Washington State Institutions Choose Instructure Canvas

Canvas empowers instructors through social media and mobile technology

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May 22, 2012, 11:00 ET

SALT LAKE CITY, May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, a consortium of 34 institutions, chose Instructure® Canvas ® to replace Blackboard's ANGEL learning management system.

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"We chose Canvas because it's an open platform that empowers instructors to use social media and mobile tools to engage students," said Connie Broughton, the State Board's director of eLearning and Open Education. "We felt constrained by the concept of managing learning in a box. We need something more flexible than a traditional learning management system."

The State Board collaborated with its 34 colleges and with six Washington public universities to review feedback from over 800 faculty members, almost 100 hundred of which worked through a pre-defined and detailed rubric, completing a set of tasks and providing feedback on their experiences in each of three finalist products. They explored the option of staying with Blackboard or moving to one of the Blackboard competitors. In the end, Canvas came out first in each criterion on the rubric, including mobile and social.

Two Washington colleges, Lower Columbia and Bellevue College, also created faculty-driven task forces to evaluate the options. Both arrived at the same conclusion – Canvas is the top faculty rated choice.

Lower Columbia created its rubric based on 15 essential and 11 important criteria, including integration with social media, mobile, usability and ADA compliance. The college then conducted a winter pilot of 76 courses using Canvas. When feedback came in, 99 percent of the responses were positive.

"The faculty said Canvas is easy to use and navigate, intuitive, visually appealing, well organized and consistent," said Renee Carney, Chair of the Lower Columbia task force.

The other institution in Washington that assembled its own task force was Bellevue College. It conducted a six-month evaluation and chose Canvas based on faculty feedback.

"Faculty saw Canvas as a paradigm shift," said Russ Beard, Vice President of Information Resources. "They chose Canvas because it saves them time and enables new ways of providing content and learning. They said there is no apple-to-apple comparison of Canvas to anything out there."

Instructure has added more than 170 customers since January 2011, including Auburn University, Brown University and the Maricopa Community College District. For more information about the Washington consortium's selection of Canvas, register for the May 25 live webinar from Lower Columbia College about its decision to use Canvas.

About Instructure:
Instructure is a technology company committed to improving education. We provide instructors and students modern tools and resources to empower the learning experience. Founded by graduate students in collaboration with educational institutions, Instructure provides Canvas - the open, easy-to-use, cloud-native learning platform.

Devin Knighton
Director of Public Relations
Instructure Canvas
801-722-8187
[email protected]

SOURCE Instructure