In the past, many instructors at UW Bothell have chosen to import their old Blackboard course content into a new Blackboard course for the current quarter. Within Blackboard, this was a fairly easy process. However, importing from Blackboard into Canvas is a bit more complicated.
Canvas provides a tool to import Blackboard materials that works moderately well, though you may find that it's just as easy to rebuild a course in Canvas if you have a straightfoward course. We've provided guidelines on how to best import Blackboard content into canvas on our best practices page. You can also view our what to expect page to see how the courses will appear and function upon import.
.png?width=323&height=129)
Where Blackboard course content is nested and controlled through the course menu, Canvas content is presented in a "feed" style and controlled more fluidly. Because of these differences, there will be complications when importing a Blackboard course (that has been exported to a .zip file) into a blank Canvas course.
It's important to remember that Blackboard and Canvas are two entirely different learning management systems (LMS). The point of this guide is to offer the best methods and workarounds possible.
Contents
A list of what content will transfer and an idea of how the course will look when imported.
Our recommendations on what content to import or start fresh with.
Step-by-step instructions on exporting a Blackboard course and importing it into Canvas using the Course Import Tool.
Step-by-step instructions on exporting only the course files from a Blackboard course and into a Canvas course. This tutorial is for instructors who do not wish to import other content within the course (announcements, assignments, quizzes, anything that isn't in the Central Course File Repository).