Faculty Journal Discontinued

[krudolph_wise]

We recently got a notice that says "Faculty Journal will be discontinued on June 15, 2024."

Why is Canvas discontinuing this feature? We love it and use is school-wide on a daily basis.

Will there be something similar/better to replace it?

[ProfessorBeyrer]

I embedded a screenshot of the message that appears when the Faculty Journal is accessed:

Faculty Journal message

I looked through the Canvas Guides and found only one reference to it:  How do I set details for a Canvas Consortium account? I am not sure why it would be mentioned there and not on the similar page  How do I set details for an account? I wonder if that means the tool was never fully rolled out and/or documented.

Can you share some examples of how you use the tool? There might be other ways of achieving the same things using other Canvas tools. Hopefully others it the Community will share their ideas too.

[ntrendel]

Our school uses this heavily as well. I reached out to my CSM as soon as I saw the message and I was told that it will be removed from Canvas and there will be no replacement. We are working to get processes in place to save what we have in Faculty Journal offline and how we are going to replace it on our end.  

[KristinL]

Hi @krudolph_wise - 

Faculty Journal is/was a feature not universally available to Canvas customers, so it is not included in the documentation. Please contact your Canvas admin as they have received more information about the deprecation. If you are your school's admin, send a note to your CSM. I hope they'll be able to assist with finding alternative solutions for you.

Community, what options have you leveraged to accomplish the same things as you can in Faculty Journal?

[KsteppB]

We will be leveraging a third-party tool by AspireEdu, Drop Out Detective. Not only will it have notes feature similar to faculty journal, but it is a robust retention tool for schools to utilize. 

[KsteppB]

Hi there, 

I too work for a school that uses this heavily and relies on it. We have a plan in place to replace this service, but I am struggling with the amount of historical data we are going to lose. Besides manually pulling out the entries for every students, and then documenting them, have you found a way to export these?

[NicoletteStaley]

@KsteppB If you reach out to your CSM, they may be able to request the Faculty Journal date be exported for you.  If you are still needing this data, I recommend doing so promptly as I suspect the data will no longer be available after the feature is depreciated.

[SeanDuffy1]

Hi there,

I wanted to share a potential solution that might perfectly address your needs after the Faculty Journal discontinuation.

Stackle is a Canvas-native tool specifically designed for learning journals and reflective practice. We've helped a range of Higher Education Institutions create a comprehensive journal solution that goes well beyond the traditional Faculty Journal capabilities.

What makes Stackle particularly compelling:

• Seamless Canvas integration
• Multiple journal types (reflect & revise, quick reflect)
• Easy embedding directly into Canvas pages
• Supports both graded and ungraded reflections
• Works across different departments and teaching styles

Our current partner institutions are using Stackle to:

• Create consistent reflection experiences
• Track student learning progression
• Enable easy assignment and grading workflows
• Provide flexible journal configurations

This might be worth exploring as a direct replacement that could actually enhance what you were doing with Faculty Journal. Our website has more info here;
https://stacklehq.com/features/learning-journals-for-canvas-lms/
Or we are more than happy for you to book a demo and chat.
https://stacklehq.com/book-a-demo/

Hope this helps provide a proactive solution to your journal needs!