Pepperdine Canvas LMS Transition Plan
Overview
After careful consideration, a comprehensive learning management system (LMS) study, and a successful pilot program, the Provost and Deans of each of our schools have selected Instructure Canvas as Pepperdine University's next LMS starting Fall 2025. We believe that Pepperdine Canvas will serve our faculty and students well by fostering an academic ecosystem that enables impactful learning experiences. Check out our Pepperdine Canvas Faculty Guides and Pepperdine Canvas Intro Video to start creating your class content. Faculty, don't forget to request a Courses/Sakai to Pepperdine Canvas Data Migration to move your instructional content to the new system.
LMS Town Halls
Three LMS Transition Town Hall sessions were held in Spring and Summer to share important details and features of the transition. Review the recording of our February Town Hall, April Town Hall, and May Town Hall.
Summer 2025 Early Adopters Program
We're excited that more professors will be able to dive into Pepperdine Canvas this summer! Select the topic below to learn more.
FAQ: Making the Move to Pepperdine Canvas
Choose a topic below to learn more about the LMS transition.
What About Project Sites?
Project Sites on Courses were used for many purposes, such as committees, file sharing, class design templates, or communication. They filled a gap before the University had other collaboration platforms, like Google Workspace.
Moving forward, the focus of Pepperdine Canvas will be academic coursework and training. Only project sites directly tied to academic coursework, supporting direct instruction and program completion, will be considered for migration to Pepperdine Canvas. Also, Pepperdine Canvas is dedicated to current Pepperdine faculty, students, and staff only; it does not support unmonitored guest accounts for external users.
Never fear! Committees, schools/departments, and individuals will leverage powerful tools like Google Shared Drives, Google Groups, and Google Sites for knowledge-sharing or collaboration activities. In some cases, school and academic program informational sites may want to consider whether a page or section on the school's Community website may be a good fit.
Migration Options
- Academic Coursework Program Sites: Community members with academic coursework program sites may submit migration requests starting in Fall 2025, for transition before Spring 2026. Due to the volume and priority of class site migration, we cannot accept/process project site requests until the fall.
- Non-Coursework Project Sites: Community members with personal or collaborative project sites for non-academic coursework may begin downloading content from Courses immediately. They should request the appropriate Google Group (if necessary) and create a Google Shared Drive or Google Site for continuing their business, research, or personal interests. To bulk download content in Resources, site maintainers can consider using the Transfer Files (WebDAV) or Compress to Zip Archive features.
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