In September 2025, the University of Manchester will transition from Blackboard to Canvas.
The University has used Blackboard since September 2010, when it originally signed a three-year agreement with Blackboard Mobile.
The transition started in the summer of 2023, when over 260 staff and students trialed three central learning environment (CLE) systems: Canvas, Blackboard Learn Ultra and Brightspace.
Of the three CLE systems, Canvas was described as the most effective at meeting the university’s requirements.
Throughout 2024, training was delivered to key teams across the university, and support was given to facilitate the transition.
In October 2024, access to Canvas was successfully given to a limited number of identified users.
Training became available to the wider University Teaching, Learning and Student Experience staff at the beginning of 2025.
By September 2025, the plan is to have completed the transition to Canvas.
The transfer of course content from Blackboard to Canvas is taking place in two stages – February and June 2025 – to ensure that content from both semesters is moved over.
Dania, a Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology student currently on placement, said: “Blackboard in itself isn’t a poor platform”, but described how it was bad when “professors didn’t know how to use it”.
An open meeting will be held on March 19 at 1pm, featuring a panel that will provide an overview of Canvas. Questions can be submitted to the panel.
Manchester will join Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool and Oxford, who are all currently using Canvas as their Virtual Learning Environment.
