Bad news: Migrated Blackboard content doesn’t translate perfectly into Canvas.
Good news: It doesn’t have to take a long time to clean up your migrated content and get it ready to use again in Canvas. However, it can be helpful to have a strategy that ensures you fix the most critical items first. Then you can continue to fix minor errors and make slight adjustments throughout the course.
1. Course Navigation Bar
Organize the tool links in the left-hand course navigation bar. Remember to limit the navigation options to ensure students follow the learning path you have mapped out in your modules. (See our navigation recommendations here.) Course navigation settings will copy to a new Canvas site along with your content.
2. Modules
The Blackboard migration process will often rearrange your content items and assignments. You will probably need to reorder your Canvas modules and the items within each module. You can drag and drop modules and items throughout the space, or use the settings menu (the three dots on the right side) to place them in a new location. Once you have organized this content, it will copy over correctly to a new Canvas site the next time you teach the course.
While you are looking at your modules, you should also review each module and each content item to make sure it is published or unpublished correctly. Use Student View to make sure students will be able to access all the content they need.
3. Weighted Grading (if applicable)
If you use weighted grading (or percentage-based grading), check your assignment groups to make sure your assignments are still categorized correctly. You can drag and drop assignments from one group to another.
Often, the migration process creates new assignment groups that are empty. Declutter your grade book by deleting all groups you won’t be using.
Double-check the grade weighting amounts and make any changes to align them more closely with your syllabus.
4. Assignment Dates
Bulk-edit all of your course’s assignment dates on one screen. This includes the due dates as well as the start and end availability dates.
Canvas includes several student success tools that teach students to manage their time and priorities, but those tools don’t work when faculty omit due dates from assignments.
5. Rubrics
There has been a low level of success in migrating grading rubrics from Blackboard to Canvas. Be sure to check your Canvas Rubrics while you still have access to Blackboard so you can recreate any that need it. Once you have added a rubric, don’t forget to attach it to your assignment or discussion forum.
Rubrics are a one-time setup and will copy from one Canvas site to another without issue.
6. Course Grading Scheme
Canvas’s default grading scheme may differ from the grading scheme published in your syllabus. Review the course grading scheme and, if necessary, create a new one that aligns with your syllabus. Once you set the grading scheme in a course, it should copy over the next time you use that same Canvas content.
7. Course Files
Because of the way Blackboard stores and organizes uploaded files, your new Canvas files may include many, many copies of the same items. Unless you take the time to remove duplicates, you may run out of file space in Canvas very quickly.
Create folders to organize your Canvas course files, so you can find them quickly. Anytime you upload a file via the Rich Content Editor, Canvas will place that file into a folder called “Uploaded Media.” Review this folder from time to time throughout the semester and move the items into your organized folders so you can locate them when you need them.
https://canvas.umassd.edu/courses/…your site number here…/undelete
You will be able to pick which item(s) to restore. (Unfortunately, undelete doesn’t work for items you have overwritten with new content.)
8. Quizzes
UMass has adopted Canvas while Canvas is transitioning between two quiz tools: Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. Quizzes that migrated from Blackboard will have come into Canvas as Classic Quizzes, but if you create a quiz from scratch, it will be a New Quiz.
Since there is a different look and functionality for each type, we strongly recommend that you switch all of your migrated Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes as soon as possible. Once you have switched them to New Quizzes, delete the old version (labelled “classic quiz”).
9. Link Validation
Use the link validation tool to check your Canvas site for broken links. It will take several minutes to check your whole site, but you can navigate away while the tool runs.
Not every link the tool flags will be broken. For example, if a site or resource requires login credentials, it will be flagged. Some YouTube videos with unlisted privacy settings will also be flagged even though they are viewable using a direct link. You should always verify all potential broken links manually before deciding whether they need to be updated.