Item: Canvas
Rating: 10
Author: Joshua Welsh

Overall Satisfaction with Canvas

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Canvas is the default LMS we use at CWU (our university).

Pros and Cons

Pros

Canvas is extremely flexible. I think that is both its greatest strength and perhaps a bit of a weakness.
Canvas is getting better at allowing instructors to duplicate individual assignments. That's a big improvement.
Canvas integrates well with Crocodoc for online paper commenting and grading.
Canvas has great import functions.

Cons

It would be great if we could deal with multiple assignments at a time.
Better visibility of how students see a course would also be helpful.
Searching for rubrics is really bad. The rubrics from the current course should default to the top. As it now works, the user has to search through every course ever taught to find a rubric.

Return on Investment

Can't comment on ROI specifically, but I think I'm able to teach online more efficiently with Canvas than I did with previous LMSs. Part of that is probably due to my time spent teaching online in general.

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 it's a better LMS than its competitors from what I've seen.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Office 2016

Likelihood to Recommend

Canvas is great for creating online classes. We also use it for two other purposes: communicating with program advisees, and internal department communication. For communicating with students, the program is very helpful, but it would be nice if the list of users could integrate more easily with PeopleSoft.

Canvas Feature Ratings

Comments

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Canvas is a pretty good LMS.