Canvac v.s. Blackboard/Moodle

[Bent Kure]

I have read about Canvas on their web, and looked at the comparison between Canvas and other LMS. My first impessionen is that Canvas looks very good. But one thing is was canvas publishes on their web. Another view may be what the USERS think and say about Canvas. What do YOU in this user group think about Canvas?

Bent Kure
Senior advisor
University og Oslo
e-mail: bent...@usit.uio.no

[Trương Hoàng Dũng]

I do prefer Canvas LMS to Moodle because the Canvas LMS philosophy is focusing on communication on most elements. The moodle is like a Learning Repository System, it's there to host your learning objects, but it lacks of communication philosophy like Canvas LMS. Is there other points to consider here ?

[Hilary Osborne]

I downloaded and installed moodle. When I started going through the code I was horrified.. maybe it's my preference for centralized frameworks like symphony but I found the haphazard way moodle seems to be programmed scary. I believe that if moodle starts focusing on developing a new elegant backend (similar to maybe drupal 7) and has a complete do over with a decent graphic designer + UX developer it might become the undisputed champion of lms offerings.

I prefer Canvas to moodle because they seemed to actually care what users felt when using the program. The fact it is programmed in ruby is annoying (I am a PHP developer) and if you host in the cloud you have pretty much no control over the program aside from a little JS and CSS work. However, if you go the opensource route you can easily tinker with the code that makes Canvas run. I have managed to integrate canvas with our filemaker database and plug the holes in the api with PHP alternatives (touching the core programming would mean breakages when updating). When you have the opensource version you can also edit the templates themselves which has been amazingly helpful to me.. I have just finished developing an entirely new login panel.

If you have the time and the drive Canvas can be just as open as moodle with the power and professionalism of Blackboard. If only they would give up on this silly Ruby thing and use the only language which counts.. PHP (jk)

[Kevin Reeve]

I have been teaching with Canvas since January of 2011.  I have been teaching online since 2001.  I really like it and so do my students.  It is the LMS of the future in my opinion and there are many streamlined process that make it so much better than moodle and even Blackboard (which I also have experience teaching with.)

There are a few things I would like to seen different, but 99% of it just works, and works well for me and my students.

One of the key aspects that I love is the Speed Grader for grading of assignments. With new cloud integrations students homework submissions can now be marked up by the instructor.

From a teaching standpoint I give it 4 1/2 stars,

Kevin Reeve

Utah State University.  

[ME Auerbacher]

I work for a publisher and build online courses for several LMS platforms, including Blackboard. We support Blackboard, Moodle, D2L and Angel, so I've worked with them all.    I prefer Canvas over all others because the interface is clean, flexible, intuitive, and the support is outstanding. Features are actually useful, not just flashy - this is a big plus, because it increases new user usability.   I've had Instructure support staff work overnight and through the weekend to help troubleshoot and fix the inevitable small glitches. Response time to support requests is almost immediate.   Feedback from instructors using Canvas has been positive - in fact, we get the fewest questions and complaints about Canvas, even from new users.   Peggy   --- On Thu, 10/18/12, Kevin Reeve <kevin...@aggiemail.usu.edu> wrote:

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[Bob Puffer]

I am a confirmed Moodle user who lurks on Canvas' digests to see what's happening with it.  I'm in agreement with most everything folks have said about Moodle -- I've argued long and hard to get core developers to consider the concept of UX and fear I'm mostly lost that battle.  The reason I would consider Moodle over any other system available right now is the community.  Not only am I in touch with thousands of people using and making changes to Moodle to better suit their needs but I've been blessed to be part of smaller collaborations (http://clamp-it.org, for one) that enable us to actually make Moodle into the best LMS "for us".  I don't believe centralized governance of any LMS will produce a product that suits most people's needs.  The LMS needs to be built on a platform and open enough to allow schools to "make it work".  In all the time I've been subscribed to these forums I've not seen all that much action, sometimes five or six posts.  I'm subscribed to a small portion of Moodle's community forums and receive hundreds of posts in my daily digest (scanning them quickly and drilling down to those that have content useful to me).  Maybe I'm missing something but is there a critical mass of a community building around Canvas?  I don't mean just a few really large schools signing on -- you might as well have SAKAI if you go that route.  I just see quite a few similarities between SAKAI-java-centrally managed and not that open /// Canvas-Ruby-centrally managed and not that open.