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Canvas by Instructure is the new Learning Management System at WCU

by | Sep 22, 2020 | Canvas

After an extensive process of review by faculty, students, and staff, Canvas by Instructure has been chosen as our next Learning Management System (LMS). Canvas provides a superior user experience for faculty, staff, and students, as well as mobile capabilities and simplicity of integration and management that competitors, including Blackboard’s newest product Ultra, are unable to match. Canvas is a twenty-first century learning environment that will support WCU’s needs for the next 5-10 years for online, hybrid/blended, and face-to-face instruction.

The implementation team, in consultation with the LMS Committee, is working on a detailed migration plan to guide faculty and staff in their efforts to learn the new platform, adapt their courses and workshops to the Canvas structure and workflow, and take advantage of the superior user experience to optimize the learning environment for students.

During the 2021 spring semester, Western Carolina will be working through a migration and implementation process that will move the university from Blackboard Learn to the Canvas Learning Management System. Courses will remain in Blackboard for Spring 2021, but all courses that begin after the conclusion of the spring semester will be delivered in Canvas.

Blackboard Learn will be turned off on June 30, 2021. In the coming weeks, we will provide instructions for exporting Blackboard courses for retention.

More information is coming soon, so watch your email box for the Provost’s newsletter, subscribe to the CFC content (Faculty News) in Inside WCU, look for the LMS migration section in the IT Weekly email from the CIO, and feel free to check our information page at our new Canvas website!

Your Survey and Polling Options

by | Mar 16, 2020 | Canvas, Educational Technology

Surveying Your Students:  WCU Supported Software

Option #1:  Canvas
Don’t forget that a Canvas’ Quiz also allows for surveys that don’t add to grades and that links to those surveys can be added to announcements and emails from Canvas.  More information on Surveys in Canvas.  This is a best option if you are only surveying one course.

Option #2:  Microsoft Forms
For easily copied and shared polls, check out Microsoft Forms.  If you haven’t clicked the “Waffle of Power” (apps launcher) in your email portal for Office365 (email.wcu.edu), then you may not have found all of the magical wonder hidden in O365.  One of those is Microsoft Forms.  Forms is basically the Microsoft version of Google Sheets, and it is very easy to use and distribute.

Option #3: Qualtrics
All WCU employees can log into Qualtrics and create surveys.  You can get to Qualtrics by going to myWCU and clicking the SURVEYS button in the quick links, or you can type in wcu.qualtrics.com into your browser and it will take you to the log in page.  The learning curve for Qualtrics is a bit steeper than Forms.

Option #4: Poll Everywhere
PollEverywhere is already a part of many of your class experiences.  Remember that PollEverywhere is not really designed as a survey tool but rather as a live polling tool.  It will really only be useful to you in an online environment if you couple it with your synchronous virtual classroom tool (Zoom, Collaborate, or Teams) and from our point of view, it may be more difficult to be running the virtual meeting tool and Poll everywhere than to use the more limited polling tools already available in those environments.  If you have a number of existing PE polls, however, it might be a good option for you.  We are not advising PollEverywhere as a solution during the emergency online period in Spring of 2020.

For all of these, call or email ITHelp first and they should be able to get you started.