NET+ Canvas Newsletter
February 2022
In this version of the NET+ Canvas Newsletter, learn about the latest updates from Instructure about Canvas, comments and feedback from the Canvas Advisory Board, as well as best practices in Canvas use around the Internet2 Community.
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Instructure Updates
Updates from Instructure regarding Canvas product offerings.
Working Together to Understand Your Needs During Omicron
As 2022 begins in earnest, K12 and higher education organizations are facing COVID challenges yet again. A large number of our higher education customers have already decided to be fully remote during January and potentially into February. Read more here.
Collaborate, Grow, and Learn with Canvas LMS Free-for-Teacher
Canvas Free-for-Teacher was created in the early days of Instructure as a commitment to openness and equitable access to learning management tools for educators across the globe. Instructure saw it as a way to give back to the education community, where educators could deliver their courses leveraging many of the vital tools that Canvas provides at no cost.
Fast-forward to 2020, and the sudden shift of the educational landscape caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The need to expedite access to that equitable space and support distance learning has proved essential to thousands of teachers and students. Read more here.
Mobility and Accessibility: The Canvas Mobile App
Learn how the Canvas Mobile App provides essential access to students and faculty at Palo Alto College - anytime, anywhere. Watch the video here.
On-Demand Webinars
EdWeek: 6 Key Trends in Teaching and Learning
Learn the six key trends in teaching and learning that emerged when we asked parents and educators their views on several key areas. We surveyed educators and parents on technology use and its impact on student learning, factors that influence student engagement, and metrics for student success. Click here to watch.
Measuring Impact: Elevate Your EdTech Investments.
Impact by Instructure (formerly Eesysoft) helps institutions improve technology adoption and evaluate the impact of educational technology, while helping faculty and students seamlessly navigate new platforms. Click here to watch.
Back to School: 6 Key Strategies for using Technology in the Physical Classroom
With the new school year approaching and students and teachers across the country returning to the physical classroom, the ongoing use of technology will play an important role in a seamless back-to-school-transition. To help inspire and encourage your efforts, we’re sharing key strategies for using technology to drive in-person learning. Click here to watch.
Canvas New Quizzes
Instructure has been actively listening to their customers and specifically consulted with the I2 Advisory Board regarding the Classic Quizzes & New Quizzes timeline. Based on this feedback, the timeline has been simplified and extended to provide Canvas customers greater control over their transition to New Quizzes. To reduce stress and provide the option for a gradual transition, Instructure is extending Classic Quizzes' end of life to June 30th, 2024.
Instructure has additional information posted in the Canvas Community if you are interested in learning more regarding the changes and controls that will be provided with the transition.
Click here for all things Higher Education by Instructure.
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Canvas Advisory Board Updates
Upcoming Meeting: March 9th, 2022
The next Canvas Advisory Board meeting will be on March 9th, 2022. Agenda items for this meeting include:
- Hybrid Campus Environment
- Quick review/finalization of 2022 Goals
- Canvas/Panopto/Zoom Integrations
- Eesysoft Session
A complete listing of all Canvas Advisory Board meeting agendas can be found here.
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February Meeting Recap
The agendas for our upcoming 2022 meetings have been published, including our February meeting. Please note, these are working documents and subject to change so please check back for any updates on a regular basis.
For February, our main focus was on goal review of 2021 as well as goal creation for 2022. As you may or may not be aware, the board generates for itself goals each year to help guide its business for that particular year. Throughout the year, we re-examine these goals to make sure they continue to be relevant and focused. The entirety of this meeting was devoted to this effort.
Thank you to all who participated in this month’s meeting for your insightful feedback, ideas, and discussion! Should you have any questions or want further information around the work being done by the NET+ Canvas Service Advisory Board or a copy of the Partner Program Report, please don’t hesitate to visit us at https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/7BOJCQ or contact us at netplus@internet2.edu and we will be happy to respond.
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NET+ Canvas Program Update
Service Advisory Board Goals for 2021
These are the goals that the advisory board is looking to perfect at the January 2021 meeting:
Goal #1
Develop with Instructure a customer success culture that:
- identifies service and support best practices and next steps
- benchmarks Instructure's service and support appropriately for universities
- aligns Instructure's service and support to best help universities achieve their strategic goals for teaching and learning
Decision: Quarterly check-in, beginning in February, with a focus on how we measure success for Instructure's customer success culture.
Goal #2
Develop a foundational construct with Instructure that outs in place a predictable process for the board to advise and offer insights on future product development or acquisition including cadence, structure, and practice for exchanging ideas.
- Deliverable: 3 “exchange” activities using/iterating this process on things that Jared, Shaun, or product owners are thinking about during 2021
- Deliverable: one of these “exchange” activities is to initiate a Contributing Team for Canvas Data/Live Events
Goal #3
Continue to develop and refine, with Shaun, a strategy and process for I2 and R1 Peer universities to provide Instructure with actionable information on pain points and unmet needs. The strategy and process should be synced with Instructure's product development cycle and allow Instructure to clearly communicate status and progress back to the universities.
Goal #4
Decision: Instructure cannot reasonably do the actual data sharing piece at this point, and universities are likely not ready to use/share de-identified data. And, we're all waiting to see what Unizin is doing in this space. So, we've decided to refocus on (a) what questions we want to answer with Canvas data, and (2) the best way we might answer those questions with the data. We'll tackle this topic in March with Oxana's replacement. 1/27 update: We may also want to explore a de-identified data sharing program through I2.
NET+ Canvas - HELPFUL LINKS
Around the Community
Commentary from I2 Canvas users: advice, best practices, feedback.
R1 Peers
The Canvas Peers Research Universities Group (or R1 Peers Group) brings together representatives from large public and private research universities to share best practices around using Canvas and the surrounding ed tech ecosystem to support teaching and learning. They also collaborate closely with Instructure (Canvas vendor) and sit on the Internet2 NET+ Canvas Service Advisory Board to improve the Canvas platform and user experience for research universities. This group represents more than 250 members from 45 institutions of higher education and research across the United States, and around the world.
For context, recently the R1 Peers Group has collaborated in the following areas:
- Tier 1 support
- Archiving
- 3rd party integrations
- Pain points
- Data privacy
LRS Standards SIG
The Learning Records Store (LRS) Special Interest Group (SIG) assembles use cases for an LRS, creates an LRS reference architecture, and develops implementation/engineering best practices. The SIG promotes open standards that enable data from a variety of teaching and learning tools to be included in the LRS.
This group is chaired by the University of Washington and meets monthly on the fourth Wednesday of the month, however the LRS SIG is currently on hold until May 2022. For more information or to join this group, please reach out to Matthew Buss (mbuss@internet2.edu). Thank you.