Canvas LMS

Canvas LMS is a part of the US-based company Instructure.

In 2010, Utah used Canvas LMS state-wide for all public schools, colleges, and universities.

During the past decade, Canvas LMS has grown into an international agency offering learning platforms and management systems for anyone anywhere in the world.

With over 30 million users globally and a system uptime of 99.9%, Canvas LMS can easily handle more than six million concurrently.

In addition, Canvas LMS has a Best-in-Class customer satisfaction score of over 90%.

Canvas LMS believes instructors and learners deserve the flexibility of courses and instructional delivery in various formats.

Whether entirely online or a hybrid of in-person and virtual, Canvas LMS offers precisely what today’s educational agencies need to provide students to succeed.

What is Canvas LMS?

An open and extensible learning management system, Canvas LMS is an all-in-one digital foundation system for all aspects of education.

Whether for K-12, higher education, or corporate instructional purposes, Canvas is at the top of its class.

As learning platforms go, Instructure has created a highly intuitive, easy-to-navigate software application for all involved.

Educators, students, and parents agree that Canvas makes continuing education in these trying times more manageable.

The Canvas LMS apps are available across multiple platforms, including smartphones, laptops, and iPads.

Instructure can quickly resolve any technical issues with 24/7 support online or on the phone.

How Canvas LMS Works

Canvas LMS is a fully integrated foundation platform for course creation and agency management for all components of teaching and learning.

This learning management system’s dynamic products and features allow for uniformity across courses and campus while allowing instructor creativity.

Instructors can easily organize courses into modules.

Teachers and instructors can easily create lessons with content pages, quizzes, external links, internal files, and third-party and vendor apps.

Differentiate and individualize assignments easily to meet the needs of unique learners or groups.

Engage students to a higher level with live discussion forums, chats, and Zoom interaction.

Recorded events can easily be stored and accessed within the Canvas LMS Course systems.

Canvas LMS at a Glance

Market Segment

IBL News, a news outlet serving the global edtech community, reports that four major companies dominate 95% of the LMS market segment for higher education in North America.

Canvas is in the lead, with 34% of these agencies.

Globally, Canvas LMS is being adapted and used by institutions and corporations are a rate much faster than any other LMS platform on the market.

Best For

Although Instructure created Canvas LMS with education in mind, it works very well in K-12 institutions, colleges, universities, and any size corporate and business settings.

Courses can be made public or private, instructor-paced or student-paced.

Plan & Pricing

An annual subscription for a single user starts at $299.

Companies and educational agencies have price breaks per user at different intervals. Additional features and capacities are scalable.

Canvas LMS will quote a price based on the size and needs of the organization.

As different agencies and different institutions will inevitably have different needs.

This individualized attention to each unique client is how Canvas can customize platforms with the features and products required to meet the needs of each client.

Canvas LMS also offers Free-for-Teachers account options for any teacher, even if their organization is not a customer.

The free accounts have many of the same powerful features as an institution account, including the mobile app suite.

Notable Features of Canvas LMS

Canvas LMS is full of robust products and features to support student engagement and learning, as well as ease-of-use and time-saving components for teachers.

Students and parents can easily monitor progress and grades within the app.

Navigating between features and communicating with the instructor within the app is a win-win for families.

With so many extraordinary features, it is hard to pick just a few.

Here are the top five.

1. Multiple Media Communication

Increase student engagement and lesson delivery with live audio, video, and chat features.

You can embed recorded audio and video into lesson plans for students to review later.

Communicate easily with participants and instructors within a course or over a network via email, broadcasted announcements, or assignment feedback.

2. Track and Report Student Progress

Quickly grade assignments with SpeedGrader.

Provide feedback through text or video comments.

Post grades and create informative reports.

Mastery Path, MasteryConnect, Outcomes, and standards-based grade books allow personalization.

3. Course Analytics

Increase student engagement and learning through reports and insight into how students interact with course materials.

Monitor and adjust quickly to make learning more adaptive to the students’ needs.

Find out what features students prefer to interact with and drive student participation and ownership in the process.

4. Unlimited File Size

Instructure understands some concepts will take a massive amount of storage to cover.

Never worry if that media file will be too large for Canvas LMS.

Unlimited file size allows teachers to address the topic in as much detail as required to ensure students learn at a higher level.

5. Third-Party App Integration

Easily embed resources and materials from curriculum vendors and third-party apps into modules and lessons.

Popular apps such as Nearpod, Google Assignments, Discovery Education, and over 6000 more add to student engagement and deeper learning.

Are There Any Minimum Requirements Necessary to Use Canvas LMS?

For the best experience, Instructure suggests using a five-year-old or newer computer with at least 1GB of RAM. Internet speed should be at least 512kbps.

Supported browsers include the latest versions of Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

Although Instructure has optimized Canvas LMS for desktop applications, Canvas mobile apps require iOS 14.0 or Android 8.0 or later versions.

How Much Does Canvas LMS Cost?

Instructure bases their quotes on Canvas LMS on the needs of the client.

Their friendly and capable sales teams will ensure correct customization to your institution’s needs.

A Free-for-Teachers version with most of the same features as a fee-based account is available to educators even if their organization is not a client.

Does Canvas LMS Have an Enterprise Version Available?

Canvas LMS does have an enterprise version with all the tech support a company or organization would need.

Canvas LMS Promotionals & Savings

Who Are Canvas LMS’s Main Alternatives?

Canvas LMS has three significant competitors, Blackboard Learn, D2L Brightspace, and Moodle.

These three companies are among the original learning management systems in the early 2000s.

Instructure’s Canvas came online a few years later and has climbed rapidly through the ranks.

As a result, these four learning management system platforms have occupied 95% of the market share.

The competition between these four companies has dramatically benefitted the education community.

1. Blackboard Learn

Blackboard Learn is the closest competitor to Canvas LMS, with 28% of the market segment.

The ease of use on the administration and educator sides is the most significant difference between the two learning management systems.

Blackboard’s developmental platform is not intuitive or navigable. Customers who have used both prefer Canvas LMS.

2. D2L Brightspace

D2L Brightspace LMS does have flexibility and scalability features like Canvas LMS.

Brightspace had more of a presence in the for-profit corporate learning arena, though it has experienced some losses in that area, mainly to Canvas.

Brightspace is a bit more expensive than Canvas and does not offer teachers free accounts.

Integrating third-party apps are more cumbersome, too.

3. Moodle

Moodle offers a free basic account to teachers, but some features require an upgrade.

As one of the first open-sourced learning management systems, Moodle has extensive libraries of pre-made modules to help with lesson plans.

Moodle’s newest version has third-party integration possibilities, but its offerings are more limited.

How Does Canvas LMS Differentiate Itself From Competitors?

The most significant way Canvas LMS differentiates itself from its top competitors is its ability to integrate third-party tools and curriculum vendor resources onto its platform.

For example, the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) allows vendors such as curriculum publishers to interact and easily embed materials into courses and modules.

Their library of LTI apps is over 6000 and still growing.

Who is Canvas LMS Best For?

Canvas LMS is for K-12 and higher education institutions as well as corporate agencies of any size.

With the Free-for-Teachers accounts available, a single teacher can securely provide high-quality virtual learning modules to their students.

Larger multi-campus, multi-site institutions, and giant corporations will find Canvas LMS customizable and capable of handling their educational needs.

Is Canvas LMS Easy to Use?

Canvas LMS and Instructure enjoy over 90% customer satisfaction, primarily due to their 24/7 online support.

Canvas research and development teams work hard to make the user experience as positive and easy as possible, regardless of which side of the screen from which they work.

What Features Do Some Users Love?

1. Learning Tools Interoperability

The ability to include third-party applications and web-based products easily into courses and modules allows teachers or instructors to create the lessons and embed the resources they need for their students or learners to succeed.

The available tools and apps list continues to grow and includes more and more curriculum publishers and vendors.

2. Grades Automatically Recorded

Save a step or two when grading assignments.

Creating quizzes and other automatically graded activities is easy, and documentation with feedback will save time and improve progress monitoring and reporting.

Automatically import grades from LTI sources with a click of a button.

What Features Do Some Users Find Frustrating?

1. Assignment Automatically Erased

If an assignment’s due date is not scheduled for midnight, Canvas erases the project automatically after that date.

Setting midnight as the default will fix this issue.

2. Student Messages Not Automatically Recorded

The instructor must reply to a student’s message before it records the message.

This delay can cause problems with documentation and feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrapping Up

Canvas LMS is at the top of its class. Instructure continues to work diligently to keep ahead of the curve and provide the best customer experience.

Teachers and administrators appreciate how easy it is to integrate vendor virtual resources and materials into modules.

In addition, communication between teachers and parents helps build the school and home relationship.

With Canvas LMS, teachers can get more done, blending traditional classroom instruction with the power of high-quality virtual resources.

By Brett Helling

Brett has been starting, growing, and monetizing websites since 2014. While in college, he began to learn about digital marketing. After graduating, he continued to build a diverse portfolio of websites while working a full time job. After years of building the portfolio on the side, he made the jump to run his websites full time.