Canvas Archiving
Collin College, located in the state of Texas, is a prominent public community college known for its commitment to academic excellence and student success. Established in 1985, the college has become a cornerstone of the region’s educational landscape. Collin College offers a wide array of programs and courses, including associate and bachelor degrees, transferable college credits, workforce training, and continuing education opportunities. With a focus on innovation and community engagement, Collin College provides a supportive learning environment for its diverse student body of over 58,800 credit and noncredit students.
Collin College first began using Canvas LMS in 2016. Both faculty and students enjoyed the platform and its easy usability, but as the years went on, courses began to pile up. By 2023, the institution had over 85,000 courses on Canvas. This rapid growth presented a new challenge for the college: managing and archiving the increasing number of courses on the platform.
Limited space
Collin College needed to archive courses because it was nearing the individual storage limit of Canvas's LMS platform. Student storage space was a major concern because once it's full, students can't upload more assignments. The sheer volume of over 85,000 courses also made it difficult for faculty to find what they needed, resulting in longer load times and a more time-consuming search process.
Security concerns
With federal laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and potential regulations similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation on the horizon, the team at Collin College wanted to stay ahead of the game in terms of security. They wanted to provide grade information to the right users without worrying about sensitive student information being at risk. However, there was no streamlined method to achieve this. Team members had to manually hide sensitive information for each student, which was time-consuming and prone to errors.
Academic integrity on the line
Maintaining some level of historical LMS data is crucial because it upholds state requirements by providing a record of past courses, assignments, and grades, which can be crucial for verifying student grades and resolving disputes. Deleting older content would make pulling that data impossible and could jeopardize the college's academic integrity.
“There were no other solutions that could solve every problem we wanted to solve.”
- Pamela Darling-Facio, Director of eLearning
Once Pamela Darling-Facio and Heather Webb-Losh met K16 Solutions at InstructureCon 2023, they knew they had found the solution they needed to solve multiple problems.
Canvas Archiving powered by K16 Solutions enables Canvas customers to securely store course content and student data on a platform that seamlessly integrates with their current LMS environment.
“There were no other solutions that could solve every problem we wanted to solve,” said Darling-Facio, the Director of eLearning at Collin College. “With the help of Canvas Archiving, we could open up space in our Canvas platform while keeping data secure without the need to purge.”
The team at Collin College began archiving three years’ worth of LMS content. Although the task felt daunting at first, the team quickly realized they were in good hands.
“Working with our K16 customer success manager, Ellen, was such a pleasure,” said Webb-Losh, the Sr. Application Administrator at Collin College. “She always went above and beyond and helped us make sure our courses were archived securely, accurately, and with ease onto the archiving platform.”
No need to purge
With the help of Canvas Archiving, Collin College was able to clean up its Canvas LMS platform without having to delete any courses within the last five years. “Deleting the courses was never an option,” says Webb-Losh. “We had to have access to them to conduct grade appeals and maintain accounts. Canvas Archiving gave us the ability to clean up our platform AND maintain access to old course content.”
Canvas integrated
Darling-Facio and Webb-Losh couldn’t believe how easy it is to archive and retrieve courses with Canvas Archiving. “The fact that it was a platform-integrated solution made everything so easy for us,” says Webb-Losh. “Archiving course content didn’t require our team to stop what they were doing and work on this project.”
Empowering security options
“Canvas Archiving allows us to have freedom and options we didn’t have before,” says Webb-Losh. “Compliance is stricter in the EU, so we know things will get stricter here, too. This gives us a head start in compliance.” Darling-Facio agrees with Webb-Losh’s sentiment: “We’re able to provide course access to the right people without giving out sensitive student information at the same time. This has saved us so much time and peace of mind.”
“Canvas Archiving allows us to provide course access to the right people without giving out sensitive student information at the same time. This has saved us so much time and peace of mind.”
- Heather Webb-Losh, Senior Application Administrator