Hofstra plans to switch its learning management system from Blackboard Learn to Canvas starting in spring 2023. // Moriah Sukhlal / The Hofstra Chronicle.

Hofstra University will say goodbye to Blackboard Learn as it welcomes Canvas as the new learning management system (LMS). Following a successful two-year pilot program during the spring 2021 and spring 2022 semesters, Hofstra will fully adopt the cloud-hosted Canvas LMS created by Infrastructure, Inc. in the fall 2023 semester.

“Back in the fall of 2019, Hofstra learned that the current version of Blackboard would no longer be supported within the next few years, and that triggered a few faculty, [the] provost and [the] vice president of technology at that time to start exploring other LMS,” said Mitch Kase, the director of Educational and Research Technology Services (EdTech).

Hofstra’s current LMS, Blackboard Learn, has been in use since 2002 and has not seen an update since October 2014.

“We expect that it will be outdated and unusable in about the next year,” said Joseph Bartolotta, associate professor of writing studies and rhetoric.

Anthology, a new higher education software and services company that recently acquired Blackboard Learn, “wants people to move from Blackboard Learn to the new platform, which is Blackboard Ultra,” Bartolotta said.

As a result, the university created the Special Committee of EdTech, which Bartolotta chairs. The committee had considered other LMS such as Moodle and Desire 2 Learn (D2L); however, they were incompatible with the institution’s size. Thus, leaving Canvas and Blackboard Ultra as the two possible options, according to a report the committee submitted to Hofstra’s Faculty Senate Executive Committee in November.

The committee created a plan in fall 2020 requiring Hofstra to perform a pilot of Canvas and Blackboard Ultra. While a small pilot program took place in the spring 2021 semester, a large-scale pilot program occurred in spring 2022. Faculty members were recruited through faculty Senate and Caucus meetings and were given the choice of which LMS they would like to test for their courses.

“The spring 2022 pilot [program] featured courses representing every college in the university; Forty-two faculty [members] participated,” Kase said. “There were 41 sections taught using Canvas and 17 sections taught using Blackboard Ultra and in total 1,365 students participated in either LMS.”

The data collected from the pilot programs revealed that the Hofstra community would be compatible with either LMS. Regardless, both faculty and students saw Canvas as having a higher functionality rating than Blackboard Ultra.

While Blackboard Ultra and Canvas provide distinct interfaces, they contain similar features. The committee report shows that students were able to work well on either platform; however, more faculty members preferred Canvas over Blackboard Ultra due to its functionality and easy accessibility.

“[With Canvas, it is] much … easier to pull up my whole class and my whole schedule with a bunch of modules and figure out how to shift things around and how to do it all in one window,” said Martha Hollander, professor of fine arts, design and art history.

Hollander was a part of the spring 2022 pilot program and used Canvas in two of her classes.

One of Canvas’ key features that professors found resourceful is the 24/7 support for faculty and students.

“So, if you’re trying to upload your assignment late at night on a Sunday and it’s not working, you’re getting an error message,” Kase said. “You can actually pick up the phone and call someone at Canvas for tech help.”

Another feature allows professors to communicate directly with students through Canvas instead of toggling between a regular email and the LMS.

“Canvas keeps a complete record of correspondence to each student,” Hollander said.

Hollander found drawbacks with Canvas, as it interfered with the flow for her class.

For instance, conditional release, a feature in Blackboard Learn which allowed professors to control a student’s progress through a module by hiding certain tasks until students complete a specific assignment, is not available in Canvas.

The other drawback was the way the courses were displayed for educators.

“The one thing that I had to create, because it did not exist, is a home page,” Hollander said.

Nevertheless, she stated that it was easy enough to create one.

Despite the positivity of using Canvas, students are skeptical about the LMS’ performance when it comes to submitting assignments.

Joshua Rosenfeldt, a sophomore psychology major shared that the Canvas grading systems are not always correct.

“Canvas is very clunky with quizzes,” Rosenfeldt said. “If I answer a five-question matchmaking on Canvas and get one or two terms wrong, instead of getting a 3/5 on the question, I get a 0.”

Concerning assignment submission, Hollander explained that the amount of users does not affect your ability to submit assignments based on the basic architecture of the site. Moreover, if students try to submit a large or incompatible file, professors are notified. Hollander urges everyone to be open to adapting to new changes.

Faculty will be teaching on Blackboard Learn and Canvas in both the spring 2023 and summer 2023, but in fall 2023, everyone will be using Canvas.

“Officially, we will be on Canvas starting Sep. 1, 2023,” Kase said. “In the spring, faculty will be getting access to Canvas and all the training material so that they can start learning how to use Canvas.”

To assist in a smooth transition, “Faculty will have access to live webinars, on-demand recordings, an asynchronous learning course called Growing with Canvas, department sessions and of course, they can call the 24/7 support,” said Kase.

Higher education institutions across New York state have been switching to new LMS systems, and only a few have gauged faculty and student sentiment before making the switch.

“A good amount of credit [should be given] to people in EdTech and the university faculty,” Bartolotta said. “When we made this decision, we made the recommendation with full confidence that the faculty and students are behind this, and we didn’t make a unilateral decision without consulting them.”