Checklist for Reusing Content from Blackboard
It's best to first evaluate your new McIntire Canvas course template (opens new window) and determine how you want to organize your course and what selected elements from previous courses to include.
There are two options for building your course site with content from previous semesters. You can also use a combination of these options.
Tip: Before getting started, see the following articles to familiarize yourself with navigating in Canvas:
- Visit your sites: How do I use the Global Navigation Menu as an instructor? (opens new window)
- Access tools in a site: How do I use the Course Navigation Menu as an instructor? (opens new window)
- Get acquainted with the tools: Blackboard to Canvas Tool Equivalency Chart (opens new window)
Option 1: Copy and Paste
You may find it more efficient to build your new Canvas course from scratch and copy and paste in content you want to include from previous Blackboard courses. McIntire's Blackboard is available until Fall 2024.
Option 2: Import Selected Content
Selected years of Blackboard courses have been migrated into Canvas, but they are not an exact copy. You may reuse content from these courses by importing some of that content into your new McIntire Canvas course template (opens new window).
You can find your former Blackboard course sites that were copied to Canvas by following the steps in Navigate to a migrated Blackboard site (opens new window).
You may reuse content from one of your former Blackboard sites by importing some of that content into your upcoming Canvas courses. There are four basic "R" steps you should take when reusing materials from Blackboard:
- Review the migrated Blackboard content.
- Reuse items you wish to include by importing these into your upcoming Canvas course.
- Revise your newly imported content, particularly content that migrated differently from the Blackboard formatting.
- And Report any serious issues you may have found with missing content.
Select the text of one of these steps on the page below to open a detailed description of how to complete it. To help keep track of where you are in the process, you can check off the boxes as you walk through each step.
Reviewing your new McIntire template and familiarizing yourself with Canvas features will help you decide which Blackboard content you want to import. Due to technical differences between Blackboard and Canvas, the Course Navigation Menu does not include the same tools. Some items in your site may have been modified from their original form or it may not have been possible to copy them.
A page called the Migration Exception Log will be provided to help you identify items that were modified during the import process or could not be copied.
Follow the steps in the articles below to review the items in your site.
- Review the Migration Exception Log (opens new window)
- Review Announcements tool content (opens new window)
- Review Assignments content (opens new window)
- Review Discussion Topics in the Discussions tool (opens new window)
- Review content migrated from the Blackboard Content section (opens new window)
- Review Gradebook items and structure (opens new window)
- Review Tests and Surveys that copied as quizzes in Canvas (opens new window)
- Review Question Pool questions that copied to Question Banks in Canvas (opens new window)
You can import items you would like to use from your former Blackboard site into your upcoming Canvas course by following the steps in How do I import content from one UVACanvas site to another? (opens new window).
If your former Blackboard site includes content in McIntire Kaltura, you will need to take a few additional steps to reuse that content. For details, see How do I import Media Gallery files and playlists from one Canvas course to another?
Note: Be careful when importing announcements to a new course. If an announcement does not have a delayed posting date in the future, it will be visible to students as soon as the course is published. For more information, see How do I delay posting an announcement until a specific date in a course? (opens new window).
Revise your content to update it for use in your upcoming course. Items that will need revisions include:
- Dates on assignments, quizzes, discussions, announcements, etc.
- Assessments imported from Blackboard Tests. Specialized settings and question types specific to Blackboard which have been modified from their original form will need to be adjusted.
- Links to content from external tools or items from external tools embedded in pages in your course site. Examples of external tool content include:
- Assignments in Gradescope, Peerceptiv, and Poll Everywhere,
- Links to VoiceThread assignments, course pages, or individual VoiceThreads,
- Links to video quizzes from Media Gallery,
- Activities embedded from H5P.
For steps to revise content, see:
- Revise your Course Navigation (opens new window)
- Revise Discussions topics (opens new window)
- Revise Assignments (opens new window)
- Revise Tests and Surveys Settings in copied Canvas Quizzes (opens new window)
- Revise Tests and Surveys questions in copied Canvas Quizzes (opens new window)
- Revise Modules (opens new window)
Have you found any significant issues with the content in your copied Blackboard course which are not mentioned in the Migration Exception Log or described in the steps to revise content?
If you have, please email the LTS Support team and provide us with as many details about the missing content as possible. Helpful details would include:
- The name of the Blackboard site,
- The name of the tool in Blackboard that included the content which is missing in the equivalent Blackboard course (e.g., Grade Center, Discussions, or Tests, Surveys & Pools),
- The name(s) of the missing item(s) (e.g., the name(s) of missing file(s) or folder(s), assignment(s), or quiz(zes)),
- If specific items within a folder, assignment, quiz, or a discussion topic's description or attachments are missing and not noted in the Migration Exception Log, a description of those items (e.g., file name(s), quiz question numbers, or the name of the affected discussion topic).
You are done. Great job!