Canvas Catalog: New Platform to House Online Courses

MOOCs continue to gain popularity and are being offered by more and more institutions, leaving them with the question of where best to house their courses. Up until now, most have lived on broad, common platforms that are really more known to provide “MOOCs,” not necessarily the specific institution providing the content. With the launch of the new Canvas Catalog, institutions will now have the chance to house their MOOCs in one digital space, while still keeping the focus on the institution itself, instead of the platform.

The new Canvas platform can be customized to work for all education levels as well as for providing professional development- basically any time an institution is looking to provide any type of online learning opportunities. One great example is Pasco County Schools which has an e-school with online courses ready to launch on Canvas Catalog in the coming months.

“Our students, parents and teachers often need to go to as many as five different Web sites to access their courses,” said JoAnne Glenn, principal of Pasco eSchool. “With Catalog’s easy-to-use interface, everything is in one place, streamlining our entire process.”
For the full description and details on how to tap into the power of Canvas Catalog, see the full press release below:

Instructure Launches Canvas Catalog

Inspired by Canvas Network, the new Canvas Catalog provides an all-in-one learning solution for online course publishing and registration
SALT LAKE CITY — May 29, 2014 — Instructure, the technology company serving the academic market through its Canvas learning management system (LMS), today launched Canvas Catalog, a white-label platform that enables any institution, government entity, university or K-12 school to create a branded index of online courses.
“We think the next step in the MOOC experiment is to help institutions harness the power of open, online learning within the fold of their institutional identity,” said Melissa Loble, senior director of Canvas Network, Instructure’s response to the MOOC phenomenon. “Through Canvas Catalog, institutions can also provide preparatory programs, continuing professional development and community-based lifelong learning experiences.”
Whereas MOOCs have traditionally been housed on common platforms that span multiple institutions, Canvas Catalog shifts the emphasis back to the institutional level. It empowers them to produce and market their online courses with their own look and feel. With Canvas Catalog, they can build custom-branded Web sites that allow content creators from any type of institution to build a marketplace or storefront for their course offerings. This gives students and learners a one-stop shop where they can register, enroll, pay and begin taking courses. It also eliminates the need for institutions to build their own front-end course catalog, which is a time-consuming, complicated and expensive process that may not integrate with other systems within the rest of the institution.
The versatile platform can be customized for higher education, professional development and a variety of other online learning contexts, including K-12. Pasco County Schools, for example, has an e-school with online courses that is set to roll out Canvas Catalog in the coming months.
“Our students, parents and teachers often need to go to as many as five different Web sites to access their courses,” said JoAnne Glenn, principal of Pasco eSchool. “With Catalog’s easy-to-use interface, everything is in one place, streamlining our entire process.”
Academic Partnerships, one of the largest representatives of online learning in the United States and around the world, is launching Catalog in connection with its Specializations initiative, which helps its partner universities capitalize on the globalization of higher education through a new global credential. The initiative will run on the AP Open Network, which is powered by Canvas Catalog.
“The AP Open Network is a fully integrated global student engagement and online course delivery system that supports the entire student lifecycle from recruitment, registration and payment to multilingual course delivery, tracking, reporting and credentialing,” said AP Vice Chairman Rob Ganji. “Through our strategic partnership with Instructure, the Canvas Catalog is helping to make an ambitious initiative like ours a reality.”
Through Canvas Catalog, administrators can:

• Create public course offerings and custom course landing pages
• Identify collections of courses to create specializations or programs
• Effectively market courses and course catalogs
• Issue discounts or promotion codes
• Automatically distribute certificates and other recognitions of completion
• Accept payment for courses

The robust platform solves many of the issues administrators and students are faced with. It keeps course information all in one place, providing a simple, central location for all who need to access an institution’s course offerings. It also allows for straightforward registration and payment for courses.
About Instructure
Instructure, Inc. developed the Canvas learning management system to make teaching and learning easier for everyone, everywhere. Canvas empowers learning in every context with open, usable SaaS technologies. And through Canvas Network, Instructure provides a cloud platform where teachers, learners and institutions worldwide can connect and chart their own course for personal growth, professional development and academic inquiry. Learn more at www.instructure.com.

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Contacts:
Instructure
Devin Knighton, Director of Public Relations at Instructure
(801) 722-8187 | [email protected]
Twitter: @devinknighton | www.instructure.com
Matt Reichman, Method Communications
(801) 461-9778 | [email protected]
Copyright © 2014, Instructure, Inc. All rights reserved. Instructure, Canvas and their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Instructure, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others.