7am – 10pm
§ Fri – 7am – 5pm
§ Sat – Sun – Closed
o Canvas Support
§ 24/7
o Timing for requests for support provided by Canvas:
§ 3 out of 107 – support was received after 10pm and before 7am.
§ 26 out of 107 – support was received on Saturday or Sunday.
§ 70 out of 107 – support was received via Live Chat.
Issue (Why have we written this report?)
To support student success, CSUB should be using an intuitive and adaptable learning
management system that allows students and faculty accessibility through not only their
computers, but mobile phones and tablets. This ease of use will enable a higher level of
adoptability and engagement by all stakeholders with an easier, more connected learningexperience. Finally, the system should be able to provide actionable data for faculty, advisors
and campus leadership on the progress and success of our students.
Relevant Information
• All California Community Colleges use Canvas.
o Transfer students will already be familiar with Canvas.
• Kern High School District selected Canvas for their online program
• 4 years ago, 13 CSU’s used Blackboard, today only 8.
• Blackboard Campuses
• Bakersfield
• Chico
• Dominguez Hills
• East Bay
• Pomona
• San Bernardino
• San Diego
• Stanislaus State
• Canvas Campuses
• SJSU- 6 years on Canvas
• Humboldt
• Northridge
• Channel Islands
• Sacramento
• Fresno
• CSU LA (recently completed pilot and moved to Canvas)
• Sonoma State (recently completed pilot and moved to Canvas)
• The Chancellor’s Office is in discussions with Blackboard to develop a new contract
o Campuses would need to go to the Software as a Service version of Blackboard
which would create some impact to faculty.
o Furthermore, the Ultra version of Blackboard that provides responsiveness and a
more modern design of Blackboard will require faculty to perform content
migrations with some redesign of courses.
• Those CSUs that have selected Canvas, have gone to Canvas after one Pilot.
• Migration of remaining Blackboard faculty to Canvas should be done in 6 months
(feedback from Sac State, Channel Island) once the decision is made. Feedback from
faculty is to use a longer time period for migration until 6/2021.
Analysis
• CSUB has conducted 4 surveys over the last 4 terms (Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Summer
2019, and now Fall 2019.)
o Faculty Course Creation Survey [Appendix D]§ This survey is administered at the beginning of a term before week three
§ Response data from the survey includes all 4 terms:
• 159 instructors surveyed, 83 responses.
• 66% of instructors had previous experience with Canvas
• 85% of instructors had previous experience with Blackboard
• 88% of instructors chose Canvas over Blackboard
o Faculty Instruction Survey [Appendix E]
§ This survey is administered at the end of a term, starting 3 weeks prior to
final-exams.
§ Response data from the survey includes just 3 terms:
• 47 instructors surveyed, 37 responses.
• 76% of instructors had previous experience with Canvas
• 92% had previous experience with Blackboard
• 94% of instructors chose Canvas over Blackboard
o Student Learning Survey [Appendix F]
• This survey is administered at the end of a term just like the Faculty
Instruction Survey, starting 3-weeks prior to final-exams.
• Response data from the survey includes just 3 terms:
• 1733 students surveyed, 374 responded.
• 41% of students had previous experience with Canvas
• 88% of students had previous experience with Blackboard
• 66% of students chose Canvas over Blackboard
o Faculty Course Migration Survey [Appendix G}
• Survey sent to all 551 faculty, 101 responded reviewing 258 courses
• 71% of instructors did not have any Canvas experience.
• 69 of the 101 instructors were somewhat to very satisfied with the
course migration.
• 18 of the 101 instructors were somewhat or very dissatisfied with the
automatic conversion.
• 59% of instructors are interested in participating in Canvas for
upcoming terms.
• Functionality
o Some science faculty have reported issues using the tools. In review, this is
mostly a training and time issue. However, we will look at all more science
editors.
o Many faculty have reported no issues, commented on the enhanced benefits of
being on Canvas and expressed no desire to return to Blackboard
o Survey results show Canvas to have better functionality than Blackboard
• Conversion costo There will be a onetime conversion cost for our faculty, from in-person
discussions, average shows about 10 hours per course, however, certain
courses may be extensive.
• Pros of Canvas
o Meeting students where they are [Transfer students are already familiar
with Canvas]
o Simple to use
o Web 2.0 platform (responsive)
o Mobile app is strong
o Modern integration layer allowing for data and analytics
o Larger open community of contributors developing content into commons
reducing time needed for faculty to build course content and reducing the cost
of material for students
o Built-in term-based Analytics which helps faculty with course instruction, as well
as facilitates a conversation with student(s) for early intervention
• Cons of Canvas
o A small group of faculty may experience possible difficulties in converting
certain courses over to a new LMS and will require additional assistance.
o Cost compared to Blackboard.
• Pros of Blackboard
o Faculty familiar with the platform
o Current students familiar with the platform
o Strong testing/quizzing tool
o Grading tool offers more flexibility
• Cons of Blackboard
o Incoming California Community College transfer students need to learn a
new LMS
o Complex user interface
o Is not responsive for mobile, tablets, or laptops
o Mobile app has not been updated in several years.
o Innovation by Blackboard into platform non-existent
o Blackboard as a company has sold off assets to support continued viability
o Upgrades are complex and will require faculty to re-work their content
• Technical analysis
o Canvas offers a modern integration platform allowing us to pull data from
Canvas into other systems
o For Blackboard we will need to go through two upgrades – from Managed
Hosting to SaaS and from Blackboard 9 to Ultra.
• Cost
o While our decision-making process should not be driven by cost, it is a factor.
The key is to have an LMS that promotes student success (Appendix C) by
offering actionable data, full LTI integration, and API integration capabilities.Furthermore, it should be simple to use for faculty to reduce workload once
course migration is completed. Here are the costs and additional options we can
take.
Blackboard Learn Instructure Canvas
Base license** $ 118,755 discounted to $ 109,019
$ 85,300
24x7 Support Included until 2021, then $ 21,803
$ 9000.
Helpdesk $15,000 $ 500
Implementation,
onetime
Tier 1 faculty support - $ 22,677
** Comparing apples to apples, since we do not have support today for
Blackboard would be to just take into account the Base license costs.
• Other considerations
o Although minimal, upgrading Blackboard will cause faculty to do content
migration work
• Support Recommendation
o Due to having a new Learning Management System a more robust support
model would be preferred. That said, Faculty have voiced concern that
they need more Blackboard support than what CSUB offers now and that
Canvas support would be useful
Conclusion
Based on results from our Canvas Pilots, CSUB should adopt Canvas as its next LMS. We should
sign a five-year deal locking in the lowest rate possible and providing continuity for faculty and
students. This would cost us $110,000 annually. We should fully migrate from Blackboard to
our new Canvas environment by the end of Spring semester 2021.
Timeline
If we are not moving forward with Canvas we need to inform all current pilot participants that
this decision has been made and why. This should be done by Nov. 22, 2019, to give us time to
move all our faculty back over to Blackboard.
If we decide to move forward or no decision is made by Nov. 22, 2019, we will need to enter
into a contract with Canvas and will be running two systems simultaneous. As mentioned in the
relevant info, we are the only campus that is requiring additional time in making the decision
and migrating our campus over to Canvas.Current Rubric for Decision Making 40% faculty voice – Survey responses, discussion with Academic Senate 40% student voice – Survey responses, discussion with Associated Students Inc. 20% ecosystem – technology, mobile capabilities, integration-apis, analytics, cost
Appendix A: CSU Learning Platform Summary – Chancellor’s Office Overall Summary Based on scoring from the CSU LPS Evaluation Committee and feedback from CSU faculty and students, the CSU found that three of the four proposals for Learning Platforms and Services should be recommended for system-wide MEAs as the products and companies are acceptable options for Enterprise LMS Systems and Services for campuses. The CSU plans to announce an Intent to Award to Blackboard Learn, D2L BrightSpace and Instructure Canvas. Background During the Spring of 2016, the CSU published RFP # 150431 for Learning Platforms and Services. Four proposals were submitted: Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Moodlerooms, D2L BrightSpace and Instructure Canvas. Blackboard MoodleRooms did not advance past the first evaluation stage and is not included in this summary. Scoring was based on the documented responses, product demonstrations, sandboxes, company interviews and pricing. Minimum requirements included information security standards, accessibility and migrations. More information is available at http://csulps.com (this site is no longer available). Overall Impressions All three LMS products performed well in this evaluation process, and the evaluation committee found that all three would be acceptable options for CSU campuses. In general, it was the consensus of the committee that Blackboard is having difficulty developing a cloud-based product while keeping active two other non-cloud based legacy products. Canvas gave the firm impression of a native cloud-based product with the kind of interface and flow that seems to be in line with today’s web applications. While there is lots of interest about Canvas, its more pricey proposal had a cooling effect. Although D2L presents a lot of promise, it fails to generate the excitement of Canvas. We should note that the D2L LEAP product still generated fair amount of curiosity on the part of the evaluation committee because of the focus on student success in the CSU, but there was concern regarding the amount of work which would be required to set it up with faculty. Migration Criterion: All vendors were provided two CSU courses to migrate, one from a Moodle instance and one from a Blackboard instance. These two courses were chosen because they represent the LMSs used in 21 campuses in the CSU. The courses selected utilize many features (discussion board, quizzes, mathematical formulations) allowing us to test the migration ability of each product. All products were successfully able to migrate these two courses. Furthermore, each vendor offers a variety of migration services and they are all quite familiar with migrating from the other vendors’ products.
Attachment B: Why Canvas
Why Canvas?
We are living in a time that complex and accelerated changes are happening. As an institution,
we need to keep up with these progressive changes. We are currently using Bb and have been
using Bb for a few years. During this time, a number of changes have occurred in LMS features
as well as student expectations.
What are the drivers as to why we should switch? At the top of the list – Student Success.
1. Web 2.0 platform: We need a platform that enhances how our students learn and how
they want to access relevant course material. Canvas is a web 2.0 platform which
means all its tools are built to work with mobile devices. Our students are mobile
driven. The data we’ve been collecting over the last year shows that our students, more
and more are relying on mobile phones, laptops and other hand held devices to connect
to our systems. The most important factor is that the platform is open, allows
integration, and will enable us to have a more powerful learning platform meeting the
needs of our students. Over 65% of the 1300 pilot users prefer Canvas.
2. Ease of use: Discussions with colleagues on campuses using Canvas indicate that the
learning curve for instructors and students is short. They adapt quickly. Many of our
faculty teach at the community college and are already familiar with Canvas. Some
faculty who are currently using Canvas have requested the change, as they believe that
Canvass is more intuitive and easier to use. Students participating in the Canvas pilot
reported that they like using it – especially the modern, clean interface. Ease of use is
essential. Canvas’ great strength is that it is built to be easier to understand and use.
Many faculty found Blackboard difficult to use, and most of our pilot faculty found
Canvas an improvement. This will save faculty time and make it easier to experiment
with new teaching approaches and tools. We also expect that more teaching tools will
be available to our faculty as Canvas is constantly improving. Once we have completed
the transition, the easier tool will be simpler to support for both faculty, students, and
the support organizations.
3. The push of Canvas into the Community College system and high schools: The entire
CA Community College system has adopted Canvas as their LMS. This means that an
increasing number of our students will be familiar with how the tool works when they
arrive at CSUB. All of our main feeder transfer schools use Canvas. Further, Kern High
School District is also a Canvas user – https://kernhigh.instructure.com4. A community of institutions: Many of our peer institutions have moved or considered
to move to Canvas: this strong community of peer institutions will keep us at the
forefront of developing teaching practices and tools. Canvas works closely with the
extended Canvas community in developing new features. Furthermore, content that is
created and shared into Commons will be material that can help strengthen courses
and reduce the costs to our students.
We understand there are all kinds of questions about whether people will be able to do
what they currently can in Blackboard after we move to Canvas. Many of these
questions will be answered in the materials that we will be sharing over the coming
months. If you have a more specific question we would be happy to discuss individual
concerns. In the meantime, you can find information on Canvas by visiting their
website: Canvas community: https://community.canvaslms.com
5. Finally, cost while a factor is not a driving factor. Canvas in the end may be 5-10% more
expensive than what we pay under our current Blackboard Contract but the benefits of
the platform are clear.
CSU Canvas adoption:
1. CSU & Canvas campuses ( 8 campuses)
1. SJSU- 6 years on Canvas
2. Humboldt- Signed client 2 yrs
3. Northridge- Signed client 18 months
4. Channel Islands- Signed client 1 yr
5. Sacramento- Signed client 1 yr
6. Fresno (Signed client 5 yr)
7. CSU LA (recently completed pilot and moved to Canvas)
8. Sonoma State (recently completed pilot and moved to Canvas)
2. Canvas Current Pilots (2 campuses)
1. Bakersfield
2. SDSU
UC Canvas adoption:
1. UC Berkeley
2. UC Davis
3. UC Irvine
4. UC Merced5. UC San Diego
6. UC Santa Barbara
7. UC Santa Cruz
Appendix C: Analytics support that we can use to Promote Student
Success
We can see on a daily basis those students that are participating and those that aren’t and
provide alert information as an early warning.
Furthermore, we are able to see how students are doing in terms of their grade distribution.
For example below. .8% of our students are receiving a 50% in their courses. That means 35
students of those 4,395. This data can be given to advisors or others in the Student Care
Network for early warning or action.
Another example of the Grade Distibution of those students receiving between a 30 and 49 on
their assignments. So below is 2.7% or about 100 students. Acting on this data would yield
positive results to our Student Success.You can also read
