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Canvas

Canvas

Overview

What is Canvas?

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Canvas has proven to be an invaluable tool for various educational institutions and organizations. Users have praised Canvas for its …
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Helpful Platform for Students

9 out of 10
January 07, 2022
Canvas has been integrated into one of my businesses as a virtual and in-person learning tool to help students (and professors!) study …
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Great LMS

10 out of 10
November 05, 2021
Incentivized
We used it as a Learning Management System--I posted assignments and grades on Canvas, and students could use it to check their daily …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 13 features
  • Assignments (41)
    9.0
    90%
  • Course authoring (41)
    8.9
    89%
  • Mobile friendly (40)
    8.4
    84%
  • Course catalog or library (38)
    7.1
    71%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Unavailable

What is Canvas?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.instructure.com/contact-us

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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What is ProProfs LMS Software?

ProProfs LMS is a learning management system software that is designed to help instructors create and deliver online training courses. The LMS offers both businesses and educational institutions comprehensive training solutions by allowing them to create online courses, complemented by tests,…

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Product Demos

Atomic Apps for Canvas LMS, Webinar recording from #CanvasLive August 2017

YouTube

Starting with BookWidgets in Canvas LMS - Demo for beginners

YouTube

DEMO: Tentacle Insights for Canvas LMS

YouTube

How to Use Video with Your LMS | Powtoon's Canvas LMS Integration

YouTube

Creating demo users in bulk for Canvas LMS

YouTube

Canvas Demo Slam

YouTube
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Features

Learning Management

Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.

7.6
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

What is Canvas?

Canvas by Instructure is a cloud-based learning management system for every stage and style of education. Available to institutions of all sizes and types, from individual K-12 classrooms to universities to companies with a blended or fully virtual environment.

As the hub of the digital learning environment, Canvas offers complete LMS functionality, including standards-based grade books, course content authoring, customizable student assessments, mobile communication, video learning, and digital badging.

Canvas LMS integrates with an institution's existing SIS and other teaching tools. With over two hundred different LTI tools educators can customize courses and monitor engagement with classes or individual students. Canvas also has mobile apps to keep everyone informed and connected, on the go, on any device.



Canvas Features

Learning Management Features

  • Supported: Course authoring
  • Supported: Course catalog or library
  • Supported: Player/Portal
  • Supported: Learning content
  • Supported: Mobile friendly
  • Supported: Progress tracking & certifications
  • Supported: Assignments
  • Supported: Compliance management
  • Supported: Learning administration
  • Supported: Learning reporting & analytics
  • Supported: eLearning
  • Supported: Assessments
  • Supported: Live online learning
  • Supported: In-person learning
  • Supported: Micro-learning
  • Supported: Video learning
  • Supported: eCommerce
  • Supported: SCORM-compliant
  • Supported: Social learning
  • Supported: Gamification
  • Supported: GDPR Compliant Learning
  • Supported: Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning

Canvas Video

Canvas 101

Canvas Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesGlobal

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Blackboard Learn by Anthology, Edmodo, and D2L Brightspace are common alternatives for Canvas.

Reviewers rate Assignments highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Canvas are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(275)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Canvas has proven to be an invaluable tool for various educational institutions and organizations. Users have praised Canvas for its user-friendly platform, effectiveness in managing distance courses, and seamless integration with other vendors. It has been widely adopted by universities, community colleges, and high schools as the primary learning management system due to its intuitive interface and ability to bridge the communication gap between instructors and students.

Canvas has been used for a multitude of purposes, including online degree programs, blended courses, and supplementing face-to-face classes in educational institutions. Human Resource services have utilized Canvas for assessing new employee skills and providing information to employees. Student Services have used it to promote clubs and other services, while the library has used Canvas as a platform to provide information about their services and obtain feedback.

Canvas has also been used by administration committees and faculty committees for discussions, dissemination, and data maintenance. It has served as the central hub for organizing assignments, sharing content, managing grades, and supporting hybrid distance learning models. Instructors have utilized Canvas to post announcements, assignments, theory slides, Zoom Meetings, as well as give points and feedback. Canvas has provided a dynamic and student-friendly interface that encourages interaction and engagement among students.

Furthermore, Canvas offers a mobile app that allows students and instructors to access course content on the go. This feature has greatly enhanced the flexibility and accessibility of online learning. Additionally, Canvas has been used by universities as a replacement for other learning management systems due to its frequent updates and robust features. Its versatility supports a variety of course types including online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses.

Overall, Canvas has been widely adopted across various educational institutions due to its ease of use, versatility, and ability to deliver content effectively. It has become an essential tool in delivering quality education regardless of location and promoting student engagement through its range of features such as discussion forums, assignments, embedding Google docs, sharing files, speed grader for assessments process, integrated rubrics, and more.

Frequent updates and evolution: Users have expressed their appreciation for the frequent updates and evolution of Canvas. Some reviewers have mentioned that these regular updates demonstrate the platform's commitment to continuously improving the user experience over time. The consistent release of new features and bug fixes every three weeks ensures that Canvas stays current and addresses user needs.

Efficient mobile grading with Speed Grader: Many users have praised the mobile app for grading assignments, Speed Grader, for its efficiency in reducing grading time by 30-50%. Reviewers find this feature convenient as it allows instructors to grade assignments on the go, making use of any available time. By providing a way to grade assignments while waiting for meetings or commuting, Speed Grader saves users valuable time.

Intuitive WYSIWYG editor: The WYSIWYG editor in Canvas is highly valued by users as it simplifies the process of creating and editing content. This intuitive editor appears in almost every tool within Canvas, allowing users to easily create engaging and visually appealing course materials. Its presence enhances the overall learning experience for students.

Difficulty in navigation: Several users have expressed frustration with the navigation within Canvas, stating that it can be confusing and not user-friendly. They have mentioned difficulty in finding desired features and having to click through multiple options before reaching the required functionality. Some users also find the linear structure of Canvas makes it difficult for students to differentiate between lessons.

Lack of customization options: Many reviewers have mentioned a lack of customization options in Canvas. Users have stated that there is a limited ability to customize colors, profiles, and class pages, making it difficult to personalize their experience. Some users have suggested including more basic color options for personalization and providing more freedom for designing a visually enhanced environment.

Challenges with customer support: A number of users have experienced challenges with customer support in the past. They have mentioned issues such as unanswered complaints via email or phone calls, delayed response times, and a lack of availability. While some users acknowledge that customer support may have improved over time, others still express dissatisfaction with the level of service provided by Canvas.

Note: These three cons were selected based on their frequency of mention throughout the context provided.

Users of Canvas have provided several recommendations based on their experience with the platform. The most common recommendations include: getting familiar with Canvas before submitting assignments, taking the time to navigate and figure out the features of Canvas before the semester starts, using Canvas for collaborative work, considering Canvas for higher education settings, appreciating its user-friendly interface, and valuing its seamless experience. Overall, users express that Canvas is a simple yet full-featured solution for online learning, which they find more user-friendly than Google Classroom.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-12 of 12)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We work with Canvas in our learning platform with the objective of facilitating academic teaching, which is extremely practical for planning and teaching online classes. We also take advantage of the integrated system that allows us to keep track of studies and student evaluations, which is optimal for keeping our study system up to date.
  • This tool has a responsive web design, its adaptation to all devices facilitates access to the platform.
  • It has a dashboard, which presents a detailed list of our recent activity and academic history.
  • It gives educators the ability to create content to evaluate and upload grades to the system, allowing students and representatives to monitor grades and teaching methods.
  • Canvas is a software that is easy to access and operate through the web or application, but it should be taken into account that in order to create course content from scratch, training is needed since this area is not easy to do by yourself and the platform does not offer tutoring in this regard.
  • The user must have a stable internet connection as the system does not have auto-save, a slight fluctuation in the connection automatically generates the loss of information.
  • It offers few options to customize profiles, which makes it difficult to identify students at times.
  • Unfortunately, this software has a very bad customer service, since complaints, via email or phone call, have not been answered within three days, which hinders and hinders the smooth and continuous learning process.
This e-Learning tool is being highly implemented as a study method by universities and schools, as it is effective and easy to access for both students and teachers, offering multiple options for teaching and grading outside the classroom.
Brett Flitton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have used Canvas as an education platform. It was integrated with the employees job training and education for the continuing learning program. Canvas is a great platform to combine and aggregate all the learning activities, information and courses. Canvas is used across the local schools in the area and have used it on a number of occasions for that as well.
  • Canvas is great for keeping all the learning and education tasks, info, assignments, etc in one place
  • The discussion options are helpful
  • The messaging system with instructors and students/employees is great
  • The grading options work well
  • It's a little difficult at first to use
  • For some reason my log in has trouble working at times. Not sure if its a server issue or something else.
  • The video and recording tool could be better
Canvas is an excellent tool for education, classes, assignments and communication. I would definitely recommend it. It has a bit of a learning curve to it so getting everything set up can take some time.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas has been integrated into one of my companies as a virtual and in person learning platform to streamline learning for students (and teaching for teachers!). Not only does Canvas streamline learning across disciplines, classrooms and settings but also has allowed for students with differing computer access skills to learn how to access information and files within similar electronic organizational structures. It has allowed for bounds of progress in computer access and independence for students of all ages. It also allows for wonderful collaboration between teachers and disciplines.
  • 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.
  • Canvas is challenging to use when creating your classroom as a new user (Must know basic editing and get acquainted with the Canvas page editing page, many will need training to get set up).
  • Does not always save students' work adequately (no built in auto-save feature) unless using an external PDF annotator or word processor program.
  • Canvas should create template classrooms or class pages that make getting started easier for teachers and new users.
Canvas has been an excellent resource for schools looking to consolidate learning platforms. Canvas has also been great for students that are learning about electronic file structures/organization by allowing teachers to model an organized structure of electronic filing. Canvas has also been wonderful during the remote learning periods (not only to access content- but also for consolidation of ZOOM/virtual meeting links).
Ashley Milton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At my institution, we use Canvas across the entire campus. We used a different platform when I was a student, so Canvas was an adjustment for me to switch to as a staff member. A colleague of mine suggested Canvas to our central Distance Learning office a few years ago, and the agreed to look into it as an alternative platform. It took a while to implement, but has been great! With the new switch to remote learning due to social distancing, Canvas has been more valuable than ever. We are utilizing it for classes and coursework, as well as organization and information sharing. We are engaging students through video, and sharing resources with constituents. I am certain that we would have a myriad of issues with any other provider during this time. I'm very thankful we have Canvas!
  • Canvas allows users to personalize pages and ensure institution brand is kept true. Our Canvas pages look just like everything else our institution creates.
  • Canvas allows for multiple users to full sites, that have different permissions. This allows us to assign teachers, teaching assistants, and other student users. Everyone has access in a different capacity, to make different changes, so management is easy!
  • Canvas allows students to share documents within their classes, so no need for outside document-sharing platforms. Students in the past were using Google-Docs to create "group work" material that could be edited in real time. Now, Canvas allows students to access that material directly from the site. This makes remote group work run much smoother!
  • I use the Canvas App as a part-time graduate student, and the functionality in the Discussion Board posts is a little off. I have to post discussion board posts often, so I find myself entering the information from my phone sometimes. After one or two sentences, the text lags behind. I'll be 3-4 sentences into a thought, and the text is still finishing the first line. This requires me to stop and let the text catch up, which often breaks my train of thought. I've noticed the same thing on my iPad - so I think it's strictly an App issue.
  • Canvas has so much to offer, that it can be overwhelming. When I was first assigned as a TA of a course, I had no idea where to start. It's not that Canvas is not user-friendly, but it definitely has a level of understanding that must be done before you can even begin. I wouldn't just assign a student to start using it and assume they could "figure it out", which means that we have to allow for training to be done when we expect anyone to use it. This just means a little more time and energy on the user, which is sometimes not always possible.
  • Using the People tab within a course is kind of pointless for me. This may be a setting at my institution, but when I look at the "people" in my class, I can't actually contact them. I can pull up their profile, see what sites they are enrolled in, their bio and their "links" - but there is no secure "send message" button from this landing page. I think that is a missed opportunity. I know there are other ways to send messages, but it seems that it would be pretty useful to add a contact button on the people tab.
Canvas is well suited for large institutions managing a lot of different courses. As a staff member, I'm currently starting to use the Organization feature as a way to engage current students. We will enroll all students in the Organization and share important information and resources with them during this time of remote learning. This is the best way for us to reach all of our students in a platform we know they have to be accessing (instead of social media or just emailing them). This has made the idea of "engagement" much easier in these difficult quarantine/social distancing times.

In a way that's less appropriate, Canvas is not built to just be a file sharing platform. We thought a lot about whether using the Organization function would be best for one of our Student Organizations as we try to transition from DropBox. We keep all historic data from past members, bylaws, meeting notes, etc. We were waned by our central Online Distance Learning Office that Canvas might not be the best fit for that. However, we ultimately decided it's functionality to reach students outweighed our need to store historic documents.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The paper forms used by technicians were constantly lost or incomplete, and we used Canvas to create our own electronic forms that everyone could simply access on their smartphones. As we became more proficient, we made use of extra features to verify work location addresses by GPS, scan barcodes to save time and prevent typos, add prefix data from other databases.
  • Simple to learn
  • Simple to deploy
  • Simple to make changes
  • Continue improving the admin portal interface
  • Prevent lost entries sitting on devices
Best for users with a dedicated smartphone and wifi access. Not convenient for high speed data entry.
Marina Taylor | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas is being used at the university where I attended. It is used by the university as a Learning Management System for online learning at college. Canvas provides an easy platform as another avenue for teaching and learning where teachers set up their course and students easily navigate through the class. Canvas allows easy communication between the professor and students individually and as a group. Students can submit their work and received feedback from their instructor with ease.
  • Canvas is easy to navigate for both the instructor and student.
  • Skeptics of online learning claim that it limits the ability of students to communicate with their professor or the social interactions with fellow students. My experience was the opposite. I felt closer to my professors and colleagues because of the diverse ways Canvas allows for communication. There is email, chat options, and ways to set up groups to work together. Professors can add video lectures if needed. I loved the experience.
  • Canvas provides various ways for professors to create and set up their courses. Instructors can offer video, links to specific readings (documents), set up groups to work and perform together, and more.
  • Canvas allows the business, instructors, and students to design the way it looks.
  • Instructors need to take the time to learn all that Canvas allows them to do. If not, the course could be quite dull.
Canvas works best with self-motivated students because of the online learning platform. I am unfamiliar with the cost of Canvas so that would be a factor for schools to consider. Canvas is not appropriate for those who experience technology phobias; however, most will find it user-friendly and easy to navigate through their courses.

If a university or school needs to serve widespread students in different locations, Canvas would provide a great platform. I assume the school would save money with this approach and would be able to communicate well with their students all over the world.
Jason Hill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas is used by our entire institution as the means for delivering course content, assessing student work, calculating grades, and providing actionable feedback to our learning community.
  • Canvas integrates with 3rd party vendors extremely well. We have multiple vendors and publishers connected to our instance of Canvas. These integrations allow our instructors to use additional tools such as McGraw-Hill Connect, Kaltura, Box, Office 365, Google Drive, and many more to deliver course materials and pass grades back to the Canvas grade book.
  • Canvas has a cascading approach to its organizational design. We can manage roles, permissions, LTIs, etc. at the root account level or within any sub-account. Each sub-account inherits its parents’ attributes. Managing all these items is made incredibly easy by leveraging SIS Imports of .csv files.
  • Instructure keeps its Canvas documentation up-to-date on the Canvas Community. Canvas Community users share knowledge, offer help, and provide valuable insight into best practices and approaches for everything from administering Canvas to course design.
  • Canvas has extremely reliable ‘up time.’ Because Canvas is SaaS-based and hosted in the AWS environment, we have experienced very little down time. In the very rare instances we have had outages, we’re usually back up and running extremely quickly.
  • I would like to see Instructure continue to focus on improving the user interface and functionality for the Canvas roles and permissions. In the summer of 2018, they made vast improvements to this area of Canvas, but they still have a little work to do. I’d like to be able to manage ‘sub permissions’ within the top-level permissions for each role. I’d also like to run a report/export of the roles and permissions, make edits in a .csv editor, and then upload the updated roles/permissions via the SIS Import tool. This would alleviate the time-consuming process of managing roles permissions by hand.
  • I’d like to see more LTI integrations that are set up like the Box integration. The Box LTI integration is accessible via the user’s profile page and allows the user to access content in Box via a native Box window that is embedded in the page. Most LTIs are only accessible via an actual course. Instructure has the potential to turn the user profile page into a hub that allows the user to jump in and out of multiple apps, whose provisioning and authentication is handled by Canvas
  • Instructure needs to create a permission that manages the access to a course’s start and dates. At our institution, we have to programmatically hide the start/end dates for courses from instructors, so they don’t open courses early or leave them open after the semester has officially ended. Canvas customers should be able to treat the opening/closing of a course (not the publishing) as an administrative task only.
  • Canvas admins should also be able to restrict who can control the course visibility and course format functions in the course settings. At our institution, we have committees and processes in place to determine these attributes. Allowing faculty to edit these options creates confusion for students and administrators.
Canvas is a Learning Management System that can be used by a small organization offering just a couple of classes locally or a gigantic organization offering thousands of courses to hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. The scalability of a Canvas instance is very powerful. Canvas is NOT a collaboration tool like Slack. We have had users want to create ‘courses’ for the sole purpose of collaborating and project management. There are other apps/services that are much better suited for these activities.
Raphael Molina | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas LMS is our main learning management system for our graduate degree programs. For continuing education, a separate University entity uses Moodle.

We use Canvas to serve over 4500 students and also to provide professional development to staff and faculty. It is also being used for projects management, communities, and committees' work.
  • Canvas is student-centered and very easy to use by teaching assistants, faculty, designers and administrators.
  • Students love Canvas, it is far superior to the previous learning management system we used.
  • We love the fact Instructure, Inc is receptive to feedback, suggestions and recommendations and as result we have an update every 21 days!
  • Navigation
  • Student-centric interface
  • We would like to see an auto-copy template feature, in order to import the course template we designed into all course sites/shells. At present time, there is no such tool.
Canvas is:
  • Easy to use
  • Well suited for large class size management
  • Video-friendly
Crista Calderon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas is the Learning Management System in use across our entire campus. Our university transitioned to Canvas 3 years ago, after many years of using Blackboard. Initial use was primarily for online courses, but use has grown over the past couple of years as instructors have become more comfortable with the product and aware of its potential.
  • Canvas is very intuitive for students to use, and requires little to no orientation or support.
  • The online Help documentation is so robust and up-to-date that it reduces our workload enormously. We no longer have the need to spend hours developing support materials for instructors because Canvas does such a great job keeping theirs current. This is especially important with a product that changes so often.
  • The Canvas Speedgrader is a favorite tool of our instructors. The ability to view student submissions online and make both written and media comments makes their lives much easier.
  • Attendance is something that is missing from Canvas. There is a tool called "Roll Call" that is the current solution, but it is somewhat difficult to use and has reporting limitations. An easy-to-use attendance tool would be a big win.
  • Students can submit multiple versions of an assignment and instructors can comments on each submission. However, students cannot see prior submissions and comments online. They can only see the current submission, thus they lose that valuable trail of feedback.
  • Making large scale changes (such as date changes) in a course is cumbersome. Each item must be opened, edited, and saved. Having a single editable screen with dates would save instructors and course designers a lot of time at the start of each quarter.
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.
Jeanne Rewa | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas serves as the platform for asynchronous learning for the online graduate level certificate program our organization partners with two other organizations to create and implement. We have program participants from all over the US and a few other countries who use Canvas as their learning and communication hub for the program. They use a broad range of features in the software - discussion forums, assignments, editing wiki pages, embedding Google docs and other docs, sharing files, surveys, embedded media, and links to other applications like Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing. Our participants are also utilizing the mobile app version of the software.
  • Canvas makes it smooth and easy to edit assignments and discussions, streamlining the number of places you need to make changes, compared to other LMSes. Changing the due date and points in the assignment itself, for example, updates the calendar, the syllabus, and the learning modules list automatically.
  • The discussion forum is streamlined compared to other LMSs, so you don't have to click to multiple pages to view instructions or threads - it's all on one page. We also like that you can "like" posts on the discussion forum.
  • The overall navigation of Canvas is clean and intuitive, making it easy to learn and attractive-looking.
  • Canvas makes it easy for a course designer or instructor to embed relative links to other pages and parts of the course, and preserves these links when you copy or import the course into another course. This allows us to make the courses more user-friendly and makes course development MUCH faster than with other LMSes.
  • The Modules page is a great feature for viewing a course at a glance. It is very helpful to be able to view requirements and due dates and track your progress all on one page.
  • Canvas has a strong feature set for allowing communication between users, and in particular between students and instructors. The built in email tool, discussions on course announcements, and the ability for students and teachers to comment back and forth privately on assignments (including an easy to use audio recording tool) are appreciated features among our users, which will hopefully increase the social connection and student support in our online courses.
  • Canvas allows instructors and course editors to embed images directly through the WYSIWYG editor, but not students. Students in the course (if they don't know how to embed external images using code) have to attach images, which makes the discussions a little more clunky and less fun (having to open attached files instead of viewing inline).
  • The options for adaptive release and gamification in general, including achievement badges, are much more limited in Canvas than in Blackboard Learn. I would like to see more advanced options in this area in Canvas.
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.
September 18, 2015

Canvas is great for us!!!

Jason C. Munn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Canvas for our college courses. Canvas is our online learning management system. We use it for content delivery in our physical classes, as well as assessment items (quizzes, exams, discussion boards, projects) and grades. It is extremely useful for helping instructors to maintain organized and effective content delivery and allow prompt and easy communication between students and instructors. Students are always aware of what is due and when those items are due. Students can also view their current grades in real time, so they should be aware of their current progress throughout their semester. Canvas allows for a lot of interaction online and is great for engaging students in and out of the classroom.
  • Grades are available in real time to the students and can be checked any time, if instructors are current in their grading.
  • Automated grading of quizzes and exams. This saves so much time for instructors like me.
  • Allows students to access course materials and course content 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. If a student misses class, he or she can still keep up by accessing and completing materials in Canvas.
  • We also use the Respondus Lockdown Browser, which allows particular Canvas quizzes & exams to be taken online through a special browser that locks the screen of the computer so other sites, programs, files, etc cannot be accessed during the test. This is a very proactive approach to prevent cheating.
  • The question banks and management of the question banks is a bit clunky. Questions get duplicated for reasons I cannot figure out. Also, duplicating quizzes is not possible to my knowledge.
  • Randomizing the order of questions on a quiz is not an option.
  • Having a quiz randomly pull from a test bank of questions is also not an option.
  • Being able to view all of the question details on each question when a quiz has more than 25 questions would be great.
  • Ending (terminating) a student's quiz attempt manually is not an option.
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.
Krista  M. LeBrun, Ph.D. | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Canvas is being utilized as a our learning management system for the entire institution. All instructors have access to a Canvas course shell each term and utilize it to provide course content, maintain grade records, and as synchronous/asynchronous meeting space. Canvas allows us to provide quality, accessible education regardless of location. The ease of use and seamless integration with other vendors has allowed us to take our course offerings to another level. As a previous Blackboard user, our institution was familiar with utilizing an LMS for course content. There are many portions of Canvas that we prefer but it appears that publishers are still lacking when it comes to synching publisher content with Canvas.
  • Canvas puts the user first. Having been developed by college students, Canvas was originally developed with only the student in mind. When the instructor posts an announcement or assignments, students can access it through a variety of portals including inbox, email, Twitter, Facebook, and the Canvas calendar. Canvas has recently identified that instructors sometimes need to limit what students have access to so new features have been implemented such as locking modules and building but not publishing content in the course.
  • Organization. Courses can be easily organized under modules. Additionally, there is the Canvas calendar, to-do list, and the fact that when an instructor creates an assignment it auto publishes to the syllabus page, Calendar, to-do list, and sends messages to the student if their notifications are turned on.
  • Canvas listens. They have a feature request forum which allows users to request certain features and functions. Once the feature requests receives enough votes, Canvas adds it to their roadmap.
  • Room for growth. Canvas is constantly seeking to improve and listens to the consumer. They allow the user complete customization through CSS codes and constantly seek feedback from users for improvement.
  • Canvas is there to Help. Canvas has a Help button feature within the LMS that allows you to submit tickets, speak to a representation over the phone, speak to a representative via chat, or search the guides for self-help. There is even a Canvas Community to build a network of support from Canvas employees or other Canvas users.
  • Canvas does not let you upload Word documents to upload test questions. This was a feature available in other LMS.
  • Publisher content does not upload seamlessly like it did with other LMS systems. Course cartridges were a valuable resource from publishers but with Canvas, you end up hyperlinking all content to the publisher site which requires you to go out to the publisher website.
  • Canvas seems to put too much stock in the student experience and sometimes forgets that it is the teachers who need certain functionalities to exist to better perform their jobs.
  • Inactive users is a huge issue. Currently, you can only have an active student or a deleted student. So if a student gets withdrawn, they are completely removed from the course.
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.
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