Collin College, located in McKinney, Texas, is a prominent public community college known for its commitment to academic excellence and student success. Established in 1985, the college has become a cornerstone of the region's educational landscape, offering a wide array of programs and courses.
With a focus on innovation and community engagement, Collin College began using Canvas LMS in 2016 to further provide a supportive learning environment for more than 58,800 credit and noncredit students.
Both faculty and students enjoy the platform and its easy usability, adding more than 85,000 courses to Canvas by 2023. This rapid growth presented a new challenge for the college: managing and archiving the increasing number of courses on the platform.
Key Insights
Having added more than 85,000 to Canvas since migrating to the LMS in 2016, Collin College set out to find an archiving solution.
The college wanted a solution that would allow them to maintain access to existing courses and provide additional storage – all while keeping data accurate and secure.
Using Canvas Archiving powered by K16 Solutions, Collin College migrated three years of student data and can now securely store both course content and student data that seamlessly integrates with Canvas LMS.
The Challenge
Limited space
Collin College needed to archive courses because it was nearing the individual storage limit of Canvas's LMS platform. Student storage space was a major concern as students cannot upload more assignments once it’s full. The growing volume of coursework also made it difficult for faculty to find what they needed, resulting in longer load times and a more time-consuming search process.
Security risks
With federal laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and potential regulations similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation on the horizon, the team at Collin College wanted to stay ahead of the game in terms of security.
They also wanted to provide grade information to the right users without worrying about sensitive student information being at risk. However, there was no streamlined method to achieve this. Team members were tasked with manually hiding sensitive information for each student, which was time-consuming and prone to errors.
Academic integrity concerns
Maintaining some level of historical LMS data is crucial for upholding state requirements. It provides a record of past courses, assignments, and grades, which can be crucial for verifying student grades and resolving disputes. Deleting older content would make pulling that data impossible and could jeopardize the college's academic integrity.
The factthatit was a platform-integrated solution made everything so easy for us. Archiving course content didn’t require our team to stop whatthey were doing and work on this project.
Heather Webb-Losh,
Sr. Application Administrator, Collin College
The Solution
After meeting with K16 Solutions at InstructureCon 2023, Collin College’s eLearning team knew they’d found the solution. Canvas Archiving powered by K16 Solutions enables Canvas customers to securely store course content and student data on a platform that seamlessly integrates with their current LMS environment.
“There were no other solutions that could solve every problem we wanted to solve,” said Pamela Darling-Facio, Director of eLearning at Collin College. “With the help of Canvas Archiving, we could open up space in our Canvas platform while keeping data secure without the need to purge.”
The team at Collin College began archiving three years’ worth of LMS content. Although the task felt daunting at first, the team quickly realized they were in good hands. “Working with our K16 customer success manager, Ellen, was such a pleasure,” said Heather Webb-Losh, Sr. Application Administrator at Collin College. “She always went above and beyond and helped us make sure our courses were archived securely, accurately, and with ease onto the archiving platform.”
The Results
No need to purge
With the help of Canvas Archiving, Collin College was able to clean up its Canvas LMS platform without having to delete any courses within the last five years. “Deleting the courses was never an option,” says Webb-Losh. “We had to have access to them to conduct grade appeals and maintain accounts. Canvas Archiving gave us the ability to clean up our platform and maintain access to old course content.”
Canvas-integrated
Darling-Facio and Webb-Losh couldn’t believe the ease of archiving and retrieving courses with Canvas Archiving. “The fact that it was a platform-integrated solution made everything so easy for us,” Webb-Losh said. “Archiving course content didn’t require our team to stop what they were doing and work on this project.”
Proactive security options
“Canvas Archiving allows us to have freedom and options we didn’t have before,” Webb-Losh said. “Compliance is stricter in the EU, so we know things will get stricter here, too. This gives us a head start in compliance.”
Darling-Facio agrees with Webb-Losh’s sentiment: “We’re able to provide course access to the right people without giving out sensitive student information at the same time. This has saved us so much time and peace of mind.”
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