Hello! Our college is also moving to Canvas Summer 2019 and we have over 50+ Blackboard Communities (organizations) with instructor materials stored.
Since there really is nothing similar in Canvas, we went thru these options with pros/cons:
- Option 1: Manually create courses on a separate subaccount in Canvas. I've tried exporting/archiving/common cartridge the BB Community over to Canvas. Archiving works the best; however, it doesn't work correctly. In the BB Comm., it's set up similarly to a course with modules. In each module, they have added items with multiple attachments of doc, ppt, pdf, rtf. When I import to Canvas, all the files transfer to the backend 'Canvas Files' section. The front end, however, keeps the structure but sometimes doesn't keep the attachments. There's really no pattern to it. Some rtf transfer correctly, some don't. If an item has two documents, one might stay attached, one might not. Also, if these courses are manually created, users have to be updated manually. If you have a lot of BB Comm. to move over, and your instructors are changing constantly, your LMS admin is going to be busy just changing users all the time. Therefore, we said this was not an option and there will be zero manually created courses.
- Option 2: Canvas Blueprint. Download (not export, archive, or common cartridge) the files from BB Comm from the Content Collection. In Canvas Files, create an 'Instructor Only' folder, then name a new folder called 'Resources' (or 'Community' as the departments want but we want to get away from that term). Reason for the second folder: in case there are other materials they want to add. Upload all the files from the BB Comm zip folder. If the instructors didn't organize the files on the backend in Content Collection, it'll just be all files, no folders. If so, create your folders and start drag/dropping to organize. I have tried locking/unpublish/restrict access on files/folders to find the best option. It does depend on your section instructor user permissions but for us, 'Lock/Unpublish' is the best option. If the section instructor accidentally puts a document answer key in the module, it won't automatically be available to students without them clicking a few buttons and a popup to publish. This is the option we are leaning towards. All the files are in one system (not Canvas and a shared drive) and the lead instructors are based from Banner which will change the Canvas BluePrint users automatically. The only con is there's no real option for collaboration if the leads are working on the syllabus template. They'd need to download it from Canvas, work on it in Word over Zoom or upload it to OneDrive (great for off-campus working) but then they'll need to download/save back to the computer and upload it back to Canvas and replace the old syllabus template. If you use BluePrints, you can sync to sections at any time to replace wrong/old content if needed. *We have the course navigation tab 'Files' hidden from students. Other colleges might not.
- Option 3: On Campus Shared Drive. We have a shared drive that works really well on campus but not so much off-campus. It can work, it's just not as easy as people want. But it's somewhere they can store the files since BB is going away soon and this can be a temporary solution.
- Option 4: Teams/Sharepoint. We're a Microsoft 365 school and we really don't use the products/apps. I've started using Teams as a learning experience designer working with a remote team and subject matter experts - it's been great with organizing all the course content in the files library, having the ability to edit them, add assignments, have conversations, add apps/add-ins. There are two options for this: having one Team per department, all employees added. A folder for each class is added in there. Or, separate Teams with the lead instructors as owners so THEY have to manage security/access. There wouldn't be any automation, it's a different system to learn, the course can't change names because the Team will need to be deleted and rebuilt, and it is Microsoft. Microsoft is making Skype for Business a part of Teams next year and hopefully, the license doesn't change. With Microsoft, this product could change and we are already seeing bugs in our one pilot Team with all of two people. Your IT Office 365 admin would have to manually create the groups and assign owners and training (very quickly) to all lead and section instructors.
- *As a side note, OneDrive is tied to individual accounts. If someone leaves, that content disappears.
If you want the directions for Option 2, let me know! Or if I'm not completely clear on something, just message back.
-Jessica
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