Reasons for choosing Canvas LMS over opensource LMS

[Nick Kokkos]

Hello,

could you please share your opinions and your views relating to your decision to choose Canvas-lms opensource
version over other systems (eg. moodle)?

I am trying to introduce canvas to our organization, having done my homework by researching other platforms, but would like to include some pointers/views from the community.

Thank you much.
 

[Christopher Bennell]

Opinions are great, but how about some data? When we were considering switching to a new LMS, we installed instances of a few open source LMS's and conducted focus groups with students and faculty. For each system, we asked them to complete certain tasks, then answer a few questions. There are details from that evaluation here. Some highlights: 

• Canvas was ranked first out of the shortlisted systems on the following criteria: Which LMS is the most easy to use? Which has the most appropriate content organization? Which has the most appropriate collaboration & communication tools? Which has the most appropriate assessment tools? Which best suits the courses you take and your program overall?
• ~75% of faculty felt that Canvas was a significant improvement over the previous LMS. ~25% were neutral, none felt it was NOT an improvement. 
• ~70% of students felt that Canvas was a significant improvement over the previous LMS or were neutral. ~5% didn't know (hadn't used the previous LMS?), ~25% felt it was not an improvement. 
• Canvas was the winner, in terms of percentages of responses in agreement to the following questions: This LMS is easy to use. This LMS has features that help my learning and experience in art & design education (we're an art & design school). This LMS is a significant improvement over [Previous LMS]. 

To go back to opinions, my opinion is that it boiled down to a few questions: 

• Does the tool have the features that faculty and students need? Well, they all do. It's hard for an LMS to differentiate on "features".  
• Will faculty and students use the tool? This depends on the user experience, which is where Canvas outclasses the competition. 
  
• Will it integrate with existing systems? Canvas has an open API, LTI support, and ability to customize the application. I'm not sure where other products are at with these at the moment.
• Is the tool accessible, and are the developers committed to accessibility? This is about compliance but also about being a good web citizen and conscientious professional. Canvas is great here: every release seems to come with accessibility enhancements. I'm not sure how it compares to other products, but as compliance is such an important issue, I'm would assume that other products also put in effort here. 
• Will it be stable? What is it like to implement the application? What is the support / community context? For us, implementation hasn't been without problems, but we've worked through them and we are in excellent shape. The community of OS users is small, but helpful. The developers are very responsive and have been hugely helpful. I can log into IRC and chat with the developers, or email the founders and get a fast response. 

Most importantly: MC Hammer & a DeLorean. 

[Graham Ballantyne]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Christopher Bennell <tunfor...@gmail.com> wrote:

Most importantly: MC Hammer & a DeLorean. 

Dude, Hammer and DeLoreans are sooooooo 2013. It's all about action figures now. I have a suitcase full still; I should send you guys some.

Christopher basically summed up our experience at SFU as well. You can take a look at our story and the actual report from our selection process here, and there's a bit about it in my InstructureCon talk as well. We evaluated all the usual suspects, both commercial (Blackboard, D2L or whatever they're called this week, etc) and OSS (Moodle, Canvas, etc). Canvas had unanamous support from all of the constitutant groups on the selection committee, which *never* happens in academia. 

I think our usage numbers show that we made the right choice. We started our implementation process in Fall 2012 after selecting Canvas. In our Spring & Fall 2013 terms we were in a "co-production" phase with our previous LMS, WebCT -- both were running in parallel with credit courses in each. Our usage of Canvas that term (in terms of courses and enrolled students) surpassed our peak WebCT usage, and we'd been on WebCT for a verrrrrrrrry long time.

Christopher's opinion's are pretty much the same as mine. We're running the OSS version because of a legal requirement (basically, we can't compel our students to put their personal data in a non-Canadian data centre). We've got a long history of running stuff in-house, but our experience with Instructure and Canvas has been like nothing else. I'm blown away that I can talk to the actual engineers writing code on IRC, or have a twitter conversation with Whitmer. I think it's the right blend of OSS and commercial. There's room for improvement, of course (coughchatanalyticscough) but overall I know we made the right choice.

-- 

Graham Ballantyne

IT Services

Simon Fraser University

[Christopher Bennell]

I totally missed out on the action-figure... action this year :( I'm living in the past. 

I forgot to mention: we have an insanely high uptake rate. Something like +95% (can't recall the exact number) of instructors are using Canvas for something, even if that something is just posting syllabi or submitting final grades. They are required to do so, but the fact that they actually do it says something. 

[Nick Kokkos]

Thank you all.

Well, I was really looking forward to have some feedback from both of you (Chris & Graham) since
from my research both institutions of yours have adopted opensource canvas extensively.

But even if Canvas-lms is used as a very simple cms for course management, its user interface is
a huge improvement over other opensource lms (eg. moodle).

I specifically remember some forum discussion in moodle mentioning the fact that "canvas one of the things has gotten right is the user interface and we should move too towards improving moodle ui". Now, that moodle forum comment was back in 2012 when canvas was still a new kid on the block.

Thank you again