Canvas Update: Summer and fall course shells, learning opportunities, and migration status

The following message was emailed to instructors on 03/07/2023

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Dear Colleague,

We have several updates this week concerning the transition from ReggieNet to our new learning management system, Canvas.

Access to Canvas

All faculty and staff now have access to Canvas.  Sign in with your ULID and password at Canvas.IllinoisState.edu.

Learning to teach with Canvas

March will include several opportunities for instructors to become familiar with Canvas:

• All instructors and staff are encouraged to enroll in a self-paced, online Canvas course called Fundamentals for Faculty. This experience showcases basic features and advance course design techniques in our new system.
• In addition, registration is now open for synchronous, online workshops facilitated by the Center for Integrated Professional Development. These start March 20.
• Faculty members are also invited to come to the Bone Student Center from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 21, for a special Canvas Kickoff event.

Summer and Fall 2023 course shells

Course shells (e.g., blank courses) are now available in Canvas for instructors assigned to teach in summer or fall of 2023.

Course assignments must be made by academic departments. If you do not see your expected courses in Canvas, please consult with your department or school administrative staff.  It may take a few business days for courses to appear in Canvas once an instructor is added as the instructor-of-record by their department.

“Sandbox” site requests

For staff, graduate teaching assistants, and instructors who expect to have a teaching assignment but have not yet been contracted to teach, you can request a temporary sandbox site, which will allow you to become familiar with Canvas or to begin building content.

Delays in ReggieNet course migration

Instructors should see any courses they requested to have migrated from ReggieNet to Canvas sometime during the week of March 13. These are different than summer or fall course shells and will have the prefix “Migrated-.”

Unfortunately, the migration of ReggieNet sites to Canvas is taking longer than expected. This is due in part because the process needs to draw large amounts of data from ReggieNet’s servers without disrupting normal operation. Technology staff is working with our vendors to optimize the process.

Additional migration opportunities

Instructors will be able to request additional course migrations later this spring. The exact timing of future migration windows will be determined after the current migration is complete.

Ongoing and Special Course sites

Owners of special ReggieNet sites not tied to course catalogue numbers will be contacted later this spring with options, which will include migrating that content to Canvas.

Course combination requests

Course combination requests are still being accepted for ReggieNet for the Summer 2023 semester.

For fall and beyond, course combinations will work differently. Canvas includes features which will allow instructors to have more control over this process, without the need to submit a form. Instructors will receive guidance once the process is fully tested, anticipated to happen over the summer of 2023.

Get help

Extensive support documentation is also available on the Center for Integrated Professional Development’s Canvas Support for Instructors pages.

The Center’s support team is available to assist instructors and staff Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at ProDev@ilstu.edu or (309) 438-2542.