Clark University is excited to announce that after a yearlong evaluation, Clark University has chosen Canvas as our new Learning Management System (LMS). Detail around the evaluation and selection process can be found here.
The Canvas platform is a modern, innovative, and well-established LMS that fulfills all the major themes identified by participating faculty, students, and staff as important to Clark, including:
- Strongly teaching and learning centered
- User-friendly; including modern aesthetics, organized interface, customizable experience, predictable to navigate, accessible, mobile friendly
- Flexible; easy for those who want the basics, but sophisticated for those with specific needs, and scalable for Clark’s future growth
- Strong support network for community members
- Cloud-hosted; secure and reliable; easy integration with existing tools
We will fully launch Canvas as our LMS in Spring 2023. This means that all spring 2023 courses will be offered only in Canvas. This transition will not impact the summer or fall 2022 semesters.
ITS will be working hard over the next six months (and beyond) to support this transition including the technical implementation, migration of courses from Moodle to Canvas, training, and communication. We know that you will have questions about this implementation and how it will support your teaching and learning. ITS has created an overview of the timeline and answers to many questions, that you can find below.
All of us in ITS are excited for this evolution of technology to better support our teaching and learning needs across campus. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk or another ITS team member anytime throughout this process with questions.
Pilot
In Fall 2022 100+ courses are being offered in Canvas as part of a pilot. This pilot will allow us to confirm integrations with internal and external technologies, refine visual design and software settings, and identify opportunities for training. The pilot courses were chosen from a list of volunteer faculty that represented a balance in course offerings – undergraduate and graduate, face-to-face and online/hybrid, multiple departments, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some of the most common questions about this exciting change.
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk (helpdesk@clarku.edu, 508 793 7745) or another ITS team member anytime throughout this process.