Canvas LMS Reviews

As a learning management system, Canvas LMS is used for online education.

As a reseller of Canvas LMS, I can say that it's a comprehensive learning system that's automated. It has gamification, AI, a student management system, student information system, and assessment capabilities. Essentially, reporting and everything desired in terms of education is included. It's everything in one, basically, and automated.

It has allowed CTI Services  to offer the highest quality support to companies needing to offer online training, AI integration and development.

The integration capability of Canvas LMS with other educational tools is probably the best for integration. They have thousands of apps that are already integrated with Canvas LMS. It uses a very simple API LTI method where you just have to input a number and then it's integrated.

When assessing the analytics features and reporting features of Canvas LMS, they have comprehensive capabilities. They have reporting, attendance registers, and the back-end SIS system. The reporting is very easy and analytics is excellent.

Regarding its mobile compatibility feature, Canvas LMS is probably the easiest to use. It's user-friendly and operates with simple copy and paste functionality. It operates similarly to Word, with no difficulty at all. It's extremely user-friendly.

When speaking about scalability and flexibility, Canvas LMS is very scalable. Everything's on the AWS cloud, so content is not a problem offline. It's scalable because the largest universities in the world use it.

There are some disadvantages with Canvas LMS and always improvements to be made. That comes with technology. As technology improves, the product will improve.

Regarding features that Canvas LMS could add or simplify to make the solution better: they could include authoring tools, more AI-based gamification, and immersive technology. These are some of the areas for improvement.

I have been selling Canvas LMS for about five years.

Regarding its stability, Canvas LMS is really stable. I haven't heard about any regular glitches. It has gone down once or twice, but that is normally corrected within 60 minutes.

I would give the technical support of Canvas LMS a 10 out of 10, definitely.

I'm only dealing with Canvas LMS at the moment. I have looked at others and I'm open to looking at others, but at the moment, this is the best one, so I'm staying with this one.

Canvas LMS is easy to install and regarding deployment and setup, this is straightforward. There are no complexities in this regard. You can install it anywhere - on phones, iPads, laptops, and you can use any system including Linux. You can use other browsers, it doesn't really matter. It's a very strong system.

All our implementation is done through CTI Services and is part of our onboarding process. This includes the training, intregration, development and setting up of the system per client.

The return on investment with Canvas LMS has changed many companies completely. Companies have moved to online learning successfully. At the moment, it's being used by the largest higher education private institution in the country with over 90,000 students. Their whole model is basically successful because of this LMS.

Canvas LMS is definitely affordable. It's probably less expensive than most LMSs at the moment.

I have evaluated many LMS's including Moodle, ISpring, Learndash, and others, but none so far have all the functions comprehensively oiffered in 1.

Canvas LMS is the best solution because they have enabled scaleability and cutting edge technology transfer through Thomas Bravo, a multi-billion dollar company and will soon have the financial the additional backing and support of KKR at close to $5 Billion. It's the most user-friendly and has the lowest cost because it's the largest LMS in the world. It's very quick to implement, taking only a few minutes. It has the largest online community of any LMS, so any problems are already probably addressed by someone somewhere in the world. It has amazing support, online support, and probably the best developers in the world. Regarding storage, it's basically free because it's done online with no extra costing.

My region of responsibility includes Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Canvas LMS a 10.

Canvas LMS is my main platform for course delivery across our Health Sciences programs, including nursing, pharmacy, medicine, and allied health. All content delivery, assignments, assessments, grades, and student communication run through Canvas.

A specific example of how I use Canvas in our nursing program involves hybrid courses where some students are on campus while others are on clinical rotations off site. Canvas modules allow us to sequence content so students move through it in order and must complete each module before unlocking the next one.

The mobile experience is an additional valuable aspect of Canvas LMS that students mention constantly. Students actively use the Canvas app, which is a significant improvement because the Blackboard mobile app was so poor that students effectively ignored it.

The best feature Canvas LMS offers is modules. The ability to build a sequential learning path with conditional release, where students complete one item before unlocking the next, is something health sciences faculty love because knowledge builds on itself in their programs.

I set up those modules using SpeedGrader, which is another tool that gets used constantly. Being able to grade a submission, view the rubric, leave inline comments, and audio feedback all in one place is a genuine improvement over what we had previously. The LTI integration framework allows us to have Turnitin, Panopto, and Zoom all connected, and they work seamlessly within Canvas rather than feeling bolted on.

SpeedGrader specifically has changed how faculty approach feedback. Before, many instructors left minimal feedback because the process was cumbersome. Now, with inline annotation and audio comments, faculty leave much richer feedback because it is actually fast to do. Students have noticed and commented on this in course evaluations.

Canvas LMS has positively impacted my organization by increasing student satisfaction with the learning environment noticeably. The LMS-related complaints that used to come up regularly in course evaluations, such as not being able to find things, things not working on phones, and confusing navigation, have basically disappeared. Faculty course build time has also improved. A faculty member who knows Canvas can build a solid course structure in a fraction of the time it took in Blackboard.

I can share specific outcomes that show how LMS-related complaints to our help desk dropped by about 40% after the migration. SpeedGrader has meaningfully reduced grading time. Faculty who used to spend whole weekends on grading are getting through it faster.

The main area where Canvas LMS can be improved is the quiz engine. It is functional, but it is behind where it needs to be for health sciences. Our faculty need complex question types, detailed question banks, and sophisticated randomization for high-stakes exams.

The new quizzes situation has been going on for a long time, and faculty patience is running thin. It needs to be resolved properly, not just with feature parity with classic quizzes, but genuinely better. For health sciences institutions running high-stakes licensing exam prep, that quiz engine capability is not optional.

I have been using Canvas LMS for about a year and a half.

I find Canvas LMS to be very stable.

Canvas LMS handles our scale without any issues, showing excellent scalability.

My experience with customer support has been mixed, depending on what you need.

I previously used Blackboard for over 20 years. We switched because Blackboard had become genuinely frustrating for both students and faculty.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the pricing is per student per year, which is pretty standard for LMS licensing in higher education. The license cost itself was comparable to what we were paying for Blackboard.

Texas Tech has data governance requirements around student data, and FERPA compliance is non-negotiable.

I have seen a return on investment, as the 40% reduction in LMS-related help desk tickets has freed up my team's time for more strategic work.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the pricing is per student per year, which is pretty standard for LMS licensing in higher education. The license cost itself was comparable to what we were paying for Blackboard.

Before choosing Canvas LMS, the university ran a formal pilot comparing Blackboard Ultra, Brightspace, and Canvas. Real courses, real students, real faculty, and real feedback over a semester showed that Canvas won that pilot convincingly from both student and faculty votes.

Regarding Canvas LMS's AI capabilities, I think its governance and security are carefully considered. Canvas has been rolling out AI features gradually, including AI-generated quiz questions, suggestions, and some AI-assisted feedback tools. From a governance standpoint, the institution is cautious.

The accuracy and reliability of Canvas LMS's AI capabilities, specifically in AI quiz question generation, is the area I have had most exposure to. It is useful as a starting point, with faculty finding it helpful for generating a first draft of questions that they then edit and refine.

My advice to others looking into Canvas LMS is not to underestimate the change management side. I rate Canvas LMS a nine on a scale of one to ten, with the quiz situation keeping it from being a perfect ten.

We use it for all on-campus and remote course deliveries, all assignment submissions, and all exams, except for medical school exams where you have to do practicals, but even there, you have to record the practical exam results in Canvas. So, it has got wide applicability from standard undergraduate school right up through medical college and hard sciences. We can do everything with it.

We are using its latest version. I don't know how the IT department has deployed it at the university. It is probably cloud-based because they have multiple campuses, but I have no way of knowing.

Its easy adaptability to whatever form or methodology you are using to teach is valuable. It tends to be seamless, and it is very much a self-intuitive product. It requires almost no instruction, and you can be fully up to speed and ready to run on it. You can bring someone in who has never worked with any online learning or LMS system, and in a week's timeframe, they would almost be fully functional because Canvas is so simple to use.

The high-tech interactivity with other software, like ArcGIS or RSA Archer, can be better. It is not as easily compatible with them. You can put apps in it that the students can then access, but the routing of apps through the Canvas system slows down functionality on the other types of products.

As much as I've used it, I don't need any additional features. For what it is used for as a learning management system, it really does work. I haven't seen anything that would indicate it was a problem.

We migrated to it in 2015. So, it has been seven years.

It is very stable. I see very few glitches with it, and updates don't have to be propagated halfway through. We don't have to propagate emergency fixes and patches during the semester. It is a stable system to use.

It is scalable. There must be 20,000 people using it on that campus. We run a medical college, a public health department, and the hard sciences department. We also have a lot of things that are spread out across the state of Florida through Canvas. So, it is pretty scalable.

In terms of our plans to increase its usage, I don't know what the university is going to do, but right now, the university is saturated with Canvas. Even if you're doing classes in a regular standard classroom, all of your exams, all of your quizzes, all of your practicals, and all of your teaching are recorded and loaded into the Canvas system for future review by accreditors. So, it is pretty well saturated on that particular campus.

I've had to get technical support from the Canvas people themselves on occasion. When that happened, the campus IT people, who were the Canvas people, actually stayed with me while I was working with the software design people. They were very helpful, and they very much understood right away what was needed to fix the issue, but it was very rare that I needed help

We switched from Blackboard to Canvas. I was around when we transitioned from Blackboard to Canvas, and everybody was like, "Oh no, we finally learned Blackboard." When we transitioned to Canvas, we never ever heard a complaint. Everybody suddenly said that this is nice. Unlike the constant grumbling about Blackboard, which everybody still grumbles about, when it came to Canvas, everyone found it easy.

It was probably easy. 

Initially, it was an in-house deployment. I have no idea if it was with assistance from the corporation. I also have no idea if it is hosted on local servers or on the cloud because I'm not a part of that process.

I have no idea about the people required for its maintenance, but I have had to have very few interactions with IT over trying to manage, manipulate, or make it do something different. There were very few instances where I had to pick the phone up and say to IT that I got a problem. In every one of those instances, it was because connections from certain countries back into the system were blocked. They had to make special exceptions or rules for my specific computer while I was traveling. Other than that, there were virtually no problems with it.

We have absolutely seen an ROI. It has made our accreditation reviews and our outside monitoring much more seamless than the last version of Blackboard that I have had experience using.

When the decision was made to shift from Blackboard over to Canvas, they also concurrently looked at Moodle as a system that could be utilized. Moodle is open source, but it has some inherent issues with it. That's why they went with Canvas LMS instead of Moodle at that particular school.

It functionally works, and it is intuitive and easy to learn, which makes it significantly more advantageous than the Blackboard LMS or Moodle LMS.

Canvas is definitely up there at level nine out of ten.

I've been a satisfied user of Canvas LMS, and it has been the main element for general and continuous education in our academy. Previously, we used Blackboard, but Canvas LMS has become more prominent.

We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings.

In our working, we are encountering many challenges with Canvas LMS. One of the major area is their business model which is having a very different pricing structure. The structure is made in such a way that the license fee is needed to be paid for the complete year even if the student has been enrolled for a programme of short duration. This structure is not conducive with our needs and hence, in the past few years, been increasing our costs manifold. Along with this, Canva LMS also lacks many functionalities such as notifications and adaptive learning.

There is a specific issue with the licensing model that affects us in continuous education. The inability to reuse a license for the same course in different terms hinders our cost efficiency. For instance, if a program runs from January to April, we are required to pay for the license twice within the same academic year. This contrasts with other platforms like Hyper, where reusing a license is possible, allowing us to use the same license multiple times in different terms.

Along with the use, we are exploring the integration of artificial intelligence into our processes, and Canvas LMS falls short in this regard. While some platforms allow connections with external AI services, Canvas does not currently offer built-in artificial intelligence capabilities, a feature we find valuable for enhancing the learning experience.

I have been using Canvas LMS for more than eight hours per day. 

Yes, they do provide their own technical support. I haven't personally contacted their technical support, but within my team of one hundred and fifty people, some members have been responsible for handling those interactions. Based on the feedback received from my team, the services have been reasonably good, and I haven't encountered any major issues or complaints.

In our case, we have a dedicated team of over three hundred staff members solely focused on continuous education, excluding the professors, who add up to another thousand and two hundred individuals. Our transformation plans are internally driven, and we initiated the process by training a select group within our team. Subsequently, our team is responsible for training all the professors and overseeing the initial migration of one course, which serves as a blueprint for the migration of other courses. While we have received good service overall, there have been some delays, particularly in communication.

There are certain aspects of Canvas that we find problematic. For instance, when creating the screen for tools, the process can be complex, especially for professors who may not be familiar with DML. Additionally, the formatting may change, affecting button sizes when tables are created. This has led to some complications, and we have observed professors resorting to using the system as a repository for documents, a practice we do not appreciate.

In comparison, Hyper Learning, at this point, offers to create a structure for the program and even proposes to generate PowerPoint presentations for the professors. However, we are not inclined towards this approach as we value the contributions of our professors and do not wish to replace their work with automated presentations. Despite these considerations, we are generally content with Canvas, but these specific issues are prompting us to explore alternative approaches.

The pricing of Canvas is satisfactory for my university. We have negotiated a good price, especially considering that we are a large university with twenty-six campuses across the country. Canvas offers a favorable pricing model for academic institutions, and the cost is reasonable. However, in continuous education, the challenge lies not in the price itself but in the business model. The requirement to pay for the entire year when our students may only use the license for a shorter duration creates challenges. The inability to adjust the licensing based on actual usage is a significant drawback for us, making the effective cost higher compared to other platforms like Hyper Learning.

I would rate it 8 out of 10. 

Our primary use for Canvas is by instructors who utilize it for uploading and managing various types of educational content, including learning videos, lessons, and files hosted on the learning management system. It also supports class communication, allowing for assignments, discussions, and collaborations among students, organized by specific modules or classes. Additionally, Canvas is integrated with Azure, incorporating Zoom plugins for conducting live classes via Zoom calls. It is organized with different menus and features specific calendars for class schedules, ensuring students can easily access their classes and related information.

The integration with Zoom is a notable feature. It allows for seamless access to live class sessions directly from Canvas after authentication, enabling quick entry into Zoom calls. You can also schedule Zoom calls or private recordings directly within Canvas, making it convenient, especially for situations like self-recording exams. Additionally, Canvas excels in collaboration and discussion capabilities. Users can engage in discussions on various topics, and there's the option to create custom groups for more focused interactions. These groups provide a level of privacy and isolation from the broader class, which is a significant advantage.                 

There are a couple of areas that could be improved. Firstly, the discussion feature is not very interactive and can be slow to respond, making it less intuitive at the moment. This is an aspect that needs substantial improvement.

Another point to consider is related to the cost of the LMS system. It's perceived as relatively expensive, which has led to discussions about transitioning away from Canvas, potentially to a more cost-effective alternative. This cost-related aspect is a significant factor to consider when implementing such a system.

I have been using Canvas LMS since the past two years.

It is stable. 

It’s highly scalable. SolarWinds is currently being used by over a thousand students in the cohort for the current academic year, demonstrating its scalability.

Technical support is rather sluggish, and this is an aspect that needs improvement. It lacks interactivity and intuitiveness, typically requiring at least twenty-four hours to receive a response from the support team.

Neutral

I'm not well-informed about that aspect, as the IT team within UMC manages it quite effectively. So, I don't have extensive knowledge in this regard.

I lack in-depth information regarding these matters as they are managed by others. My role is that of a reviewer, and I'm not privy to the specifics of the piping agreement, revenue sharing, or partnership arrangements.

Most universities, including prestigious ones like MIT, have implemented Canvas for their learning management systems. However, the maintenance cost is notably high. One advantage is that Canvas offers mobile compatibility, allowing use on both mobile devices and computers. Nevertheless, the tool is quite expensive, considering the costs associated with support and operational issues. While there isn't a clear market leader with equivalent features, other options like Coursera and edX may be worth considering. These platforms are robust, offer extensive menus, and are often more cost-effective compared to Canvas.

I would rate it seven out of 10.

The product works as a learning management system.

The product is regarded as the best learning management system in the world, and the top institutions are using it. It has the biggest community of learning management systems. They have a more extensive support base in terms of infrastructure. It is easy to use and integrate. It has more case studies than any vendors.

The product could be integrated with a talent management system.

I have been using Canvas LMS for about a year.

The product is scalable. We work with educational institutions.

The technical support is excellent.

Positive

The initial setup is more straightforward than any other program. The installation takes a few minutes to deploy, and one person can quickly execute the process. It is easy to maintain as well.

Canvas LMS is low-priced compared to other vendors. It has an annual subscription. One has to pay for licenses, and if they want extra features, they have to pay additional costs. 

If you're choosing a learning management system, there's only one choice because it is open source. It has all the elements and good infrastructure support. It uses the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, augmented systems, real-time assessment, etc.

Overall, I rate Canvas LMS a ten out of ten.

Canvas LMS is used to manage the curriculum content that we deliver during a class.

It is feature-rich, and each semester is 16 weeks long. 

They have a section for assignments. 

They have a section for your content that you can post to. 

It has integrated Zoom capability, which was very useful during COVID. 

It tracks students' grades and attendance. 

As I previously stated, it is feature-rich for classroom use.

I believe the product's stability is excellent.

The product's flexibility is exceptional. 

The ability to integrate other content, such as learning content, is fantastic.

If you have a large class with a lot of students and want to automate your testing and grading, you can.

Overall, I believe it is a very good product.

I think the main thing for first-time professors is that I probably underestimated how much work I had to put into learning how to use it the first time I used it. But once you've mastered it, you'll be fine.

The learning curve is not steep, but it is intermediate.

I have been using Canvas LMS for two years.

There are no issues with the stability.

Canvas LMS is quite scalalbe.

There are 18,000 students at the university. I am not sure if it's on-premises or in the cloud.

Technical support is good.

I have some experience with ServiceNow. 

I am a retired technology executive who recently returned to teaching school to keep busy. 

I am not sure my experience is relevant enough. I was looking to see which tools people thought worked well and which did not. In my classroom, I could point students to various products and feel comfortable doing so.

It integrates well with other systems. This semester, I am teaching network security using the Cengage learning platform, which integrates directly into Canvas.

I used to use another solution, but I can't remember what it was called. Canvas was the superior of the two options.

I am not sure how to set up the product itself because I don't administer it; I use it. But, in terms of setting it up for a new class, which I've been doing a lot lately, it's pretty simple once you know how.

From what I understand, I don't believe there are many resources required. 

Every now and then, after a while, they will alert you that they are going to delete any course that is older than the date indicated unless you want to save it. That is the extent of the maintenance that I see.

I am not aware of the costs.

When it comes to implementation, someone at the university has already done it.

There are also professors who use it, as well as students who use it. But, from what I have seen, it is a good product.

I would rate Canvas LMS a nine out of ten.

I like that Canvas LMS allows you to have kind of a hierarchy of classes so that you could add different columns and give them certain permissions at a certain level. I really thought that the APIs of Canvas were really well defined and I used those to do a lot of data reporting, as well as to manage enrollments for students throughout the university. I thought the solution was really robust and offered a lot of ways to support a really complicated and large-scale university like the one I was at.

I used a lot of other systems in my IT career and Canvas LMS truly has everything that I would look for in an enterprise system. 

One of the things that I was really focused on is getting data out in a reportable way. The APIs had trouble getting that data out and loading it into a database to do reporting. I figured it all out in the end, but it took a little bit of doing. It would be nice to be able to do more real-time comprehensive reporting with Canvas LMS.

I used Canvas LMS from January 2021 until January 2022. 

I would say that Canvas LMS is a very stable solution.

Canvas LMS is very scalable.

I'd say Canvas LMS comes with a few really helpful tech support options. 

There's a service that you can purchase for tier one support, where students and faculty can contact a 24/7 call center and get support. I don't think that was incredibly valuable. I think a lot of times those tickets ended up with our team back at KU anyway and it would have saved time just to contact us directly. 

However, when we needed support from an admin level or an API-type level, the support was really good. They have a really robust community and they were able to resolve our issues really quickly when an admin needed support. 

Canvas LMS was easy to set up. I think we went from not having Canvas LMS to having it along with the first few pilot groups, in a month and a half. We did that pilot group for the spring semester and then opened things up more broadly in the summer and fall. We went from about 30 classes in the spring of 2021 to about I think 200 classes in the fall of 2021.

Prior to switching over to Canvas LMS, we did two evaluations, one in 2016 and then another one in 2020. During both, we evaluated Blackboard on-prem, which is what we had until we switched - Blackboard SAS, D2L, and Canvas.

Canvas LMS was the best option for us and many other universities of our size, R1 institutions. We were switching over to it at that time. It was becoming the standard and for good reason.

I would rate Canvas LMS a nine out of ten.

Before making the shift to Canvas LMS, I would advise institutions to think through how they want to separate the courses that they build out at the beginning. We had to make a few changes later in the game for professional and continuing education that made it a little bit complicated to give them access to other courses that had been taught previously. If certain people will need near-admin rights to a subset, it is important to create a robust sub-account structure that will not give those individuals too much access. I wish that we got a little bit more buy-in from the administration over what sub-accounts they wanted rather than having to go back and do that at a later time.

The platform is highly user-friendly compared to other LMS platforms like Blackboard. Its ease of content creation, module structuring, and flexibility in course management are valuable features for our educational environment.

Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences.

I've been using Canvas LMS for eight years now.

In terms of stability, the platform has improved significantly over the years. Initially, there were occasional issues with page loading, but these have been largely resolved, providing a stable platform for educational use.

The product is scalable across different educational levels, from individual teachers to entire institutions, making it adaptable to varying educational needs and environments.

I haven't contacted the technical support team directly as there is ample online documentation and community support available.

Positive

The initial setup of Canvas is straightforward and user-friendly compared to other LMS platforms. It helps educators start building courses and managing content without extensive technical knowledge.

The platform can be expensive for smaller organizations with fewer students. It's more suited for larger institutions with budgets accommodating its pricing structure.

The assessment tools in Canvas significantly contribute to educational outcomes by allowing instructors to create and manage assessments effectively. 

I would recommend it to others and rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution is easy to access. The solution allows me to create designs more efficiently and effectively.

The solution could be upgraded and improved.

I have been using Canvas LMS for three years.

I rate Canvas LMS a nine or ten out of ten for stability.

I rate Canvas LMS an eight out of ten for scalability.

The solution's initial setup is very easy.

The solution can be deployed in a couple of hours.

Canvas LMS is an affordable solution.

I am using the latest version of Canvas LMS. The solution is easy to use, and it has better designs.

Overall, I rate Canvas LMS an eight out of ten.