AUC to replace Blackboard with Canvas

Blackboard will no longer be used for courses starting Fall 2024, according to a mid-January statement from the IT Service Desk on AUC’s website prior to the start of the Spring 2024 semester. 

Canvas, another online teaching and learning platform and a course management system will replace Blackboard as the primary platform. Blackboard has been the official learning management system (LMS) at AUC since 2009. However, with Blackboard Learn now upgrading to Blackboard Ultra, AUC has no choice but to replace it. 

“The current Blackboard version is out of support, and we have to move from Blackboard Ultra to Canvas,” Ahmed Hamed, manager of LMS operations, told The Caravan.

The IT Service Desk staff explained that they chose Canvas over upgrading to Blackboard Ultra due to its widespread use in top universities, user-friendliness, and popularity among instructors and students. Unlike Blackboard, Canvas offers a progress indicator for students uploading large files or with slow connections.

“Based on our study, we found the more enhanced features in Canvas in general and mainly with the mobile version,” Maha Shaheen, manager of Instructional Technology and Multimedia Digital Education, told The Caravan. 

For example, according to the University of Houston Downtown, Canvas’s calendar integrates the syllabus tool, whereas Blackboard’s syllabus tool does not feature automatic assignment generation. The calendar organizes the schedule according to displayed assessments, and due dates and assignments can be created directly from it.

According to the AUC website, AUC provides privacy and takes appropriate measures to guard students’ personal information against misuse, destruction, disclosure, alteration, and unauthorized access. This also applies to platforms which students have to use to access coursework and grades.

“AUC also has a data privacy and security policy, meaning student data is secure. It is considered one of the highest levels of security in the country at AUC,” Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT) Hoda Mostafa told The Caravan. 

This semester, the IT Service Desk staff piloted Canvas for several courses, as they usually do when introducing a new program. This has allowed them to collect feedback from both faculty and students to help them enhance and improve the weak aspects ahead of the full migration in the fall. 

Instead of having the courses uploaded on Blackboard at the start of a new semester, students will get introduced to their courses through Canvas. 

Mostafa said that the feedback they have received so far from some of the courses which are currently using Canvas has helped them decide that Canvas is the perfect platform.

Professors and students who are testing it have also reported that they find Canvas similar to Blackboard but with a more accessible interface to navigate.

“This semester, two of my professors seem to be pilot testers for Canvas, and I use it frequently. Canvas is more organized, has a cleaner interface, and is simpler. There aren’t any glitches or bugs so far,” said Yazeed Ezzeldin, a senior majoring in Construction Engineering.

One of the professors who is a pilot tester is Ezzeldin Yazeed, a professor and the chair of the Construction Engineering department.

“Canvas is actually much easier and user-friendly compared to Blackboard [for] both the instructors and the students. It also gives you a better shape for the course,” said Yazeed.

Yazeed added that one of the advantages of Canvas is that, if students wanted to do teamwork, that was almost impossible to do by themselves as students on Blackboard. However, on Canvas, they can go to a specific activity, form a team or a group, and assign themselves to that team.