By Staff
By Dominic Padilla and Carter Williams II
Approximately one-third of all Long Beach State faculty have made the virtual switch from BeachBoard to Canvas, according to campus officials overseeing the transition.
The migration of classes from BeachBoard began in the spring semester of 2022, with current and future courses continuing to switch. In fall 2023, Canvas will become the only virtual course system used by the CSULB.
Shariq Ahmed, Associate Vice President of Academic Technology Services, said the university does not want a sudden change for students and faculty.
With support and resources from the office of Academic Technology Services, faculty were encouraged to work during the summer to develop their fall curriculum courses.
The purpose of the pilot program was to bring together a community of teachers who will use Canvas in the fall and partner with ATS to identify issues and suggest improvements for the new platform, according to the Canvas at the Beach website.
“We have about 890 courses published on Canvas,” Ahmed said.
There is no obligation to join the pilot program and teach in Canvas this semester, however faculty concerns still exist over the transition away from BeachBoard.
Paul Scotton, the director and adviser of the classics department at CSULB, avoided switching to Canvas for his two fall 2022 classes because of warnings he received from his peers.
“I was told by multiple colleagues to be wary of the grading feature on Canvas because it had been known to present inaccurate numbers,” said Scotton.
Faculty’s pre-existing grade settings and rubrics on BeachBoard are not being transferred over to Canvas, according to the ATS website.
Faculty must set up their grade book within Canvas from scratch.
The new Canvas system also lacks grade book notifications if an assignment’s points do not add up to 100, which may cause grade miscalculations, according to Ahmed.
“We confirmed with our Canvas support and Instructional Design teams, who support all faculty support queries, and so far, this issue has not been reported by our faculty,” said Ahmed.
To prevent any known Canvas issues, the ATS Canvas and ID teams provide virtual faculty support through email, live chat and Zoom. These teams also work closely with faculty to set up their Canvas course and grade books.
Scotton was also unavailable to attend the summer training sessions sponsored by the CSULB campus, and could not publish his syllabus until the fall semester started. That contributed to him sticking with BeachBoard for fall 2022.
Scotton still plans to spend some of his winter break teaching himself the new program in anticipation of spring 2023, the final semester BeachBoard will be offered on the campus.
Student perspectives towards the new Canvas system are mostly favorable so far.
Brayan Ochoa, a fourth-year political science major said, “Everything is set up in a way that is easy to get to and presentable.”
Marla Lovillo, a first-year CSULB student, used the Canvas system before her time at Long Beach State and expressed their preference for the switchover.
“I don’t know how to use Beachboard,” said Lovillo. “I used Canvas all throughout high school after the pandemic.”
In addition to early Canvas exposure at the high school level, other higher education institutions have begun integrating their campus-wide software into Canvas, including most of the other CSU campuses such as Los Angeles, Pomona and Fullerton.
All of the California community colleges, such as Long Beach City College, are making the change as part of the State of California’s Online Education Initiative.
