News

Canvas selected as new virtual learning environment

The University of Liverpool has signed a new contract with Instructure to secure Canvas as our new virtual learning environment.

Canvas is used by more than 300+ educational institutions worldwide, including Ivy League universities in the USA, such as Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and MIT, plus Russell Group universities, like Birmingham and Manchester, in the UK.

“This major investment in a new VLE is an opportunity for the University to extend its capability in digital education and further enhance teaching and learning provision across all of our taught undergraduate and postgraduate degrees,” says Professor Gavin Brown, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education.

“The last time we changed our VLE was over a decade ago so this is an exciting opportunity for us to embrace teaching innovations made possible by recent advances in digital technology, and exploit the new usability and functionality that Canvas has to offer,” he adds.

“We are delighted to support the University of Liverpool in its mission to deliver engaging, immersive and effective digitally-powered teaching and learning to its students,” says Kenny Nicholl, General Manager EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) at Instructure. “The move to a flexible, cloud-native platform puts Liverpool ahead of the game in providing a modern learning experience.’’

New features and functionality

The decision to invest in a new VLE follows a detailed year-long feasibility study which reviewed the current and future needs of academic staff and students with regards digital learning. A detailed requirements document then informed a rigorous competitive tender process, conducted this summer, with Instructure and Canvas scoring highest across all technical and teaching considerations.

Dan Goldsmith, CEO Instructure Ltd with Simon Thomson, Director of the University’s Centre for Innovation in Education, at CanvasCon 2019.

Simon Thomson, Director of the University’s Centre for Innovation in Education, explains: “Moving to Canvas provides us with an opportunity to empower our programme teams to deliver rich, blended learning experiences for our students in an increasingly digitally accessible world, while also enabling us to innovate current teaching practice, extend the digital capabilities of our staff and boost student digital fluency.”

Some of the new features offered by Canvas include:

Further information about all benefits and enhancements available in Canvas will be published over the coming weeks and months. Please visit Canvas at Liverpool for more details.

A phased roll out

An implementation team has been established – with members from CIE, CSD, Strategic Change and each of the Faculties – to plan and deliver the phased roll-out of Canvas across the institution.

Representatives from Instructure are also working closely with the implementation team, drawing on their extensive expertise of setting up Canvas at other HEIs to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible.

The roll-out will include a programme of roadshows, forums and other events to help inform and support staff making the transition to using Canvas.

Tricia Sage, Project Manager, explains: “We recognise that staff will have lots of questions about moving to Canvas and when they can get access to the platform as well as queries about course migrations, training, technical support and other issues. I would like to reassure staff that we will be working directly with Schools, Departments and Faculties throughout the process to develop a transition schedule that reflects their needs.”

Further information

If you are interested in finding out more about Canvas and how it can help deliver your teaching and learning objectives, please email canvas@liverpool.ac.uk

Further information is also available on the VLE intranet site: https://staff.liverpool.ac.uk/education/current-projects/canvas-at-liverpool/

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