Canvas as Document Repository

[amanda_taintor]

Up to this point we have stored our committee documents in Blackboard, with the move to Canvas we need to find a different solution for MANY years worth of committee documentation. Is anyone else using Canvas to store committee documents? I know I have found a few threads were this was discussed but my VPI wants actual names of colleges doing this. So if you are willing to share your college, or colleges you know using Canvas in this way I would greatly appreciate.

Thanks!

Amanda Taintor

[bgibson]

One of our Canvas sites is/was being used for a non-course purpose and there were a large number of small documents stored there.  The teacher contacted me about the list of files not loading, or not loading in a timely manner.  When I checked, there were over a thousand files (perhaps more than 2x).  My simple answer to them was that Canvas is designed as an LMS, and that it would be rare that a course actually needed over a thousand documents (perhaps available to students) and that he was probably pushing the limits.  *I have not heard back from him.  Sharepoint or some other app might be best for a really large number of files.

[bgibson · Accepted solution]

We are using LookingGlass from CampusEAI as our campus portal.  They have a "Drive" portlet which allows users to create folder structures to share files.  It is granular, in that you can set up folders so that they are only viewable by certain roles (specific committees can only see the files for their area).  *We had over a thousand files, divvied up into various folders "by meeting date" and "year" and the Support Staff came up with a way to batch import this whole folder/files structure into LookingGlass using SFTP.  This is something that they were able to turn on, then off, to allow the upload but then not offer it as a continuing feature.  *I am not sure of how many files and users might begin to "bogg down" the system.  

Our users have also recently been given access to their own "One Drive" from which they can share files, so that might be a better alternative.

[brendaa]

A couple of committees at St. Edward's University are sharing documents this way.  They were also using Blackboard to store committee documents.  When we switched to Canvas we encouraged a move to Box for this purpose but faculty found that it was easier to organize content in Canvas so they continued to use Canvas for this purpose.

[peterblaze]

We've found that faculty and students were both using Dropbox as their primary resource for storing and sharing files. Leveraging the plugin for Canvas just took it that extra step for sharing content and submitting assignments.  The Office 365 integration with Dropbox also worked really great for student collaboration.