Unizin, a New Higher Ed Consortium, Chooses Canvas by Instructure as its Foundational Learning Platform

Institutions opt for the openness and ease of use provided by the Canvas platform

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Jun 11, 2014, 09:00 ET

SALT LAKE CITY, June 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Instructure today announced that Unizin, the new consortium led by four major institutions, including Indiana University, Colorado State University, University of Florida and University of Michigan has selected the Canvas learning management system (LMS) as its foundational platform for improving student outcomes.

The Unizin consortium will provide a common technological platform delivered over higher education's community-owned national research and education network operated by Internet2. This advanced environment will allow member universities to work locally and together to strengthen their traditional mission of education and research while using the most innovative digital technology available. The consortium has been launched to enable successful individual campus learning strategies to be easily expanded at scale and shared across all participating institutions.

"The concept of Unizin began more than a year ago and was based on a vision that universities need an open, cloud-scale platform to enable content sharing and better analytics to support all forms of digital education," said Brad Wheeler, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer at Indiana University and co-chair of the Unizin Consortium. "We chose Canvas as the foundation for the Unizin service because of its commitment to open standards and pace of innovation in ways that matter to faculty and students."

As the co-founder of Sakai in 2003, Brad Wheeler came to the Unizin project with deep knowledge and experience around open education, technologies and effective collaboration. His insights, combined with Canvas' reputation as an open, modern and cloud-based platform, made it an obvious choice for launching the consortium.

"Canvas has always believed that openness and community collaboration are key to educational innovation," said Jared Stein, vice president of Research and Education at Instructure. "The Unizin partnership creates new ways for educators to collaborate within and between institutions, and Canvas is proud to provide the learning tools that enable innovation."

Unizin members will receive access to Canvas as part of the extended Unizin platform that will span from content to analytics services. The Unizin partners selected Canvas based on their collective experience using various learning management systems and due to the Canvas team's commitment to implementing open standards. These values align well with Unizin's commitment to both speed in execution and open standards that can help further universities' missions over time.

For more information about Unizin, visit www.unizin.org.

About Instructure

Instructure, Inc. developed the Canvas learning management system to make teaching and learning easier for everyone, everywhere. Canvas empowers learning in every context with open, usable SaaS technologies. And through Canvas Network, Instructure provides a cloud platform where teachers, learners and institutions worldwide can connect and chart their own course for personal growth, professional development and academic inquiry. Learn more at www.instructure.com.

Contacts

Instructure

Devin Knighton, Director of Public Relations at Instructure
(801) 722-8187 | [email protected]
Twitter: @devinknighton | www.instructure.com

Matt Reichman, Method Communications (801) 461-9778
[email protected]

Copyright © 2014, Instructure, Inc. All rights reserved. Instructure, Canvas and their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Instructure, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others.

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