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.
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Vimeo
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Vimeo is a video experience platform. They enable anyone to create high-quality video experiences to connect and bring ideas to life. They proudly serve their growing community of nearly 300 million users — from creative storytellers to globally distributed teams at the world's largest companies.
In higher ed we have a couple of options that integrate directly with our LMS (Blackboard/Canvas) that are comparable. Kaltura is outstanding but it's very expensive whereas I've found Viddler(and YouTube) to be much more simplistic. I've worked with other tools that want to …
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[.]
For an overall professional appearance of Vimeo, I think it looks fabulous for the clients we work with. I think it works extremely well to host videos for courses and training that can be paid training. The privacy feature is great for that. I've never used it for going LIVE and wonder if that might be a good option for businesses but since I haven't tried it, I'm not of the capabilities. And I'm not sure how the clients are able to get on the LIVES. It does have so many new features since I started 4 years ago, and that means that there is a higher learning curve if you want to make full use of this platform.
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.
User-friendly interface for administrators of the account and external viewers. Being able to easily navigate a new platform or software is ideal for anyone.
Seamless sharing and embedding across many platforms. Vimeo is well-recognized so it makes it easy for other platforms to recognize Vimeo. The compatibility is outstanding.
As an administrator of the account, being able to select viewing privileges may seem like a basic function, but it's so necessary right now with how heavy our organization is utilizing the platform. We can mass upload content early and only release it for the public over time by simply changing it to a public video.
Price - For the full featureset of Vimeo, you will be paying $900 a year as of 2020, and this is expected to only go up over time. Thankfully, Vimeo offers lower tiers with less functionality, and most people will not need the unlimited streaming viewers or whopping 7 TB of storage that you get for the highest level of membership. But it is still a premium price for a premium service.
"Suggested" Algorithm - The equivalent of YouTube's suggested videos feature is the Vimeo Staff Picks, which recommends curated content from their team of editors. While this content generally has a high level of production, it is not especially relevant to the video you are watching, or to your watch history as a user. I rarely watch suggested videos in Vimeo.
Search - The Vimeo search page is beautiful, having huge thumbnails of videos with a clean, visually-appealing layout. However, the results themselves leave much to be desired. When I search for "jung" to try to find videos on Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung, of the first 18 results, not a single result is actually about C. G. Jung. On Youtube, the first 14 results are all about Jung. When I search for "c. g. jung" on Vimeo I find a number of relevant results, so it's not that the videos are not available in Vimeo. Rather, the search algorithm is not returning relevant results.
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.
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
The design is clean and intuitive for the most part, which allows for ease of use by both novice and experience users. We are grateful for the ways that the front-end video player is easy to navigate and intuitive to use, and the backend is generally designed the same way. Tools and options are where you expect to find them, and it was easy to navigate the storage on the backend through folders and content filters
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
Terrible support. When I subscribed to Premium we were guaranteed support. However, after the first e-mail I received from them, I never heard from them again. I sent several emails over the course of a couple of weeks acknowledging that due to covid, I did not expect a miracle overnight and that I was keen to work on the issue with them. I have not heard from customer service at all. This is very disappointing. We lost customers due to the poor quality of the livestreams and were left to sort the issue out without their help.
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
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.
YouTube was the platform we primarily used previously, after having restrictions and having locked out of a couple of accounts we needed a better platform. We also lost some of our videos. We also have an internal app to track client videos and Vimeo supported it better. With the increased storage and the number of videos we create, we decided Vimeo would be better.
