UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — After conducting two successful faculty pilots in 2015, the spring 2016 semester will be a ramp-up period to begin the process of the full University-wide adoption of Canvas at Penn State. Course shells are available in Canvas for instructors who want to use Canvas for the spring and summer 2016 semesters, but the use of Canvas is not mandatory. Instructors may continue to teach their courses in ANGEL for now.
The last semester that courses will be taught in ANGEL will be spring 2017. ANGEL will not be available for teaching new courses after June 30, 2017. The only access for ANGEL after that date will be for faculty finishing course instruction in ANGEL that started prior to June 30, 2017; for students completing deferred grades; and for migrating content out of ANGEL to Canvas that has not been completed by that date.
Instructors who choose to use Canvas in the spring should keep in mind that deployment strategies and support structures for Canvas are still in development. The implementation of migration services to assist instructors with moving course content from ANGEL to Canvas will not be available until the middle of the spring semester.
Canvas training opportunities and resources continue to be added in order to meet the needs of a wide range of faculty and faculty support staff, including live training sessions from Instructure, the creator of the Canvas learning management system (LMS), and ITS Training Services, as well as town halls, one-hour virtual faculty chats, and hands-on online training sessions. In addition, the Penn State Canvas Learning Center has been developed. This learning resource, available on Jan. 4, 2016, houses the Canvas Learning Path, a self-paced, self-directed option that is designed to help users learn how to use the Canvas technology in the context of teaching and learning. Visit http://canvas.psu.edu/ for the full list of training resources available.
For questions about Canvas at Penn State, please contact canvas@psu.edu. For regular news and updates on Canvas at Penn State, subscribe to the Canvas at Penn State listserv by emailing L-CANVAS-AT-PENN-STATE-subscribe-request@lists.psu.edu.