Canvas FAQs

Fall 2026 is MSU's dual-LMS transition semester. During Fall 2026, courses may be delivered through either Blackboard or Canvas.

Beginning with the Winter 2026 term, Canvas will be the learning management system for MSU course delivery. Faculty and students will use Canvas for Winter 2026 and future courses.

Blackboard will remain fully available through December 2026 and will transition to read-only access beginning January 1, 2027.

Faculty have two options for moving Blackboard course content into Canvas:

• Submit a Canvas Course Migration Request Form for an Instructure-assisted migration.
• Manually export a Blackboard course and import it into Canvas.

A limited number of Instructure-assisted migrations are available. Requests are processed on a first-come, first-served basis, so faculty are encouraged to submit requests as early as possible. Once MSU's allocation of assisted migrations has been exhausted, faculty will need to migrate their courses manually.

Please allow a minimum of four weeks for an Instructure-assisted migration.

See the Faculty Course Migration Process page for complete instructions and the migration request form.

Instructure-assisted migrations are placed in a Canvas sandbox rather than directly into an official teaching course.

Migration moves course content but does not produce a finished, teaching-ready Canvas course. Faculty must review, organize, and test the migrated content before using it with students.

Once the course has been reviewed and is ready for teaching, faculty can copy the completed content from the sandbox into the appropriate official Canvas course shell.

Courses being prepared for Winter 2026 and future terms may use publisher content in Canvas.

Publisher integrations and associated content may not transfer automatically from Blackboard to Canvas. Faculty may need to configure the publisher integration in Canvas and should test all publisher content before making the course available to students.

Fall 2026 courses have additional limitations because Blackboard and Canvas are operating concurrently during the dual-LMS transition. Courses using publisher integrations should not migrate to Blackboard for the Fall 2026 term.

First, verify that the course is published. An unpublished Canvas course is not available to students.

To check whether your course is published

1. Open the course in Canvas.
2. Go to the course Home page.
3. Locate the Course Status section.
4. If the course is unpublished, select Publish.

If the course is published but students still cannot access it, check the applicable course and section dates. These dates can control when students are permitted to enter a course, so a published course may still be unavailable if the applicable dates do not permit access.

To check the course dates

1. Open the course in Canvas.
2. Select Settings from the course navigation menu.
3. On the Course Details tab, review the Starts and Ends dates.
4. Verify that the dates permit students to access the course.

To check the section dates

1. From the course Settings page, select the Sections tab.
2. Select the appropriate course section.
3. Review the Starts and Ends dates for the section.
4. If necessary, adjust the dates so students can access the course during the appropriate period.
5. Select Update Section to save your changes.

If section dates are set, they may affect student access even when the course itself is published. After making any changes, verify that the course remains published.

Yes. Canvas courses are not automatically made available to students simply because the course shell exists or content has been added.

Faculty must publish their course before students can access it. Faculty should also verify that the applicable course and section dates permit student access.

Publishing the course does not necessarily mean that every item within the course is visible. Modules, assignments, quizzes, pages, and other course content may also have their own publication and availability settings.

A migrated or imported Blackboard course should always be reviewed before it is used for teaching. Some Blackboard content and settings may not transfer directly into Canvas or may function differently after migration.

Faculty should check:

• Links
• Files and media
• Assignments
• Quizzes and question types
• Due dates and availability dates
• Grade settings
• Discussions
• Third-party tools
• Publisher integrations
• Respondus LockDown Browser settings
• Course navigation
• Student visibility

Faculty are responsible for ensuring that migrated course content is complete, functional, and ready for students before teaching.

Yes. Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor are available in Canvas.

Faculty should review and test assessments after migrating them from Blackboard. Some Blackboard assessment settings may carry into Canvas and cause unexpected behavior.

For example, an assessment passcode from Blackboard may remain on a migrated assessment and interfere with the LockDown Browser configuration. Faculty should review the assessment settings and remove conflicting passcodes when necessary.

MSU faculty have several options for Canvas training and assistance:

• Self-paced Canvas training and resources
• Recorded training sessions
• Scheduled Instructure training sessions
• Course Building Open Houses (Schedule communicated via Campus Mail)
• Assistance from Instructional Design & Online Learning
• 24/7 Canvas support

Blackboard will remain fully available through December 2026.

Beginning January 1, 2027, Blackboard will transition to read-only access. Faculty will still be able to access Blackboard to reference and retrieve existing course content, but Blackboard will no longer be used for course delivery.

Blackboard read-only access will remain available through June 2027.

Canvas allows instructors to copy all or selected content from one Canvas course into another using the Import Course Content tool.

This is useful when moving a completed course from a Canvas sandbox into an official teaching shell or when preparing a new section from an existing Canvas course.

In the destination course, open Settings, select Import Course Content, and choose Copy a Canvas Course as the content type. Select the source course and choose whether to import all content or selected content.

Publishing the Canvas course does not automatically publish everything inside it.

Individual modules, pages, assignments, quizzes, discussions, and other content may also need to be published. Content can also be unavailable because of availability dates or module requirements.

Faculty should use Student View to verify what students can see before the course begins.

Canvas and Blackboard organize courses differently, so some Blackboard tools may have a different name, location, or workflow in Canvas.

Faculty who are unsure how to accomplish a Blackboard task in Canvas can consult the Canvas Information Hub, Canvas training resources, or contact Instructional Design & Online Learning for assistance.

Yes. Faculty can use a Canvas sandbox to build a new course, migrate Blackboard content, experiment with Canvas features, or prepare course materials before an official teaching shell is available.

To create a Canvas sandbox:

1. Log in to Canvas.
2. From the Canvas Dashboard, select Start a New Course.
3. Enter a name for your sandbox that clearly identifies the course or purpose.
4. Select Create Course.

You can then build content directly in the sandbox or import content from another Canvas course or a Blackboard course.

Once the official course shell is available, completed content can be copied from the sandbox into the official course using the Import Course Content option in the official course's Settings.