Utilizing Two Canvas Platforms

[NanetteBroderic]

Our school has utilized Canvas - Free for Teachers for ALL past cohorts.  We have just purchased the Paid version and will be inviting all future students through the Paid version.

Can we introduce the Paid version to a cohort that started the first term in the Free for Teachers version?

Also is it possible for students to switch back and forth? 

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@NanetteBroderic The free version uses the address canvas.instructure.com and the paid version will use yourschoolname.instructure.com.  They are completely different so students/teachers can be on both (I have accounts with about 5 different Canvas systems).  Students would need to know which system has what information so I would recommend having a cut off date and then everyone move to the paid version which could include users that previously were on the free version.  

If you have both running and some using one vs the other, your students will very likely be confused and could use this as an excuse to not do the work.  When we switched from Moodle to Canvas we unfortunately had to run both for a period of time and students complained about being very confused and not knowing which instructors were using which system which did result in missed assignments.

Hope this helps answer your question!

-Nick

[NanetteBroderic]

Thanks so much for your reply Nick.  Do they need an alternate login and password for the 2nd platform?

[Chris_Hofer]

@NanetteBroderic ...

I would recommend it.  For example, when I was a Canvas administrator at a local college in town, I had a separate Username/Password for our environment there compared to my own FFT Canvas account.  Since security is such a hot topic these days, re-using passwords isn't necessarily a great idea.

[NanetteBroderic]

Will do - Thanks Chris