NET+ Canvas Newsletter

September 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

The latest from Instructure regarding Canvas product offerings. 


Getting Started with Canvas Catalog

If you have been looking for a solution to help you streamline your institution’s continuing education programs and non-credit course offerings, here we come to save the day!

Catalog allows you to centralize your continuing education programs, non-credit courses, and professional development offerings in one online marketplace. Learn more here

From Courses to Career: Readying Non-Traditional Students for the Workforce

The student population is changing rapidly, as today's learners are vastly non-traditional students turning to higher education to start a different career, level-up their skills in a current role, or learn new skills entirely. Click here to learn more.


Improving Campus-Wide Communication: 3 Ways to Use Impact in Canvas LMS 

Chapman University discussed their Impact by Instructure adoption experience and how they used this solution to support a seamless transition from Blackboard to Canvas. Their goal? To encourage deeper usage of the institution’s LMS tools throughout the transition. Learn more here

Transforming Data Usage with Canvas Outcomes at Howard Community College

With a unified standard as the end goal, data collection needed to be sustainable and perpetual—allowing faculty to follow the same process each semester for every student. Establishing the right process was only the first step, though. Click here to learn more.


Canvas Pathways That Lead to College & Career Readiness

As online learning has continued at many schools, there’s a greater emphasis on earning credentials that validate and showcase a student’s individual skill sets beyond their grades. Learners need a way to record and share their achievements with potential college advisors and employers to draw a clear line between their education and their desired college and career path. Learn more here

Click here for all things Higher Education by Instructure.


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Canvas Advisory Board Updates


Upcoming Meeting: October 12th, 2022

The next Canvas Advisory Board meeting will be on October 12th, 2022. Agenda items will be finalized and posted during the 2 weeks leading up to the meeting.

A complete listing of all Canvas Advisory Board meeting agendas can be found here.


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September Meeting Recap


The agendas for our upcoming 2022 meetings have been published for your viewing. Please note, these are working documents and subject to change so please check back for any updates on a regular basis.

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 thorough I2.






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.

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