A few weeks ago, we discussed Moodle-to-Canvas imports and the items that transferred most seamlessly from Moodle to Canvas. Today’s Canvas Corner will look at some of the items that do not transfer well (or at all) and discuss some of your options for recreating or re-imagining those activities. Specifically, we’ll look at replacing external tools links, rethinking glossary activities, and the general concept of “starting from scratch” when a Moodle import just “doesn’t work.” As a refresher, here is our list from Volume 4 of things that come over well, things that come over okay, and things that come over poorly (or not at all):

Things that Come Over Well:

• Straightforward Multiple Choice Quizzes: Settings will need to be adjusted but a simple Moodle quiz will appear in Canvas with few issues. Quizzes that use “randomly selected” questions or uncommon question types (matching, multiple correct answers, etc.) will need additional work.
• Section Headings: These come over as modules categories and there is little difference between the two
• Discussions: Like quizzes, a simple discussion will convert pretty well, with only a few setting changes necessary
• Assignments without Rubrics or Grading Scales: As long as you’re not using the advanced grading features in Moodle, your assignments will transfer perfectly fine. If you use Rubrics or Grading Guides in Moodle, however, you’ll need to rebuild those in Canvas.
• Files: If you’ve uploaded PDF’s, PPT’s, or Word Doc’s to Moodle, they’ll come over in Canvas perfectly.

Things that Come Over Okay:

• Web Links: You’ll most likely need to edit these so that they “open in a new window” to work, but that’s only two quick clicks per link. Otherwise, they convert from Moodle well.
• Text and Media Areas: If you put a lot of content directly on your Moodle course, those will come over as Canvas “Pages.” They work okay, but you’ll need to dig into them and make some adjustments, especially to the title, as Moodle doesn’t have a title area for this activity type.
• Gradebook: The Moodle gradebook will get pushed to the Canvas gradebook, but other than the points attached to activities, everything else will need to be examined and adjusted. Canvas’s gradebook does nearly everything Moodle’s gradebook can do, but in a much more streamlined fashion. That’s great for building a gradebook from scratch, but the two systems don’t line up and adjustments will need to be made. Note that setting up the gradebook in Canvas occurs in “Assignments,” not “Grades.”

Things that (Pretty Much) Don’t Come Over:

• Moodle-Only Activities: Moodle has a number of activity types that don’t exist in any other learning management platform. The most commonly-used of these are the glossary, lessons, book, and journal, although there are others. Parts of these activities WILL come over to Canvas (usually as a page or assignment), but typically their conversions will require more work to fix than to rebuild from scratch. Most of these types of activities will work best being re-imagined as quizzes, assignments, or pages.
• Course Settings & Restrictions: Canvas uses a totally different format for restricting access to materials and therefore none of your Moodle settings will transfer and will need to be rebuilt using Canvas’s version. Luckily, Canvas is much easier than Moodle to learn!
• External Tool Links & Gradebook Integrations: If you use external tools in Moodle (VitalSource, McGraw Hill, Cengage, YellowDig, etc.) those connections will all need to be rebuilt, as the integrations and codes are different in Canvas than in Moodle. All of these tools have been installed in Canvas, however, so it’s only a matter of learning how to use them in the new system and then re-adding them.
• Read, Watch, Do Labels: Ed Tech created these to help organize Moodle courses and unfortunately they don’t make sense in Canvas as constructed (they come over as Pages). The best practice for replacing these is to either use the Canvas-native “text header” option (and abandon the colorful Read, Watch, Do labels), or to rebuild those entire sections of Moodle using Canvas Pages (allowing you to keep and reuse those labels). 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what Moodle content will-and-will-not work in Canvas, but it does cover the vast majority of NMC course materials. Ed Tech’s recommendation this fall is to go through your converted Moodle courses and decide for yourself if you think it best to rebuild the course from scratch or edit it into functionality. For some, very little conversion work will be needed. For others, it will be a lot of work. Luckily, our team in Ed Tech is eager to assist, so please don’t be afraid to reach out!