Sidebar

Main Content

About Courseware Support at Penn

The Penn Libraries support Blackboard and Canvas for eight of the University's 12 schools. In addition to running the systems, the Libraries provide documentation, training and support for students, faculty and staff.

Learning management systems such as Blackboard and Canvas can help faculty manage their courses by facilitating document exchange, online discussion, and assignment submission, all outside of the physical classroom.

About Canvas

Canvas is a new learning management system (LMS) developed by Salt Lake City-based Instructure. It's already being used by Wharton and the Graduate School of Education here at Penn. The Libraries led a pilot of Canvas during the last academic year, and the majority of instructors involved found that Canvas met or exceeded their needs and offered better teaching tools than Blackboard. Based on the pilot, and the positive experience of faculty in Wharton and GSE, the Council of Deans and the Provost agreed that a campus-wide adoption would be beneficial for Penn faculty and students.

The transition to Canvas will be a year-long process. At the end of the process, Blackboard will no longer be available. Libraries and school-based support staff will be on hand to help save Blackboard course content.

More information on the migration is available here.

Other Courseware Systems

For Courseware systems not run by the Penn Libraries, please see Other Courseware Systems for login links and support contacts.