An illustration of a computer with the words Lms floating in front of it along with computer circuits outside of the computer going to a modem, a stack of books, a graduation cap, files, and switches. Along with the words: the place for understanding .... all things migration.

From B to C: PGCC is moving from Blackboard to Canvas

Through extensive discovery, research, outreach, and evaluation of our college’s Learning Management System (LMS), we’re making the next step in moving from Blackboard to Canvas.

Canvas was selected by the college after an extensive evaluation process starting in 2018 and concluding in October 2021. This process included input from faculty, staff and students with product demos, hands-on opportunities and surveys. The LMS recommendation committee prepared a report of the findings and a recommendation prior to COVID. This report was reviewed by the current committee and the findings were updated with current information from the vendors to provide a revised recommendation to the Academic Council in September. The LMS recommendation was presented to other campus governance groups, including the Faculty Senate, College Forum and Student Government Association for feedback.

This change comes with many benefits to our students, the faculty, and our partnering colleges. Canvas is the LMS of choice used by UMCP, AACC, Morgan State, Howard CC, PGCPS, and many other academic institutions across the nation. Providing our students with the best possible LMS was paramount to this decision. Allowing our students, the best possible chances of success by leveraging their familiarity with an LMS used by partnering institutions. The cloud-based platform provides an environment for growth and stability of our online coursework while still supporting the same integrations with other instructional technologies including Respondus, VoiceThread, Zoom, Panopto and publisher integrations. In the future, the integration with Office 365 and Microsoft Teams increases capacity building for our students and faculty to work from anywhere.

Faculty, Staff and Students will be provided with 24/7 global support from Canvas so that all your questions can get answered regardless of when or where help is needed. Significant cost reductions over our current LMS also make Canvas ideal for our environment.

Transition to Canvas brings some challenges but we are working hard to provide support every step of the way. We know you’ll have questions and feedback and we invite you to share those with us at elearning@pgcc.edu.

From B to C: Migration Timeline

The following timeline shows the detailed journey to fully implement Canvas as the new learning management system(LMS).

An arrow pointing to the start of the curvy timeline with dates along the way and illustrations of a note pad, a laptop, a widget, a person w a backpack, a magnifying glass, and a computer at the end with the words lms floating in front of it.

Managing the Migration: From B to C