News

Illinois unveils new resources for campus-wide move to Canvas

Apr 28, 2021, 15:54 PM

Starting in May, University of Illinois instructors will be able to sign up for training workshops on the new Canvas Learning Management System (LMS).

The workshops are one of many new resources now available to instructors to assist them in moving their courses to the state-of-the-art learning platform.

In February, campus leadership announced that the university’s contract with Blackboard, which powers the Compass 2g learning platform, is expiring this summer and it would be moving to a single common platform to improve the learning experience for students, as well as reduce costs and minimize resource redundancies across campus.

Since then, the Canvas Advisory and Steering Committees; Technology Services and Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning staff; and eLearning professionals across campus have been working hard on preparations.

“We’re excited to share some of the new resources with faculty, staff, and others for our new state-of-the-art LMS,” said Michel Bellini, CITL Director and an ex officio member of the advisory committee. “We are continuing to work on preparations, and later in May, we’ll have more exciting news to share regarding automatic migrations, using templates, and more features.”

The latest updates are available on the Canvas Transition Website. They include: 

There is also information on what instructors can do now to prepare for their course migration, including considering which migration method is right for their course, signing up for a “Building Courses in Canvas” workshop this summer, and Requesting a Canvas Development Space to get started.

While Compass will be available until June 2022, campus leaders are urging instructors to begin using Canvas as early as possible. 

To learn more, visit the Canvas Transition Website.