Top Support Questions when migrating to Canvas

[lbarratt1]

I need your help.

We are moving to Canvas and have a very tiny support team who are learning Canvas.

Can those of you who have taken this amazing journey share some of the top questions you got and the answers that worked best?
If I had a list of the most common questions and solutions, I would share this with our two T.A. support team members as questions and calls come in during this transition to a new LMS system.

In appreciation for your help, I'm sharing a short 1 minute video to make you smile. You can guess which system we are currently on and why we are moving. 😉

Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts.

Leona Barratt

Hope is coming - YouTube

[kona]

LOVE the video... quite funny and yes, without you saying a word I think it was pretty clear which LMS you're moving from.

Some of the top faculty issues/problems

• Not publishing their course
• Publishing the course and thinking that would publish their individual content items
• Publishing the content in the Module, but not the module itself
• Not understanding quiz settings - Quiz Settings to Maximize Security​
• Not realizing that students can still post/submit after the due date, the until date is what stops submissions
• Buttons don't work or don't show up, Files don't upload - STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER/EDGE!

Top student issues/problems

• I can't get my file to upload - STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER/EDGE!
• I can't get my discussion to post - STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER/EDGE!
• The submit button isn't working for my quiz - STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER/EDGE!
• I can't see all my feedback/course content - check to see if they are on their phone, we've had some strange issues with mobile recently

To be really honest in most cases it's not as much a student issue as it is an issue with how the Instructor set up the course or did something. Ex: Student can't find something or can't submit something - turns out the Instructor didn't set something up correctly.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but I hope this helps!

[lbarratt1]

Awesome Tips! Thank you so much.
Anyone have an idea if/when IE and Edge will work as it should with Canvas?

Thank you.

[DaleDrees]

Love the video  @lbarratt1 ​. Looks like your team has a great attitude! We switched from Angel to Canvas and we definitely had some die-hard users who resisted the change. At my previous institution we moved from Blackboard to Canvas and I did not encounter any resistance like we did when we moved from Angel. I think Change itself was the hardest thing for faculty to move past. Once they start using Canvas, it becomes pretty clear to most users that it is a better system! (except for those die-hard Angel users - Man!!).

[kona]

We switched from Angel to Canvas (partially in 2012 and fully in 2013) and I still hear from some of the die-hard Angel users (even a few students!).

[tdelillo]

We switched from Blackboard to Canvas in 2012, and today a faculty member uttered that phrase that I thought we had finally vanquished: "I used to be able to do that in Blackboard".

I think after 4 years I should be allowed to say "Nope. I'm pretty sure you dreamt that. It is not, and never was, a thing."

[benjamin_p_john]

I've had an open ticket on the Edge/IE issues for at least 3-4 months. From what I gather, Canvas has a workaround and points the finger at Microsoft for the root cause of the behavior. I remind our Canvas account manager each time we talk about it

[awilliams]

Our most common question/issue from students is specific to how we currently (because I will not rest until we fix this) enroll students into Canvas course shells. We wait until midnight the day before classes begin to enroll students. What students expect is to see their course listed in Canvas immediately. Canvas has added all the functionality we require to change this process but we move a bit slower than Canvas does... If you can avoid this situation I would highly recommend it.

Faculty also end up asking where their courses are quite frequently and that is because they've customized their course list by adding favorites and don't realize they have to go view their full course list and favorite their new courses to see them on the Dashboard. Beyond that it is usually, "How do I copy my previous course," "How do I upload my syllabus," "How do I create an assignment to record grades."

[snugent]

Yup I can tell what system you are  coming from in the video which is super cute! Love it! I had to laugh at  @kona ​ response and I would add to that DO  NOT USE SAFARI! LOL! The built in browsers (IE/Edge/Safari) are  problematic because the browser updates are reliant on operating system updates which some people do not do on regular basis. This is even an issue on campus. We are on Win7 and when you open IE, it aggressive tells you to update your browser which won't be done til we move to Win10.

The biggest issue we had when we first migrated was the migration process itself. We were coming from WebCT/BlackCT and this process worked very well in Canvas so we allowed people to do it on their own. We make a poor assumption that people would take our advice about reorganizing their courses to fit Canvas. Many NEVER did so we still have many course sites still look like a quasi WebCT homepage. This was an error on our part so if I had to do a migration all over again I would probably control the migration process a little more such as cleaning up a course before releasing it to the instructor.

The other issue we had during the migration process we had was the instructor's understanding of how integrated the assignments are with other tools in the course (Syllabus, calendar, and grades). WebCT had very limited integration between tools so this was a hard concept for our instructors to learn.

Our most common current issues are very similar to the ones Kona listed. Publishing courses and content is the number one issue following closely by students finding bad links in a course.

[brendaa]

Great video!  This summer is our first semester fully on Canvas with the Evil Empire (Blackboard) no longer available for use.  We've had Canvas available for use for the past year.  Some of the most common questions:

• How do I email (i.e. use Conversations/InBox) students?  which is often followed by "why didn't students receive my email?".  It's important to note that messages can't be sent to students until the course is published.  This is a change for our faculty who were used to using the Email function in BB to send email prior to making a course available.
• As someone else pointed out, instructions for customizing the Dashboard/Course List are essential.  Students panic when they look at the Dashboard and don't see their current courses.
• Understanding all of the dates (Terms and Course) and how those effect what students see.  Our integration with Banner sets the Start & End Dates for courses, but those dates are the first and last class meeting.  Faculty usually want students to have access before and after those dates so we have a start of the semester checklist that includes how to change those dates.
• Combining Sections or cross-listing courses is tricky and non-intuitive.  If you allow faculty to do this, they may need the FERPA cautions mentioned in another discussion (depending on your school's interpretation of FERPA) as well as explicit instructions on how to do this.   Our faculty love the ability to do this, but at least a couple botch the process each semester and we have to help them straighten it out.
• The Syllabus page has required the most training and explanation.  The second is explaining the differences between Pages & Modules.