We are currently in the process of piloting the Canvas learning management system (LMS). Please see below for our current list of FAQs in relation to Canvas and the pilot.
The decision to move from Sakai to Canvas does not rest with ITS. Instead, Claremont Consortium faculty and administrative governing bodies make the decision, and they are guided by the values of consortial collaboration, supporting cross-registration, and providing a common teaching and learning environment for our students and faculty.
A small cohort of five faculty are working with RITG this summer (2022) to move their Sakai courses into Canvas and then implement those courses in the Fall 2022 semester. This limited pilot will allow all of us to gain valuable information on the experience of Pomona faculty and students, test the Canvas environment, and build ITS capacity. For Spring Semester 2023, RITG will continue working with the first cohort and will bring in a second cohort. Reflection will be built into the pilot and cohort members and RITG members will share their reflections in a variety of ways with the Pomona community.
This decision does not rest with ITS, but we are preparing for a possible two-year migration from Sakai to Canvas over the Academic Years, Fall 2023-Spring 2024 and Fall 2024-Spring 2025.
Like Sakai, Canvas is open source and available under the AGPLv3 GNU Affero General Public License.
While Canvas is free to use, Pomona College will be paying for a cloud hosting service with Instructure, allowing us to ensure that the LMS is available to our faculty and students 24/7 with minimal downtime.
Sakai is an open-source LMS, which means it is free to use. However, it is not free to run an instance of Sakai. The yearly resource running costs for Pomona College can be expensive depending upon the use, through overhead expenses such as servers, storage space, bandwidth, and personnel time.
Sometime around 2005 or 2006 the Consortium standardized on one LMS, Sakai, and it has been in use continually by most of the Consortium since then. However, over the past six years, several schools, Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute, and significantly, the first undergraduate school, Scripps College, moved to Canvas.
Canvas offers faculty a number of advantages. Here are just a few of note:
Intuitive navigation and design – Build courses and make changes in fewer clicks and from within Modules (similar to Sakai’s Lessons) as well as the Calendar feature.
More seamless tool integrations – As one example, faculty using Hypothesis will find an improved experience for both themselves and students.
SpeedGrader – This inline grading feature allows faculty to mark up and add comments to student submissions without having to download them. Faculty can also grade with rubrics and add typed, audio, or video feedback. After grading one assignment, SpeedGrader will seamlessly move to the next for grading.
Course copies – A more streamlined process to copy courses from one semester to the next, Canvas includes the ability to change all due dates and availability dates to align with the upcoming term.
Rich content editor – When adding content, assignments, quizzes, and more, faculty will have access to this feature, allowing them to add text, hyperlinks, images, videos, documents, equations, and more.
Mobile application – Use the application to access courses from a phone or tablet.
Canvas offers many advantages to students as well.
Intuitive navigation – Canvas’ global navigation menu features a dashboard that displays upcoming tasks and due dates to help students prioritize their work across all courses. Tasks are displayed as links, so students can access them in one click.
Rich content editor – When submitting text-based work, students will see the same rich-content editor as faculty, so they can add hyperlinks, images, videos, documents, equations, and more.
Grades – When viewing grades in a course, students can enter hypothetical scores to see how their total grade will be affected.
Mobile application – Use the application to access courses from a phone or tablet.
RITG will assist with migrating Sakai course content into Canvas. Additionally, numerous resources will be made available including documentation, video tutorials, and training sessions on how to use and teach with Canvas.