We are going to switch to the new UI on friday. How screwed are we?

[ordwaye]

Got your attention?  Anyways last year was our first year out of pilot and we kept moodle up in parallel to help people transition.  This will be the first year that we will only be providing Canvas as the lms.  So we have about 25% of the people that switched over last year and we expect the rest to come over in the next couple weeks now that summer session has ended.  So our options to switch are 'now', 'after newyears', or hope that the force switch does not bit us in spring.  Our spring term runs into June.

All the documentation seems to have switch over to the new UI so people looking at the docs will have interesting results.

So for those reasons we are moving now and the questions stands.  What is going to bit us?

[kona]

Honestly you'll probably be fine as long as you communicate with your Instructors about (1) what's happening, (2) why it's happening, and (3) what has changed (not *that* much really). I think Canvas is probably going to be tweaking the UI for a while, but it seems like it's pretty stable and user-friendly. But hey, if not, then at least you'll have some great war stories to tell about how awful it was and the rest of us will pat ourselves on the back for waiting.

[mmitchell]

Hey Erik,

Best of luck! We have a hefty amount of custom JavaScript and CSS, so the switch is going to be a much longer and trickier transition for us. Does your institution utilize much custom CSS/JS?

Mike

[ordwaye]

Not much customization.  We switched over on beta and test in a couple hours.  We found the other than colors most of what we were doing had been implemented in the new theme.

[ssnider]

I say tell them to buck up and stop complaining.   I liken it to your bank, credit card, FB or Amazon.  They change their interface and nobody blinks they just move on with a shrug.  Of course for some reason when an LMS changes you do hear some complaining.  May it's because you can't very well complain to you bank or Amazon about their interface change but faculty know you and ring you up personally.

We just jumped from pilot to production and used that as the excuse to turn on the new UI.  A fresh start.  It also didn't affect as many users.  We had little backlash.  Our business school was the biggest user in the pilot and they can be cranky.  Take a deep breath and make that click!  Good Luck!

[mdthomas]

We are similar, coming off our Spring pilot and going to full production for all faculty now.  Because it was new for the majority, we made the switch to the new UI.  Some things we have noticed thus far:

1. 1. After cross-listed courses the Dashboard does not immediately display the new cross-listed master course on the Dashboard.  We have had to guide faculty to click on the Courses, All Courses to locate all of their courses and then also favorite the one they want on their dashboard.
   
   
2. As others have said, logout is hidden - under Account.
   
   
3. Biggest issue right now is the responsive design on computers.  We have had several faculty state on their office computers that the course navigation menu collapses as well as the right options will move to the bottom of the page.  So, if anyone knows - I'm looking for details as to what are the resolution/screen sizes in which this will happen?  I want to pass it along to our IT department for configurations.

- Melissa

[erinhallmark]

Melissa,

The UI team continually makes the pages more responsive over time, so any exact pixel breakpoint would probably change in the long run. I do know that they're thinking about exploring options with the course navigation menu as well, so everything is still subject to change at this point.

Thanks,

Erin

[clong]

Hi Melissa, I can help you with #3

There appears to be two different window size thresholds that the new UI uses to determine what navigation items to show/hide on course pages. Of course this could be subject to change, but as it stands now here is the breakdown.

1. Browser windows is less than 992 pixels - Course Navigation hidden, Sidebar appears at bottom of the page.

2. Browser windows is greater than or equal to 992 pixels - Course Navigation hidden, Sidebar appears on the right.

3. Browser windows is greater than or equal to 1200 pixels - All elements shown as normal.

[erinhallmark]

Just FYI, this release makes a change to #2, as there no longer is a breaking point for Course Navigation and the Menu is always expanded. The only way it will collapse (after January 9) is if the user clicks it.

Hope that helps!

Erin

[clong]

Thanks for the tip Erin!