Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. Canvas

Blackboard Learn by Anthology

Canvas

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Score 7.4 out of 10	N/A	Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. As of December 2010, Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than 60 countries. Blackboard Learn is the company's flagship LMS, supporting…	N/A
Canvas	Score 8.5 out of 10	N/A	Instructure is an educational software company based in Sandy, Utah. It is the developer of the Canvas learning management system, which is a comprehensive software package that competes with such systems as Blackboard Learning System, SumTotal and Saba.	N/A

Pricing

Blackboard Learn by Anthology

Canvas

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Free Trial
Yes	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

Optional

No setup fee

Additional Details

Must contact vendor for pricing information.

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Considered Both Products	Blackboard Learn by Anthology Verified User Administrator Chose Blackboard Learn by Anthology Blackboard Learn is very similar to Canvas by Instructure since they are both essential Learning Management Systems. Canvas is a bit more rigid in the structure and does not permit faculty to customize the course navigation menu fully. Blackboard Learn allows faculty to … Incentivized Helpful? Mark Nowowiejski Instructional Technology Manager Chose Blackboard Learn by Anthology Blackboard has been the industry standard for a long time but they have gotten somewhat complacent and allowed tools like Canvas to surpass them. To Blackboard's credit, they have been trying to roll out a new version called 'ULTRA' for several years now but it has been … Incentivized Helpful? Rachel Hudish Instructional Designer Chose Blackboard Learn by Anthology Drupal functions as a content management system and it is difficult to use it for learner data; however, the size of the Drupal community makes it a contender for eLearning through the ELMS module, which integrates multiple modules for dynamic course delivery. Moodle is similar … Incentivized Helpful?	Canvas Rita Wheeler Instructional Technology Specialist and Adjunct Instructor Chose Canvas Canvas has more features and is more user-friendly than Blackboard. It has an interface that is familiar to students and is, therefore, easier for them to use. Incentivized Helpful? Marina Taylor Title I Director/Federal Programs Coordinator Chose Canvas As an online college student, I worked with Blackboard and Canvas. If given a choice, I would choose Canvas. It is easier to navigate through courses, provides various ways for professors to distribute mediums and set up the course, and it allows many ways to connect with the … Incentivized Helpful? Sarah Ciras Rousseau High School Special Educator Chose Canvas Canvas is the most advanced and most versatile of the products I have used in the past. It has more features and is better able to be customized by the user. Programs like Classroom, Moodle, and Edmodo are geared more toward younger users and therefore do not have the same … Incentivized Helpful? Christopher Sweets Manager, Systems Administration Chose Canvas Canvas's ease of use and ease of administration were huge deciding factors in the decision to use Canvas as our preferred LMS. We found that on average Canvas took 1/3 the clicks to accomplish the same tasks as Blackboard, and the structure of data in Canvas is far superior to … Incentivized Helpful? Joshua Welsh Assistant Professor Chose Canvas Canvas is much more flexible and modern than Moodle or Blackboard where I started with programs like this in 2013. I don't actually make this choice though. In other words, I didn't select Canvas, but I am happy that the administrators here at CWU made that selection. I think … Incentivized Helpful? Victoria L. Graduate Teaching Assistant Chose Canvas Canvas surpasses Blackboard not only visually, but technically as well. It offers more customization options, as well as more features for students and teachers a like in regard to grading, notifications, and uploading files. It also seems to stream videos more successfully, … Incentivized Helpful? Ashley Milton Alumni Development Manager, College of Education Chose Canvas I was not part of the team that selected Canvas, however, I used Blackboard as a student and very little as a staff member. Blackboard was especially difficult in navigating organizations or shared sites. I used it to organize mandatory training for students in one of my … Incentivized Helpful? Chris Wilkey Assistant Director of Housing and Residence Life for Marketing and Communications and Technology Chose Canvas I have used Blackboard for years and Canvas blows it out of the water. I always felt like Blackboard was outdated and using Canvas has really sped up my teaching and course creation. What used to take me days, now just takes a few hours. There was a slight learning curve, but I … Incentivized Helpful? Nicolas Hanhan Distance Education Instructional Coordinator Chose Canvas Canvas is more cost-effective when compared to Blackboard Learn. Canvas has lately worked on features improvement especially in the grade center, for example, moving columns around like an Excel sheet, a feature not found in Blackboard Learn. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Professional Chose Canvas Canvas is a powerful learning management tool that combines so many key elements of an actual classroom and allows teachers to mirror their classroom environment into a virtual platform. It is simply amazing what can be done on Canvas. Grading systems/analysis, progress … Incentivized Helpful? Devarajulu Ravichandran Vice President and CIO Chose Canvas Much more refined user interface Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Director Chose Canvas Canvas is a pricey option, at least when compared to something open source like Moodle. Personally, I don't feel that Canvas has the same ability to customize as Moodle. However, the customer support from Canvas makes it stand out. With an open-source platform, it might be … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Administrator Chose Canvas I believe Canvas out does all of these because of its robustness. It allows for more design opportunities including HTML and HTML5 and has many built-in features that are not offered by all of the other LMSs. Some of those features are discussions, assignments, pages, quizzes, … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Manager Chose Canvas Canvas is easier to use, easier to develop, and easier to organize. My experiences with other learning management systems have been varied as both instructor and student, and Canvas truly makes the experience streamlined and worth it. The data is always accessible if you know … Incentivized Helpful? Jason Hill Manager of Academic Enterprise Systems Chose Canvas Canvas was the very first cloud-based Learning Management System. This was one of the key factors in our selection of Canvas. Canvas’s open platform and out-of-the-box ability to integrate with 3rd party vendors was also critical to its success on our campus. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Canvas Canvas is easier to use, navigate, and explain. Most of our customers prefer Canvas over the other learning management systems. The only challenge they find is linking non-app integrated content. Thus we set this up for them. Incentivized Helpful? Donna Harrington Chief Technology Officer Chose Canvas Not as robust as Blackboard, but more robust than the others. Incentivized Helpful? Sean Petty Professor of CIS Chose Canvas Overall, I feel that Canvas outperforms Blackboard in many areas. However, one area that I feel needs improvement is the speed at which CANVAS operates. Blackboard seems to have more of a "snappiness" to it that decreases the amount of time spent waiting to get from one screen … Incentivized Helpful? JS Jerry Sifuentes Distance Learning Director Chose Canvas I've used Moodle, e-college, others, but Blackboard was the last LMS adventure we had. I had to evaluate these services prior to selecting Canvas, and based on my evaluation, and the resources that the University of Texas at Austin afforded us, I am confident that we made the … Incentivized Helpful? Raphael Molina Co Chairman - Digital Education Committee Chose Canvas We discontinued using Blackboard. Canvas is easier to use and has better pricing. Incentivized Helpful? Emily Saunders Online Russian Teacher Chose Canvas Honestly, I prefer Blackboard. It's a behemoth and hard to maintain with the number of clicks it takes to set something up or edit. And the voice recording tools are clunky, but it offers more variety in terms of course customization. The flexibility of how you set up the menu … Incentivized Helpful? Royce Kimmons Assistant Professor Chose Canvas Canvas provides a nice blend of intuitive, simple interfaces with strong functionality. Other products will often try to do too much and become bloated (e.g., BB) or are not mature enough to provide reliable functionality in key areas without extensive support (e.g., Moodle). … Incentivized Helpful? Francis Kohler Graduate Assistant Chose Canvas Canvas is the evolving LMS for improvement, organization, and implementation toward a robust student-centric learning environment. Another important aspect of the Canvas LMS is its ability to harness customer input, feedback, and collaboration for product improvement via its … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Canvas Improved the ease of use for students and faculty Functioned without flaws Offers easy to use tools Incentivized Helpful? Travis N. Thurston, MET Senior Instructional Designer Chose Canvas Canvas is a new age LMS. It allows teachers and instructional designers to scaffold and plan their courses in many different ways incorporating custom styling option and LTI integrations that I was never able to use in Blackboard or Moodle. Incentivized Helpful?
Top Pros	Pro Easy to navigate Pro Discussion boards Pro Easy access	Pro User friendly Pro Easy to use Pro Course content
Top Cons	Minus User friendly Minus Mobile app Minus Self hosted	Minus Customization options Minus Video conferencing Minus Auto save

TrustRadius Insights
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Highlights	Research Team Insight Published July 16, 2020 Blackboard Learn and Canvas are both learning management systems (LMS) designed primarily for colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions. Blackboard is the classic academic LMS for higher education, with a broad range of features designed to meet the requirements of many different institutions. Canvas is a cloud-based LMS that excels at providing core LMS features efficiently and effectively. Since both platforms are aimed at meeting the needs of sizable learning institutions, medium-to-large organizations make up the majority of the user base for each. Features Blackboard Learn and Canvas offer very similar feature sets, but they each stand out in different areas. Blackboard Learn offers a wide array of features designed to fit many different needs. For instance, it offers multiple communication paths for both students and educators, including an email portal, built-in live chat, and discussion forums. These tools help students collaborate without leaving the platform, which can be particularly valuable for fully-online classes. Recent additions to Blackboard Learn include read-only messaging options for one-way communication and improvements to the integrated content editor. Canvas excels at delivering LMS fundamentals. Users find its document and assignment management features to be robust, and they also appreciate its numerous content creation tools, including video editing tools. Reviewers also highlight Canvas’s gradebook capabilities, which includes features to help give students full visibility into their grades and gives educators options for additional feedback. Canvas continues to improve their UI options, with recent additions such as a navigation history bar to help users return to recent pages. Limitations Although both Blackboard Learn and Canvas are fully-featured LMS platforms, they also have limitations that are important to evaluate before choosing either. Blackboard is often criticized for its UI. It’s notorious for being hard to use, especially for users with less technological savvy. Some users specifically call out Blackboard Learn’s in-system content editor for being buggy and unintuitive. The interface issues also extend to the mobile application. Additionally, its online grading capabilities are relatively limited and can be difficult to use for some educators. Some reviewers claim that Blackboard Learn is not cost-competitive with Canvas, but that information is not publicly available. Canvas, on the other hand, has a noticeably steep learning curve. It also lacks the depth of collaboration abilities that Blackboard Learn offers. Some users specifically wished for built-in video conferencing tools or better quiz proctoring options. Also, while Canvas’s content creation tools are generally well-regarded, some users find that creating and administering tests and assessments is more difficult than creating other content. Pricing Pricing for both Blackboard Learn and Canvas is available via a quote from the respective vendors.

Features

Blackboard Learn by Anthology

Canvas

Learning Management

Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology 8.5 30 Ratings 7% above category average	Canvas 7.6 41 Ratings 4% below category average
Course authoring	8.824 Ratings	8.741 Ratings
Course catalog or library	8.824 Ratings	7.338 Ratings
Player/Portal	8.021 Ratings	7.932 Ratings
Learning content	6.227 Ratings	7.634 Ratings
Mobile friendly	8.530 Ratings	7.440 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications	7.124 Ratings	8.137 Ratings
Assignments	9.030 Ratings	9.041 Ratings
Compliance management	9.017 Ratings	6.932 Ratings
Learning administration	9.725 Ratings	7.836 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics	8.826 Ratings	7.938 Ratings
Social learning	8.822 Ratings	7.333 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning	9.01 Ratings	7.42 Ratings
Gamification	00 Ratings	4.92 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Small Businesses	Tovuti LMS Score 9.4 out of 10	Tovuti LMS Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	Jenzabar ONE Score 9.4 out of 10	Jenzabar ONE Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises	Canvas Score 8.5 out of 10	Edmodo Score 8.1 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Likelihood to Recommend	9.4 (58 ratings)	8.3 (83 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	4.6 (11 ratings)	9.3 (5 ratings)
Usability	10.0 (5 ratings)	10.0 (8 ratings)
Support Rating	7.7 (14 ratings)	9.0 (11 ratings)
In-Person Training	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Online Training	7.0 (1 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Implementation Rating	10.0 (1 ratings)	8.5 (2 ratings)
Product Scalability	- (0 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Blackboard Learn by Anthology	Canvas
Likelihood to Recommend	Anthology, Inc A school with a well-established technology imprint with their students (for example, ours is a BYOB school where every student has their own laptop and must bring it to school every day and where over 99% of our families have reliable broadband at home) is a reasonable scenario for using The arrogance and intransigence of the sales force is quite disconcerting… They are no longer the only game in town and don't yet realize it. Less well-off schools/families may find it a challenge if students must be on campus or at a public library in order to use the technology. Obviously, during the pandemic, this became problematic for some districts. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Instructure It is really well suited for school situations like knowing what [assignments] need to be done when, getting feedback, getting points, finding the slides that the teacher used for explaining an [assignment] or theory. I think It would be less suited in business situations because it's [primarily] made to be a [one-way] communication tool for schools. Businesses need more control on individual levels I think[.] Incentivized WH William Hazevoets Student Read full review
Pros	Anthology, Inc Blackboard Learn makes submitting assignments electronically simple and provides a variety of built-in Web-based tools like e-portfolios, wikis, and blogs that our students use to create their own content. Blackboard Learn is intuitive and easy to navigate from a students perspective Blackboard Learn has many integrations available for connecting this LMS to other tools we use at our institution. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Instructure Creativity options for teachers to create a virtual space that still has fun graphics and accessibility options. Canvas has versatility in viewing options for assignment due dates such as the calendar built in feature as well as the dashboard options to display upcoming and due assignments. Allowing teachers to create community with each other and collaborate in each-other's space. Discussion platforms within classrooms for students to communicate with each-other and with their teachers. Easy messaging portal within each virtual classroom. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Cons	Anthology, Inc Blackboard Learn has some limitations when it comes to submissions It is not that user friendly, I had to spend some time to get a hang of it in the beginning I have been struggling a bit with deletion of manually added courses Incentivized Meena B Information Technology Project Manager Read full review	Instructure Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets. Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers. They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors. Incentivized Patrick Woessner Coordinator of Instructional Technology Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	Anthology, Inc There are several aspects of Desire2Learn that outweigh the benefits of using Blackboard. I find that the Desire2Learn system is a bit more user friendly and looks more up-to-date. However, the decision to renew systems is not up to me because the entire University uses the same system. Regardless, I think I would choose Desire2Learn over Blackboard because of its improved user interface. James Gurney Research/Teaching Assistant Read full review	Instructure The other LMS tools have fallen behind. One reason is they are not able to update their systems, features, toolsets in a timely manner. While other LMS providers release bug fixes and new features several times a year, schools struggle to install and implement them in a timely manner. It is not uncommon for a school to take 6 months to a year to fully install and implement new releases on other LMS platforms. With Canvas, those features are released every 3 weeks, and there is nothing for a school to do other than choose to turn them on once released. This has allowed Instructure to innovate faster, and get new features and tools to customers quicker. Other factors include great pricing, customer support, and the innovative way in which LTI is implemented in the tool. Incentivized Kevin Reeve Director - Teaching and Learning Technology Read full review
Usability	Anthology, Inc It is very usable for both faculty and students. The interface is pretty intuitive and most students can use it without a lot of additional training. Faculty do need some training to effectively use the interface, but they usually get it pretty quickly. We have had to create some additional programming to give faculty a way to delve deeper into the content. Inez Whipple E-Learning Instructional Designer Read full review	Instructure The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software Incentivized Jeanne Rewa Online Instructional Designer Read full review
Support Rating	Anthology, Inc My Blackboard support comes from the university I work with. They are responsive--eventually... but it takes them sometimes a week to respond to a reported issue. For example, I reported 2 issues last week and one was resolved and I was contacted about one still open option today. That is too long for a tech issue. I have not contacted any support offered directly by Blackboard, which may be a completely different experience altogether. Incentivized Anissa Harris Senior Faculty Read full review	Instructure I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas Incentivized Ashley Milton Alumni Development Manager, College of Education Read full review
In-Person Training	Anthology, Inc No answers on this topic	Instructure The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user Incentivized Bethany Cleveland, PhD Adjunct Professor Read full review
Online Training	Anthology, Inc No answers on this topic	Instructure The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system. Incentivized Bethany Cleveland, PhD Adjunct Professor Read full review
Implementation Rating	Anthology, Inc Blackboard's Managed Hosting was top-notch in getting us up and running quickly. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Instructure Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January Incentivized Kevin Reeve Director - Teaching and Learning Technology Read full review
Alternatives Considered	Anthology, Inc Coursera offers a variety of modules in which a team is able to work on then, but [Blackboard Learn] offers more options to understand how are the team members developing and which tasks have offered a harder challenger for them. [Blackboard Learn] also offers a variety of reports that can be generate by a team lead. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Instructure Canvas is more secure, has a cleaner design, and has more features. For the features, they have in common canvas still stacks up against [Smart school] by going for the extra mile. Besidfor e that, [the] canvas looks a lot more [professional] than [Smart school]. I didn't make the decision myself to get canvas instead of [Smart school] but I'm happy they did. JH Jarne Horemans Student Read full review
Return on Investment	Anthology, Inc At one of the institutions that I worked for, the ROI was excellent for the number of users we were serving; however, I could not speak to other instances as I was not aware of the overall cost of the contract. Incentivized Rachel Hudish Instructional Designer Read full review	Instructure Canvas has helped us provide a more robust online component to our courses. Canvas has helped us better adapt to a rapidly changing educational landscape. Canvas has reduced the time that we have to spend training faculty on how to use our learning management system. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
ScreenShots	Blackboard Learn by Anthology Screenshots

Features

Limitations

Pricing