Canvas Reviews

I know Canvas best from use with the class I teach. It works great as a way to submit assignments, share documents, send quizzes, and communicate with the students in my class. It also has the ability to do online discussion which has come in handy for some of my assignments or times when we've run out of time in class.

Canvas is well suited for instruction and non-instruction services because of its ease of use of its platform that can be accessed from any where and because of the LMS's continuous communication with the users. One of the main issues that I felt missing/troubling was that our Canvas LMS could not communicate well with our Banner Student Information System. We were unable to send grades from Canvas to Banner. I know Banner is a Student Information Systemd, not an LMS, but I would hope that more of an effort be taken to help integrate our Banner-or other systems-to fully utilize the forwarding of grades at the end of the semester. This would really help avert human errors in grade postings/submissions.

Canvas is a great all-around LMS, and it is easy to get up and running with if you have not used an LMS before or are redesigning a course. As with any LMS, however, converting courses between platforms can be a headache. So, if you have courses in Desire2Learn (D2L), Blackboard (BB), or some other LMS, be prepared to run into many problems if you try to use automated methods for converting the course over.

Canvas is well suited in both traditional and non-traditional teaching modalities.

Canvas is great if you want to embed content from other sources (YouTube, Padlet, etc., display well). Canvas is great if you want students interacting with each other using audio and video. Canvas is good for date management. It's not as easy as as one might think to set up well for novice materials creators.

[Canvas is well suited for] about any higher education or corporate eLearning environment. Some K12, although the cost may be prohibitive when Google Classroom is free.

Canvas is great as a classroom supplement resource space but has a way to go with fully online spaces.

Canvas is:

• Easy to use
• Well suited for large class size management
• Video-friendly

Canvas by Instructure is a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) with sufficient tools to facilitate higher education and K-12 multiple learning environments (i.e., face-to-face, blended, or online). The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), an advocate for Internet access by blind Americans, on September 28, 2010 awarded the Gold Level NFB-NVA Certification to Instructure for its Canvas LMS. Another important aspect of the Canvas LMS is its ability to harness customer input, feedback, and collaboration for product improvement via its online community, Canvas Guides. The Canvas Guide is a resource for instructors, students, administrators, and those working within the Canvas LMS as observers. For example, it provides a path for new users in “Getting Started with Canvas.” Multiple hyperlinked areas exist from how to search the guides, view comment policies, the Guides’ FAQs, and download Adobe PDF manuals to use Canvas tools/features. An essential resource is the Video Guide. Video tutorial resources exist for how to use/install the Canvas App for Android Phone or Tablet and the iPhone or iPad. These provide mobile access for instructors to interact with their course(s). They can install the SpeedGrader App on their tablet to provide student assessment.

Canvas is a fairly young product, so some features are not as fully developed as they might be. At the same time, they are constantly working to improve and enhance existing functionality as they add new features in. Users must be flexible in their expectations, and not get too hung up on small items. Also - I would always suggest users take full advantage of the Canvas Community, which provides a wealth of information and support not only from Canvas employees, but from the worldwide Canvas user community as well.

I've only used Canvas for the specific purpose of creating a blended learning atmosphere for my undergraduate class. (And it's perfect for that.) I especially recommend it to small or private schools looking for a tool to help them organize their content, facilitate collaboration, and manage assessment.

When I think Canvas, I think student collaboration, not business collaboration. There are other, simpler tools to help businesses host and deliver content.

I would ask anyone considering Canvas about their budget (most likely limiting factor), the level of features they would be using, and intent to use gamification in courses. I am likely to recommend Canvas, with a few exceptions based on these criteria.

After 4 years of using it and still checking in on the other LMS offerings, Canvas is still the most flexible and easiest to use LMS on the market. The high school and middle school where my children attend are now using Canvas. My kids like it because they can work on things at home and access materials they need to complete assignments. Canvas works well at our institution, and provides great functionality to support a wide range of courses. Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) provides the mechanism to easily integrate other systems and tools into it that extend the functionality and add components needed in specific disciplines.

Changing to a new LMS, especially after using one for years, is a challenging process. Canvas is very helping during the investigation process, and during the implementation process, to make the transition easier. I would encourage any institution that is considering Canvas to ask as many questions as possible during the selection process.

It seems as if Instructure has recently poured its efforts into developing the K-12 instance of Canvas at the expense of higher education users of the product. The product is an excellent learning tool; however, its recent updates seem directed more toward the K-12 market place. Also. the would-be selector of Canvas should ask about the company's plans to adapt Canvas in support of mastery-based and competency-based learning approaches. Since these are disruptive approaches in higher education, Canvas would do well to help professors implement them in their courses.

Canvas is a new LMS, so there are always new and innovative features being added. I expect it to continue to improve. We are just starting to experiment with HTML and CSS and the possibilities of coding in Canvas to enhance the courses for our students. Canvas also resembles the look and function of social media sites (such as Facebook) and I think that lends itself to some appeal among young adult students. The ability to create a profile & ePortfolio, to message instructors & students, to keep a calendar in Canvas, to connect their cell phones to Canvas notifications and use the Canvas app on their cell phones, all appeal greatly to younger, tech savvy adults, which is the majority of our student population.

Canvas works well in a university setting and I am aware that there are many grade schools as well that use Canvas. It is a very powerful yet very user friendly Learning Management System when I compare it another LMS like Blackboard. In my opinion it is definitely superior to Blackboard.

I would highly recommend purchasing Canvas. I prefer the overall navigation features and the look and feel of Canvas compared to other LMSs. I currently teach and design courses using both Blackboard and Canvas and prefer Canvas. As an ISD I use Articulate Storyline to incorporate interactive learning activities/tutorials so I have found that uploading to Blackboard is easier; however, I also publish these to the web, so with Canvas I just embed them into a page and add it to a learning module or Homepage. Overall, this really isn't an issue, it's just realizing that you have to work around it and learn how to embed using the HTML code feature in posts/pages in Canvas. Again, l personally prefer working with Canvas.

Canvas is well suited for any course that is offered on our campus. Originally it was adopted for only our online courses but we have since expanded it for use in any courses we offer. We have not found an instance in which it is not appropriate. Instructors who heavily use publisher content run into issues since Canvas does not streamline as well publisher content and requires us to hyperlink to their websites.

Don't adopt Canvas LMS with the intention to use it like other LMS's. Really look at the functionality, and the features to see how you can alter the way you're delivering content.

Canvas is great as an academic LMS. It was not suitable for corporate learning as it could not issue certs, etc. It was also not as well supported by the open source community as MOODLE. Additionally, the open source version was treated a little like a stepchild. However, Canvas shone in the hosted model.

Canvas is well suited for medium to large clients looking for a robust LMS that requires minimal training and a quick deployment.

Canvas, in my opinion, is one of the best LMS's out there. Its functionality and accessibility alone makes it an excellent choice.

Canvas is a fantastic LMS and, in my opinion, is the most robust of all the big LMS tools. But because of its wide offering of features, it needs a devoted site administrator, especially for a big school, and sufficient and ongoing training needs to be offered to faculty. If these conditions can be met, Canvas would be an excellent choice, and Instructure will certainly offer all necessary support. Alternatively, schools can elect to use the free or open-source version of Canvas, provided they can administer the system themselves.

Canvas is well suited for Higher Ed or K-12 education. If you are looking for a business based learning management system that tracks individual learners and what training they have done and whether or not you are in compliance, you can check out their corporate system (which I have not seen, but I recommend the company).