Canvas Project FAQs

Swansea University’s vision is to provide the best student learning, teaching and assessment experience by means of a broad range of pedagogical methods. A key enabler to this is a modern online learning platform that enhances the connections across the University. 

The end of the current licence agreement with Blackboard presented the opportunity to act upon feedback from staff and students, which informed the requirements for a platform to advance towards our vision. 

After a comprehensive tender process Canvas was the platform that best met the vision and requirements of the University. Therefore the forthcoming year will see the University wide implementation of the Canvas platform, bringing with it significant benefits to staff and students and improving the overall learning, teaching and assessment experience for all.

Staff - access is planned from February 2020 when the training will begin. Some staff will be participating in Pioneer (January) and Early Adopter (March/April) courses and will be notified accordingly if this is the case. 

Students - when teaching commences. For most students this will be the start of the academic year 20/21, however some students will be participating in Pioneer (January) and Early Adopter (March/April) courses and will be notified accordingly if this is the case.

Please view our "Why Canvas?" page for full list of benefits. 

Everyone involved in learning, teaching and assessment at Swansea will potentially be affected by this change. The biggest change will naturally be for students and teaching staff, but anyone who supports students with their studies will need to become familiar with Canvas. This will also be true of staff who use the current system for staff development purposes.

Maintain an awareness of the Canvas Project through the variety of communication and engagement activities over the next year, engage with the Canvas training schedule, materials and resources when they are published on our website and commit time in advance to develop your content on Canvas in readiness for the new academic year.

Passport to Canvas – A Student Guide
 
“Canvas” will be the university’s new digital learning platform from the 31/07/20 and Blackboard will no longer be available from this date.  

To support students with navigating and using the Canvas platform we have created a comprehensive guide called “Passport to Canvas”, which can be accessed on the following link: https://canvas.swansea.ac.uk/courses/19536 and will be available to you whenever you need to refer to it.  

Access Canvas on this link https://canvas.swansea.ac.uk/ or from within your University Apps and the MyUni webpages. 
 

A dedicated workstream has been set up to finalise how access to legacy resources will be archived and accessible once the Blackboard licence ends. This workstream is also considering how the summer resit and resubmission period will be managed. 

Once agreed the approach will be communicated to all affected users.

31st July 2020 - after this date you will not be able to access Blackboard.

However we are currently looking into making course content from previous years available in an online archive.

Please view the project timeline on the main project homepage. 

For staff - Training for all staff is planned to be rolled out from February 2020. 

There are 8 full time academic developers who are dedicated to the training, both pedagogic and technical, of Canvas.  We will be offering a multimodal approach; formal face to face / webinar / self paced courses and resources along with open sessions allowing staff to collaborate and network. 

Please book via Eventbrite.

For students - a key benefit of Canvas is that it is easy to access, navigate with an intuitive interface.

You can access the Canvas Guides via this weblink - Canvas Guides

To keep up with Canvas Developments – please click the following link to view Canvas release notes - https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/releases/release-notes-canvas 

Canvas comes with comprehensive Tier 1 support offering 24/7 365 days a year telephone, live chat and email guidance and technical support for all users.

Within the Canvas system, click on the “Canvas Help” button, via the Canvas user interface on the navigation menu to access details on how to obtain the support.

For assistance with the Canvas platform, please view our Canvas Help & Support page. 

For up to date information please see the Canvas recommended browser support webpage: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10720-which-browsers-does-canvas-support

Course shells will be automatically created using the data held on the University’s module maintenance/catalogue for academic modules. Staff will be responsible for creating appropriate learning materials and content as well as copying content over between academic years.

Staff & student access to courses will be fed using the enrolment data held on University systems in the same way it is currently managed on Blackboard.

Teaching staff will now be responsible for copying content from one year to the next.  Historically, this rollover was automated by colleagues in IT, but this will no longer be the case in order to avoid accumulating legacy and obsolete data. There will not be any content in academic courses at the start of the next academic year until the content owner performs this process.

Importing content from one course to another is performed in a few simple clicks. This weblink provides guidance on the process:

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12935-415257077

Turnitin is widely used in Swansea and it will still be available when we move to Canvas, allowing staff and students continued functionality of the application.

Staff - this is based on your association with courses on the module catalogue, please check you are correctly linked through your College admin office in the first instance. 

Students - Access is determined by your enrolment status, if you think you are missing courses please check with the teachers that deliver them in the first instance as they may not have published them prior to teaching beginning.

Canvas supports multiple languages including Welsh and this can be configured at a user and course level. A full list can be seen at the following link: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10743-6795291040 

Please email the project team using: salt@swansea.ac.uk