On Monday, April 15, faculty and staff members from across campus gathered for a celebratory luncheon to close out the formal project of bringing Canvas, the new learning management system, to Illinois State University.
As President Aondover Tarhule stated in his remarks to the attendees: “I want to add my appreciation and gratitude to everyone in this room for successfully and quickly implementing Canvas… There was a lot riding on [the new learning management system]. Our brand was riding on it. Our future was riding on it. You all pulled this together, all of it, beginning to end, in one year.”
Chief Information Officer Charley Edamala kicked off the remarks, thanking both individuals and departments personally for their expertise and labor throughout the process, including the selection of the platform, implementation, testing during the pilot period, and serving as faculty advisors. He shared a project overview describing how 5,500 work hours from Tech Solutions staff were tracked and the tight coordination required with the Office of the Provost and the Center for Integrated Professional Development. He then directed attention back to the people who helped facilitate this momentous change: “This is not just about Canvas. This is not just about technology. This is how we work together as humans, how we appreciate each other.”
Over the course of the project, over 3,200 courses were migrated into the new system on behalf of instructors. Eighty-five new knowledge articles were created, and almost 2,000 attendees participated in 170 training workshops. Enhanced integration now exists between Canvas and Campus Solutions, which results in a streamlined process for midterms, progress reports, and final grade reporting.
Ultimately, the switch to Canvas aims to improve the user experience for the entire University community, especially the students that will be using it for all their courses, and it can serve as a model for future projects. As Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Ani Yazedjian put it, “It just goes to show how complex a university can be and how projects like Canvas can bring people together… As we look toward the next thing we have to do, it’s really part of a broader plan that continues to service our current and incoming students.”
