Announcing Canvas Academy, April 13-16, 2020!

Folks, the clock is ticking and the retirement of Sakai is creeping closer and closer …

For anyone who needs to learn the ins and outs of Canvas, Academic Technologies is offering a week-long opportunity to get up to speed with W&L’s learning management system: a special edition of Spring Academy focused entirely on Canvas.

We will offer the same 3 sessions each day at different times, so hopefully, you will be able to join us. All sessions meet in Parmly 302, but feel free to bring your laptop.

Questions? Contact Brandon Bucy (bucyb@wlu.edu or x8651) or Helen MacDermott (hmacdermott@wlu.edu or x4561).

January 27, 2020February 25, 2020

Round 2 of Migration of Sakai Course Content to Canvas begins TODAY!

Visit go.wlu.edu/migrate to request up to 10 course or project sites migrated from Sakai into Canvas.

After migration, you must check your courses to ensure that they are set up properly. While the migration pathway from Sakai to Canvas is robust for Resources, Assignments, Forums, Tests & Quizzes, and Lessons, there are a number of items and settings that will not migrate over and will require positive action on your part in Canvas to correct or address.

You are also welcome to migrate your own course content from Sakai into Canvas at any time. The first step is creating a sandbox course in Canvas to host your migrated content. After that, you may follow these detailed migration instructions.

As always, Academic Technologies staff will also be available at any time for one-on-one faculty training, migration requests, and support sessions. Please contact Brandon or Helen directly (bucyb@wlu.edu or x8651; hmacdermott@wlu.edu or x4561) or via help@wlu.edu to ask any Canvas questions or to request personal training.

Lastly, if you are totally unfamiliar with Canvas and need to get up to speed, mark your calendar for Canvas Academy, a special edition of Spring Academy focused entirely on Canvas, April 13-16, 2020. Get ready to say goodbye to Sakai and prepared to design and deliver your course in Canvas. All sessions meet in Parmly 302, but feel free to bring your laptop.

October 3, 2019October 3, 2019

HELP! What the heck does that red eye in Gradebook mean???

animated eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings — If this is the red eye you see in Gradebook, please contact Public Safety at 540-458-8999 instead of the ITS Information Desk.

The eye icon will display in your Gradebook if you have applied a manual posting policy in a course — i.e. at some point, you clicked on the blue gear icon in the upper right hand side of Gradebook and chose to have grades hidden by default vs. automatically posting grades:

— or applied a manual posting policy in an individual assignment.

The red shaded eye icon indicates that there are grades within the assignment that are currently hidden and must be posted before they can be viewed by students.

The unshaded eye icon indicates that a manual posting policy is currently in place and future grades are hidden from student view or that a manual posting policy was previously used to hide grades in an assignment. If you have selected a manual posting policy for a course, all assignments that do not have hidden grades will display the unshaded eye icon.

When grades are hidden from student view, the Total column also displays the unshaded eye icon to indicate that the total grade in the Gradebook differs from the total grade viewed by the student.

Have questions about Canvas? Contact the ITS Information Desk at 540.458.4357 (HELP), email help@wlu.edu, or stop by Leyburn Library!

October 2, 2019

Migrating Sakai Courses to Canvas – Round 1!

As part of our continuing transition from the Sakai learning management system to Canvas, ITS Academic Technologies is initiating our first round of bulk migration requests to move your course and project sites from Sakai into Canvas. Beginning now and continuing through October 28, 2019, you may request to have up to 10 course or project sites migrated from Sakai into Canvas by filling out the Sakai-Canvas Course and Project Site Migration Request form.

This first round of migrations is intended to facilitate faculty in migrating content for their Undergraduate Winter 2020 and Law Spring 2020 courses into Canvas, although you are welcome to request course or project sites from any term.

We will have two additional rounds of migrations to accommodate Undergraduate Spring 2020 courses, as well as any remaining courses or project sites that need to be migrated out of Sakai before it is retired at the end of June 2020.

Please refer to the following bulk migration schedule for more details and deadlines:

First round: Requests due by October 28, 2019. Courses will be ready in Canvas by November 4, 2019
Second round: Opens January 27, 2020. Requests due by February 17, 2020. Courses will be ready in Canvas by February 24, 2020
Third (and Final) round: Opens April 1, 2020. Requests due by May 29, 2020. Courses will be ready in Canvas by June 15, 2020

If you request to have courses or project sites migrated, you will be notified when the courses will be available in Canvas. Please note that you must check your courses after migration to ensure that they are set up properly. While the migration pathway from Sakai to Canvas is robust for Resources, Assignments, Forums, Tests & Quizzes, and Lessons, there are a number of items and settings that will not migrate over and will require positive action on your part in Canvas to correct or address.

For those of you beginning with Canvas, we have daily Canvas sessions scheduled for faculty during Winter Academy (December 9-13), and are also offering a 2-day Camp Canvas workshop during Undergraduate Reading Days (October 10-11). As always, Academic Technologies staff will also be available at any time for one-on-one faculty training, migration requests, and support sessions.

Please contact Brandon or Helen directly (bucyb@wlu.edu or x8651; hmacdermott@wlu.edu or x4561) or via help@wlu.edu to ask any Canvas questions or to request personal training.

July 18, 2019September 9, 2019

Please Welcome Canvas to W&L!

Woo-hoo! Canvas is Live!

You may now access the Canvas Learning Management System at https://canvas.wlu.edu. Fall 2019 courses have been imported and are available for you to begin building out.

During the 2019-20 school year, both Canvas and Sakai will be available, and you are free to use either platform until the end of Spring 2020 when Sakai will be retired. However, professors who wish to use lecture capture as part of their classes will need to use Canvas in order to do so. Tegrity has been discontinued by their parent company, McGraw Hill, and we are employing a new lecture capture software called YuJa, which is available only through Canvas.

In preparation for the upcoming school year, Academic Technologies will be conducting numerous Canvas training sessions. We have daily Canvas sessions scheduled for faculty during Fall Academy (August 19-30, 2019), and are also offering a 3-day workshop called Camp Canvas (August 13-15, 2019). Participants in this workshop will leave with a thorough understanding of the new LMS and a Canvas course ready to go for the 2019-2020 academic year. Additional training opportunities will be provided the week of August 5-9 for Law School faculty. As always, Academic Technologies staff will also be available at any time for one-on-one faculty training, migration requests, and support sessions. Please contact Brandon or Helen directly (bucyb@wlu.edu or x8651; hmacdermott@wlu.edu or x4561) or via help@wlu.edu to ask any Canvas questions or to request personal training.

To view further details about the transition timeline, upcoming events, and migration/training resources, please visit our Canvas website at https://canvas.academic.wlu.edu.

Many thanks, and welcome to Canvas!

June 6, 2019July 18, 2019

Important information about the upcoming transition from Sakai to Canvas

Greetings members of the W&L Community,

Washington and Lee is transitioning to Canvas as the university’s official learning management system (LMS). Canvas is the world’s fastest-growing LMS, used by more than 3,000 universities, school districts, and institutions around the world. Canvas is an innovator in educational technology, and their learning platform is known for being customizable, adaptable, and reliable.

The selection of Canvas was made after consideration by an LMS replacement working group composed of faculty, staff, and student representatives from across the university, charged with finding a solution that offers the best possible learning experience for students and an optimal platform for course delivery. The working group also conducted a thorough review of best practices at peer institutions. As an enterprise-wide technology, Canvas will be managed and supported by ITS Academic Technologies.

W&L has used Sakai as our LMS  since 2008. The system is open source and was originally supported by a large number of R1 institutions. Sakai’s share of the LMS market has been decreasing for the last five years and  the decline is now accelerating, with “no new significant institutional deployments in the US.” (Source:  www.edutechnica.com).  Additionally, almost all of the original founding Sakai schools have moved to Canvas, with Stanford being the last to move in 2016.

At W&L, Canvas will be up and running by mid-July 2019, and will be fully available for all courses beginning in the Fall 2019 term. Sakai will continue to operate as usual during the transition year (2019-2020 Academic Year). During this period you are free to use either platform, and assistance will be provided for any faculty wishing to migrate course content from Sakai into Canvas. However, professors who wish to use lecture capture as part of their classes will need to migrate to Canvas in order to do so. (Tegrity has been discontinued by their parent company, McGraw Hill, and we’ve been obliged to change to a new lecture capture software.) The new lecture capture software is YuJa, and it will be available only through Canvas. Please note that at the end of Spring Term 2020, no more classes may be offered in Sakai, as it will be retired in June 2020.

In preparation for the upcoming school year, Academic Technologies will be conducting numerous Canvas training sessions. We have daily Canvas sessions scheduled for faculty during Fall Academy (scheduled for August 19-30), and are also offering a 3-day workshop called Camp Canvas, running August 13-15. Participants in this workshop will leave with a thorough understanding of the new LMS and a Canvas course ready to go for the 2019-2020 academic year. Additional training opportunities will be provided earlier in August for Law School faculty. As always Academic Technologies staff will also be available at any time for one-on-one faculty training and support sessions. Please contact Brandon or Helen directly (bucyb@wlu.edu or x8651; hmacdermott@wlu.edu or x4561) or via help@wlu.edu to ask any Canvas questions or to request personal training.

Be on the lookout for additional information as the summer progresses. We will continue to send updates via email and Campus Notices. To view further details about the transition timeline, upcoming events, and training resources, please visit our Canvas web site: https://canvas.academic.wlu.edu. We will also post additional information and updates about Canvas on our blog page located at this site.

Many thanks, and have a great summer!

Regards,
Brandon Bucy

ITS Academic Technologies