University of Birmingham

With its existing e-learning platform due to be phased out, the University of Birmingham’s Academic Services took the opportunity to conduct an extensive review of their virtual learning environment and map this analysis against the University’s five-year strategic plan for growth and excellence in teaching and learning.

The University concluded that they needed a system which would harness technology to create a fully integrated ‘Connected University’, where quality teaching and learning could be delivered at scale.

And they wanted the whole VLE content transfer completed in an 18-month window.

Canvas offered the University a complete integrated solution that doesn’t suffer from periods of downtime, works across different web browsers, and easily incorporates multimedia content.

Canvas also makes the University truly “connected” thanks to the fact that it plays well with student-friendly mobile and tablet devices.

Thanks to Canvas’ easy and intuitive to use interface, in just five days the University had successfully customised and configured the entire platform to its requirements. Staff engaged so quickly and deeply with our platform that within three months more courses were on Canvas than had been available in the penultimate year of the previous platform.

Birmingham University chose Canvas VLE as the cornerstone of their ‘Connected University’ strategy. Since launching Canvas in just five days, Birmingham has achieved exceptionally high adoption rates.

Since switching to Canvas, the University of Birmingham has seen adoption rates soar, with 4,600 courses uploaded to Canvas in the first three months – more than had been available in previous years on the legacy platform.

Within the first six months over a third of the University’s 28,000 students had interacted with course content via a mobile or tablet device.

The University has already received overwhelmingly positive staff and student feedback, a marked reduction in basic support calls and a significant increase in student use of the virtual learning platform.

The VLE has now become an interactive hub facilitating unprecedented collaboration among students and staff, with peer-to-peer video, staff training, student quizzes, multimedia assignment feedback, virtual workspace groups, content sharing among teachers, and on- and offcampus interaction between staff and students.

The University of Birmingham is achieving 99.9% uptime and has eliminated many of the previous headaches faced by the support teams.

“We used to face significant challenges over finding a good time for system upgrades and predicting capacity requirements,” says Matt Sherlock. “Now we just focus on making sure our users are getting the most out of the platform, when and how they want to.”