Canvas Resources for Instructors

Faculty and Staff

Faculty and staff can log in now to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu. 

All instructors have one test course automatically created in their Canvas account. A test course can be leveraged to explore Canvas features or used to build content for future “real” courses. Your test course should appear on your Canvas Dashboard and in your Courses tab in the left navigation menu. The course name will include “Instructor Test Course” and your OHIO ID. If you’d like additional test courses, you can submit a request for a manually created course. 

Students

As of the summer 2024 semester, all admitted OHIO students can access Canvas. 

Colleges and departments will be migrating to Canvas in a phased approach. Faculty and staff gained access to Canvas in October 2023 to start developing courses and organizations. A limited Phase 1 rollout, featuring approximately 100 live courses, began in Spring 2024. The timeline for all other academic units was set in collaboration with faculty leaders, aiming to meet each unit's needs while ensuring a smooth and intuitive student experience during the transition. For a detailed timeline of all academic programs, please visit the Canvas implementation website.

Phase 1 of the Canvas implementation took place in the Spring 2024 semester and included about 100 live courses, specifically chosen to represent a diverse cross-section of disciplines and teaching styles. 

Each participating college collaborated with OIT to pinpoint faculty and courses that best fit the objectives of Phase 1, which include finalizing the platform setup, enhancing the student and faculty experience, and gauging training and support resources. There were approximately 100 courses in Canvas and 56 faculty participated in Phase 1. OIT is working with academic leaders to prepare for future terms to ensure students have a streamlined transition to Canvas so they are not operating in multiple LMSs for an extended period.

The decision to transition to Canvas has been made after careful consideration of its many advantages and potential for enhancing teaching and learning experiences at Ohio University. Further information about the selection process and its outcomes can be found in our Summary Report.

Once you're ready to begin, follow the steps outlined in the Canvas Faculty Hub for setting up your course.

It is important to be aware that Canvas has a course size limit of 2GB, which is different from Blackboard. There are a tips to reduce your files sizes, if needed, on the preparing your course for Canvas page. This is helpful if you are encountering difficulty with file size as you transfer content to Canvas. 

There are two main ways to migrate your Blackboard course content to Canvas: Working from an OHIO template in Canvas, or importing full course content from Blackboard. Step-by-step instructions for both options are detailed in the Moving Course Content from Blackboard to Canvas help article.

Access 24/7 Canvas support via phone, chat, and email right inside Canvas. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu and select "Get Help" from the left navigation menu.

Additionally, the University is offering vendor-led workshops, 1:1 consultations, departmental workshops, and a diverse range of self-guided training. View the Canvas Training webpage for more information.

Yes, you will be able to house your Blackboard Organization content within a Course in Canvas. In Blackboard, we had two types of containers for content: Courses and Organizations, the main differences being Organizations are not term-based and enrollments in Organizations are handled manually, not through the integration with our student information system. In Canvas, there is only one type of container, Courses, but we can adjust the settings of those courses to not be term-based and to have manual enrollments. This allows us to create the same functionality of a Blackboard Organization within a Canvas Course. 

You can request a non-term-based course by requesting a manually created course. In the "What kind of Canvas request are you making?" field, select "I am requesting a manually created course".

Instructors will have access to Blackboard until June 2026 and should use this time to review their Blackboard course material and determine what should be migrated, saved, or deleted. 

In June 2026, to support the transition from Blackboard to Canvas, the University will retain all academic courses from the past seven years (dating back to June 2019) for two years (until June 2028).

Academic courses are defined as courses generated from our Student Information System (PeopleSoft) for academic credit. This does not include Blackboard organizations, test courses, or any other kind of manually created courses. Instructors must save this type of content on their own if they wish to retain it.

After June 2028, all Blackboard academic course content will be deleted.

Term-based courses load to Canvas and Blackboard eight-weeks prior to the start date of the course. This means instructors will have access to begin setting up their course that will later have students enrolled. Students will be enrolled in courses two-weeks prior to the start date of the course. 

Courses will only be accessible to students when instructors publish the course. Please only publish courses in one LMS to ensure it is easy for students to determine where the course will actually be taught. We also encourage faculty to contact students in advance of the term to let them know which LMS the course will use.

If you are unable to see or access a course in your Canvas Dashboard, view our Troubleshooting Course Access help article.

Students will be enrolled in courses two-weeks prior to the start date of the course. This is the same time when students were added to Blackboard courses in the past. 

When a student adds or drops a course after this time, their course enrollment will be updated during the next Canvas data update, which runs three times per day.

Courses will only be accessible to students when instructors publish the course. Please only publish courses in one LMS to ensure it is easy for students to determine where the course will actually be taught. We also encourage faculty to contact students in advance of the term to let them know which LMS the course will use.

Beginning with the Summer 2024 semester, all admitted OHIO students will have access to Canvas.

For students to access any course material in either Canvas or Blackboard, instructors need to publish their course so it is visible to students. Instructors are encouraged to communicate with students at the very beginning of their course about how to access course material and which platform it will be available in.

Delivering an accessible course is essential to providing a learning experience that meets the needs of all students. OIT's Digital Accessibility Network (OHIO-DAN) developed an excellent Faculty Checklist for Accessible Content resource that is a great starting point. This document outlines document types that are most accessible, as well as recommendations for delivering accessible multimedia content. Consider joining the OHIO-DAN to learn more about accessible teaching and learning practices through regular conversations and resource sharing.

A very critical component to student success is that students know where their courses are being taught. If you're teaching in Canvas, instructors can leverage these student-facing resources to help communicate with their students. These resources require your OHIO ID to view. They are view-only, so you will need to either download the documents to your device or copy/paste the content into your own materials.  

For a feature-by-feature comparison, check out our What is Different in Canvas overview. Canvas offers many similar features to Blackboard, but as with all new technologies, will have some differences too. For more support navigating new features, consider scheduling a consultation or reviewing our help materials.

For a comparison of features between Blackboard and Canvas, please visit the What is Different in Canvas page. OIT's Using third-party integrations in Canvas page provides details about integrations (external tools applications) that are available in Canvas. Please note that the process to link an application/integration to your course is different from how the tools connected in Blackboard. Please read the installation instructions on the third-party integrations help page to access the desired tool.

Panopto is now available in Canvas with the same features that were available in Blackboard. The Panopto application for Canvas looks and operates differently because it is designed specifically for Canvas. All content you made previously within Panopto should be available within the Panopto for Canvas product, but will require some review or relinking to your new courses. Please visit the Sharing Panopto Content Between Blackboard and Canvas help article for more information.

There are differences between question pools, banks, and blocks, which are often used interchangeably. We expect most content types to transfer to Canvas. The Office of Instructional Design developed this great guide to walk through how to export and import pools, tests, and rubrics. If you have any difficulty with a specific file type during the import process, please seek help within Canvas. You can start a chat or call their hotline by logging into Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu and selecting "Get Help" from the left navigation menu. OIT can also support you through a consultation to discuss your individual needs for moving course content. You can schedule a consultation through the Canvas Training and Resources webpage.

Before requesting an integration, check the list of current third-party integrations to ensure it is not already available. 

To request a feature or a new integration (external application or product) in Canvas, please submit a ticket through the Canvas Ticketing Page for feature and integration requests or leverage the vendor technology review form. In the "What kind of Canvas request are you making?" field, select "I am requesting an integration in Canvas".

Proctortrack, an online proctoring solution, is available within Canvas. Proctortrack does have a fee associated with use (either department-pay or student-pay). Turnitin can check submissions for plagiarism in Canvas, if enabled. To learn more about Turnitin in Canvas, review Creating a Turnitin Assignment in Canvas. OHIO does not offer Respondus lockdown browser at this time. You can see the full list of third-party tools available within Canvas on this webpage.

Turnitin will check submissions made through Turnitin assignments from both Blackboard and Canvas. In Canvas, we will have Turnitin available as the academic integrity product since SafeAssign is a Blackboard-specific feature. To learn more about Turnitin in Canvas, review Creating a Turnitin Assignment in Canvas.

In Canvas, course owners and faculty have the ability to add and remove Designers, Teaching Assistants (TA), and Instructors (which Canvas calls Teachers), and the ability to add but not remove Students from their courses. The reason behind not allowing students to be removed is to prevent students from being accidentally removed from a course that they should be enrolled in and to prevent the potential loss of their submitted data. If a manually added student needs to be removed from a course, that can be done through a request to the OIT Service Desk.

We do not have plans to push grades from Canvas to the Faculty Advising Center.

Instructors can add or remove instructors, TAs, and designers from Canvas courses. They can add students to courses as soon as they are admitted, but instructors will not be able to remove them. This is to prevent the accidental loss of data. If a manually added student needs to be removed from a course, instructors can contact Canvas Support for assistance.

Yes, instructors can post class announcements in their Canvas course. An additional feature in Canvas announcements is that instructors can allow students to comment or like announcements and can schedule an announcement to post later. However, instructors cannot force an email message to students regarding announcements and cannot set an expiration date for announcements. 

Instructors can copy course content such as assignments, modules, pages, and discussions from an existing Canvas course into new or empty courses. Directions for how to copy course content is available in the online Canvas guide. 

Yes. In Canvas this process is referred to as Cross-Listing rather than merging. Directions for Cross-Listing are available in the OIT Knowledge Base.  

The Canvas calendar is populated based on dates added to courses by the course instructor, such as assignment/quiz due dates, and to-do items. Both students and instructors have access to the calendar feature for all their enrolled courses and groups. An Instructor Guide to the Calendar is available in the online Canvas guide.  

Instructors cannot add a manual grade column directly to the Gradebook in Canvas (as you could in Blackboard). You must create a new assignment, and in the “Submission Type” settings, set to “No Submission.”

The Canvas and Blackboard Comparison chart shows a list of features without a direct equivalent, as well as suggested workarounds where possible for items such as glossary, journals, and wikis. 

Turnitin offers an integration called Plagiarism Framework which allows you to use the native Canvas assignment features with the addition of the originality check from Turnitin.

Instructors can re-organize and hide items on the Course Navigation menu. However, navigation menu items cannot be renamed or added in Canvas.