As part of a larger push towards uniformity within the system, Eureka College has plans to make the switch from Brightspace to Canvas for the student portal system starting in the 2024-2025 school year. Faculty and students have both expressed excitement towards the change, and some might even say that it is well overdue.
Improved digitization has been a positive developmental trend at the college in the past few years. Even the Pegasus, one of the country’s longest standing college news publications, dedicated to being published 100% online just a few years ago. Now they are trying to digitize and standardize homework and discussion outside of the classroom.
As it stands currently, Eureka College utilizes Brightspace for their virtual classroom interface. The contract with the software is up for renewal this year, and, according to the provost, students and faculty have been pushing for a transition to Canvas for years.
Several years ago, the College’s administration conducted a “comparative analysis with Canvas and several other software’s”. According to Dr. Fulop, Canvas was “a clear and away winner,” likely because it is popular among both educators and students for its ease of use, user friendly interface, and more standard control of the system.
Students seem to be in favor of the change as well. The ease of use for each individual makes it a great candidate to cater to all learning styles.
“I love Canvas because you can customize everything how you want it,” Rae Smith said.
Even though students and faculty seem to feel positively about the change, there are some concerns. During the now almost infamous transition from Google to Microsoft, students reported feeling frustrated with the change and confused by the system that they had not really been trained with.
To address this, the administration is going to have a training program for educators, likely over the summer, to make sure that they are well versed in the software. There will also be a “Canvas 101” module available for all students to access and use as a reference guide.
“I’m bummed […] that we are moving from Brightspace to Canvas. I hate Canvas with a fiery passion,” Hayden Skaggs said. “I understand why we’re switching to Canvas. It will help to consolidate everything and streamline everything; however, I just genuinely dislike Canvas. I don’t think that its user friendly.”
Rae Smith is in favor of the switch and likes using Canvas, but also mentioned her more specific concern with privacy.
“I hate it because it has a lot of monitoring on it, so teachers can see any time you leave the tab or browser,” Smith said.
Some might consider this a good thing, while others might think it is a vast overreach and a breach of trust between students and educators. There have been concerns about Canvas’ use of this data in the past, which is something that faculty and students will have to reckon with moving forward.
Overall, it seems as though the change will bring the college in a positive direction. Standardization among departments will make navigation and workflow more efficient and easier for both students and faculty, but there are some kinks and concerns that will have to be ironed out before everyone is happy with the rollout. A more encompassing announcement is expected to be made closer to the start of the 2024 fall semester.
