By BRAXTYN TURNER
Northwestern will be switching all of its courses from Blackboard to Canvas starting this summer.
Canvas is a learning management system that is popular among universities across the country.
It offers a modern and user-friendly experience for course accessibility, making the learning process easier for students as well as teachers.
“Canvas has a different looking feel, for sure,” said Jake Boedecker, Director of Online Services for Northwestern. “It’s a more modular format, so you’re not going to be hunting through the content areas on the left side of Blackboard searching for your course materials. I think students are going to find this a lot easier to use.”
Boedecker explained that faculty members will have more say on how their courses are built.
Courses will be organized more conveniently with sections like ‘Week one’ and ‘Week two’ and so on.
The goal for this is to help students stay on task by not having to search for their coursework.
To access their Canvas accounts, students will use the same login credentials that are used for Blackboard access.
Canvas also has a mobile app for on-the-go access for students and faculty.
Dr. James Bell, Vice President for Academic Affairs, spoke about the process of selecting a new learning system.
“We started the process late fall,” Bell said. “We had company representatives that would come on and show their product to our committee of seven faculty members, myself, our IT person and Jake, which was a pretty big group to corral.”
The official decision to make the switch was made in January and was a unanimous choice from all committee members.
Boedecker said that faculty is prepared for the adjustments to the new learning program.
“We had pretty extensive training via Zoom,” Boedecker said. “Canvas provided seven sessions and around 12 hours of training for our faculty.”
Bell then to explained that students should not be concerned for the transition as all students have been enrolled in a course on Canvas basics to complete before they take on their courses.
All Northwestern courses will be delivered through Canvas beginning June 1.
Students who have trouble accessing their accounts can contact the Help Desk at help@nwosu.edu or (580)-327-8181.