Blackboard to Canvas Comparison Chart

• Instructors can allow students to reply and "like" announcements

• When an assignment is created and published, it is added to the Assignment page, Syllabus, and Calendar (if a due date is set). When
  the assignment is edited/updated, all other links are automatically updated.
• Instructors can limit the type of file allowed to be uploaded for assignments.
• An individual assignment submission cannot be
  cleared. Instructors can add additional attempts for all students or edit an individual's grade to account for a revision.

• Automatically syncs with other tools such as Assignments, Syllabus and Grades.
• Calendar items can be dragged and dropped within the calendar to change the assignment due date.

• Repository for course files, assignments, syllabi, reading, etc.
• Storage meter displays the remaining course quota.
• Consider using Commons to store files that might be used for multiple people or departments.

Organizing Your Course Content

Modules

Pages

• There are a few methods for organizing your course content in Canvas. 

• Modules allow students to easily navigate online content with a consistent structure amongst all courses.
• Modules can be hidden or revealed using accordion style filtering.

• Pages in Canvas have history/versioning and revert/rollback.

• When you perform a Course Copy, you can adjust events and due dates.
• Course Copy logs will provide direct links to course items that had import issues.

• Only available within the Rich Content Editor.

Courses

Dashboard

• The ability to “favorite” courses.
• The ability to add a nickname, change card colors and add images to course cards.
• Quick links on cards to common course tools.

• Canvas does not allow you to create unique course navigation menu links nor rename existing menu links.

• Discussions are more streamlined with fewer layers.
• Discussions can be:
  • threaded or unthreaded.
  • pinned.
  • set to read only (Closed for Comments).
  • filtered for response by specific people.
  • assigned to Groups.
• There’s no need to make a discussion thread per group.
• Lack of anonymity and force moderation options.
• Unable to set how many posts before entering the "Needs Grading" status.

• Accessible through the Global Navigation Menu
• There is no designated email tool in Canvas.
• Course communication can be managed through the Conversations inbox (Discussion responses, Assignment comments and feedback.)
• Users can reply to Conversation notifications from their external email, and it will also come through to the Conversations inbox.

• Track average course grade for student submissions.

• Organize learning materials through Modules.

• Students can calculate hypothetical total scores using the What-If feature.
• Curve grades for an assignment using a bell curve based on a manually entered average score.
• Row colors alternate to improve readability.
• Create late and missing policies to automatically apply grading to late and missed assignments.
• In Canvas Grades, you cannot:
  • hide rows from the instructor.
  • manually create a column in the gradebook without creating an offline assignment.
  • create weighted, average, minimum/maximum, or total columns.
  • weight individual assignments (weighting is done by Assignment Group).
  • override the maximum point value of a column.

• Create Groups while setting up an Assignment or Discussion.
• Assign a leader to each group.
• Group assignments can be configured so that each student in the group needs to submit their own portion/version of the assignment.
• Students can create their own groups (instructor can disable on a per course basis).

• Discussions can be assigned to all groups at once (via the main course Discussions).
• Group Discussions are easier to create. It is no longer a separate tool; instead, it is a setting that can be enabled in the Discussion settings.
• Easier to modify the description for all Group Discussions in the set.

• Easier to comment, highlight, mark through text, or draw on a paper.
• Allows for audio or video feedback.

• All modules and the course need to be published.

• Students can enter What-If scenarios to calculate hypothetical grades.

• The sidebar contains a To Do list and other sections that help you know what assignments and events are coming up in all of your courses.

• Select how to receive different types of notifications.
• You can select to be notified immediately, daily, weekly or not at all. Changes to these settings are immediate.

• Formatting is consistent between the editing window and final product.
• Real-time spell checker
• No emoticons

• Provide a variety of rating scales
• Can pull in "Outcomes" as a criteria

• Peer reviews are built into assignments and can be enabled on the fly.
• No self-evaluation options

• Surveys can be worth points.
• Options include:
  • filter quiz takers based on IP.
  • add extra credit "Fudge Points" to a student submission directly from SpeedGrader
  • assign Quizzes to individual students from the edit Quiz menu.
  • bookmark Quiz Banks 
• Select a Quiz Type:
  • Graded Quizzes
  • Practice Quizzes
  • Graded Surveys
  • Ungraded Surveys
• Options do not include:
  • The following question types:
    • • Quiz Bowl
      • Jumbled sentence
      • Likert scale
      • Ordering
  • Auto-Submit ON/OFF toggle (Auto-Submit is always on for a timed test).
  • ability to label multiple choice questions (e.g., abc, 123),
  • ability to choose between vertical or horizontal orientation.
  • designated checkbox to exclude Quizzes from the Grade Center calculations.

• Provides a concise list of recent messages.
• An instructor can view various pieces of data about students:
  • Student grades
  • Interactions reports
  • Access reports
  • New analytics
  • Missing/late assignments
  • Total and last activity
  • Activity compared to the rest of the class
• Instructors can no longer see a user’s email; In Canvas, you can only see NetID and send messages via the Canvas message tool.

There is no Blog tool in Canvas. Instead, you can adjust the settings in Discussions.

There is no Journal tool in Canvas. Instead use the discussion board or create a text submission assignment.

There is no option to create a manual grade column in the Canvas Grade Book. Instead, create a new assignment, then set the Submission Type in settings to No Submission.

There is no Wiki tool in Canvas. While it's not a direct equivalent, you can change the permissions in Page settings to allow students to edit.

No grade can be set for Pages, and there is no designated comment section for users to provide feedback on individual pages.