The UMD Blackboard to Canvas Migration Team debriefed on their four phase process to migrate over 23,000 course spaces from Blackboard to Canvas. Phase 1 involved planning and needs analysis from December 2011 to February 2012. Phase 2 finalized migration strategies and timelines from June to July 2012. Phase 3 migrated all courses in phases based on terms from July 2012 to March 2013. Phase 4, currently in progress, addresses lingering issues and supports faculty rebuilding efforts from October 2012 to June 2013. Key lessons learned included allowing ample migration time, solid communication, phased migration, and ensuring ongoing support for faculty.

1. UMD Blackboard to Canvas
Migration Team Debrief
3/15/2013
Committee Leader
Jun Yang

2. Four Phases
1. Pre-Migration Planning:
Doing the homework: Blackboard to Canvas
Project scope estimation and needs analysis.
(Dec 8,2011 to Feb 2012)
2. Finalizing migration strategies, documentations , and timeline
(June 2012 to July 2012)
3. Migrating 23,000+ spaces in phases based on terms
(July 2012 to March 2013)
4. Post Migration:
Addressing lingering migration issues + Facilitating rebuilding efforts
(Oct 2012 to June 2013 and beyond)

3. Goals
1. To understand the differences between the two
systems and their impact on migration.
2. To identify issues concerning BB-to-Canvas migration.
3. To identify a migration strategy to make the BB to
Canvas transition as easy as possible for faculty.
4. To successfully migrate all courses based on the
established timeline and requirements.
5. To complete all documentations for rebuilding
support.
6. To support and facilitate faculty rebuilding efforts.

4. What we have done:
1.Each sub team explored
different migration options for
each tool listed in the table.
2.Each sub team documented the
findings.
3.Each team member went into 5
to 10 large sample courses to
identify the complexity of
migration and support.
BB Content and Files in Course
Space
Dale Morey
Jill Reese
Jennifer Patterson
Jun Yang
BB Content and Files in Content
Collection
Dale Morey
Jill Reese
Jennifer Patterson
Jun Yang
File Structure
Dale Morey
Jill Reese
Jennifer Patterson
Jun Yang
Quizzes, Question Banks, Surveys Sharon Roushdy
Assignments Deb Mateik
Alice Zhang
John Davis
Grade Book
Deb Mateik
Alice Zhang
John Davis
Discussions
Li Zhu
John Davis
Group structure and content
Dale Morey
Li Zhu
External Links Sharon Roushdy
Campus Pack Content
Jun Yang
Jen Patterson
Janel Brennan
Wimba Classroom
Wimba Voice Content
Jun Yang (both)
Janel Brennan (Wimba Voice)
Panopto Videos Li Zhu
Others? Jill Reese (McGraw-Hill,
ThomsonNOW, Cengage)
Phase 1 Tasks

5. Phase 2: Tasks
What we have done:
•Brainstormed different migration strategies and
options.
•Based on Chris’s input, we finalized the migration
strategy: to contract with Instructure to bulk migrate
spaces taught in the past two years.
•Step by step migration documentations were created
for Fall 2012 pilot faculty and open migration help
sessions were scheduled throughout the fall term.
•Initial migration timeline was created.

6. Phase 2: Initial Migration Timeline
Content from Content
available in Canvas by…
Winter and Spring
2011 and 2012 spaces mid-October, 2012
Organizations and Non-
Term Spaces mid-November , 2012
Summer 2011 and 2012
spaces mid-January, 2013
Fall 2010, 2011, and 2012
spaces March, 2013

7. Phase 3: completed tasks
Courses Total
Migrated
Notes
Winter courses 2011 and
2012
470 courses Migration completed on mid-Oct, 2012
QA conducted by LT staff from Oct 22 to Oct 25
Faculty notified on the last week of Oct, 2012
Spring 2011 and 2012 7400 Migration completed on Oct 22, 2012
Faculty notified on the last week of Oct, 2012
Organizations and Non-term
based spaces created before
Fall, 2012
Org: 1403
Master 651
NCR: 333
Migration completed on the first week of Nov, 2012
Instructors and UMD participants enrollments loaded
Dec, 2012. Org leaders notified Dec, 2012
Non-UMD enrollments loaded mid-Feb, 2013
Summer 2011 and 2012 1500 Migrated completed on the first week of Nov, 2012
Enrollments loaded Feb 15, 2013
Organizations created after
Fall, 2012
50 spaces
migrated
Manually migrated at the end of Jan, 2013
Instructor enrollments loaded early March
Fall 2010, 2011 and 2012 13,000 completion date: March 1 2013
QA conducted by migration team
Instructor enrollments loaded and notified early March

8. Obstacles
• No direct correlation between Blackboard and
Canvas course structure.
• Faculty do not realize the time/efforts needed
to rebuild the course.
• Migrating the non-UMD users to organization
spaces.

9. Lessons Learned
• Allowing ample time for migration planning and
testing.
• Having a solid communication plan in place.
• Migrating in phases works well.
• Planning for a test migration_ conducting a trial
migration first before the bulk migration.
• Establishing a tracking and monitoring system to
manage progress, problems, and issues.
• Faculty need to be assured that trainings, support
and help are always available.
• Being willing to think outside of the box.

10. Going Forward _ Phase 4
Post Migration:
Addressing lingering migration issues and problems
•Enabling faculty to remove unwanted migrated spaces from
Canvas.
•Helping faculty who are experiencing unanticipated problems.
•Extra effort to accommodate the “late adopters”.
•Developing a communication plan to reach out to faculty so
that rebuilding starts early in order to avoid the last-minute
semester-start panic.
•Communicating to faculty on exporting their Blackboard
content before June 30, 2013 for courses excluded from bulk
migration.