Canvas Native vs Moodle Integrated Course

An early step is to determine if you want your course to be Moodle Integrated, or Canvas Native.

From a birds-eye perspective, the primary benefit of a Moodle Integrated course will require less work on your part. All existing Moodle resources you have created in the past, including Quizzes, Exams, Moodle Workshops, etc... can be reused without modification. Grades and Roster will synchronize to your Canvas course. The drawback is that it relies on Moodle as a backend and requires the Instructor to login to Moodle to modify quizzes and exams. Examples of these activities are attached in Module 2.

The Canvas Native route has the benefit of not requiring the use of Moodle at all. Quizzes, exams, etc... have no dependency on Moodle as it uses the Canvas quiz engine. The drawback is that you will not be able to use any functionality in Moodle that Canvas does not have a direct analog for. This includes quiz question types such as CodeRunner and STACK. If you require many Moodle features, use the Moodle Integrated route for your course. Please note that if you choose the Canvas native route you will not be able to use any existing Moodle quiz or its quizbanks without some time investment on your part. The conversion process will do its best to match your Moodle questions to the Canvas quiz engine variant but will usually need touchup. (ie. partial credit in Moodle Multiple Choice is unsupported in Canvas Multiple Choice). Unsupported question types will be removed from your quiz entirely.

Your second choice is whether or not to use the provided templates from the Learning Design Group (LDG). These are highly recommended and were use to create this community course. If you decide to use these, we will include the templates as a base when building out your Canvas course. Many of their templates use CidiLab's tools. You can enroll in the LDG CEAS Community Course for more information on course design recommendations and further resources.

If you go the Canvas Native route, you have the choice of doing this yourself as well without the need of waiting for turnaround from another group. Simply backup your Moodle course, and import it into your Canvas course. If you would like assistance from us on getting your course layout to look similar to your Moodle course, please open a request by sending a message to helpcs@colorado.edu. Please however note that beyond that, we do not have the resources to rebuild your Moodle quizzes in the Canvas quiz engine for you. That will require time investment on your part, the good news is this is a one time process.

Please note the difference between integration and import. Integration will just make your Moodle activities available in Canvas, while import means we will import all course content and structure from Moodle to Canvas. We can assist with either or, or both.

After reviewing the above and FAQ's, Please evaluate whether or not you will require a Moodle Integration for your course.

FAQ's

What is the goal of moving to Canvas if it still relies on Moodle?

One of the primary purposes of moving to Canvas is so students have a unified experience across campus while also keeping a smooth transition process in mind for the professor. The college also desires all courses on Canvas to track student engagement on online and hybrid courses. Having a separate LMS that students need to deal with, especially during these times, is less than ideal. The main hurdle was not having CodeRunner available in Canvas, as required by CSCI and ECEN courses. A workaround has now been created to run these from Canvas. From the student view, it looks like a Canvas quiz and they will not know they are using Moodle at all.

A moodle integrated quiz is present this course for demonstration purposes.

I used to contact helpcs@colorado.edu to add course level integrations such as GitHub Classroom, what is the process now?

OIT ATAP will now to do this for you. Create a ServiceNow case by emailing helpcs@colorado.edu and we will re-assign it to OIT ATAP. You can also do this with the IT Service Center email, help@colorado.edu, whom will re-assign it to OIT ATAP.

Create a text file containing the following:

Consumer Key:
Shared Secret:
Launch URL:

Attach this file to the Campus File Transfer service with the following addresses: helpcs@colorado.edu adam.zheng@colorado.edu jinyoung.park@colorado.edu

What about my existing activities I usually add to my Moodle topics?

Global External Integrations that are in Moodle such as Piazza and Gradescope, are also available in Canvas. It is however added as a navigation item instead of an activity. Visit your Canvas course settings, go to the "Navigation" tab, and drag items you want displayed in your course navigation.

I am unable to create additional topics in Moodle

This is intentional. Please refrain from creating any content in Moodle related to course layout. This should be done in Canvas. You will only have two topics in Moodle, which are a warning banner to students (should they accidentally stumble upon your Moodle course), and a topic section for you to place Moodle Provider activities (Quizzes, Workshops, etc) to link to Canvas.

I am unable to add external LTI connections to my course in Canvas like I did in Moodle

New external tools that have never been integrated before into CU Boulder Canvas must be vetted by several groups. If you have such an integration please send a message to help@colorado.edu.

Can't I just create the LTI connection of my tool in Moodle and LTI again it to Canvas

Yes on a technical perspective, but please don't. We ask that it is vetted and integrated into Canvas directly vs being nested through Moodle.

My TurnItIn assignments are missing

The Turnitin integration in Moodle will not translate to Canvas's Turnitin integration. You will need to recreate these in Canvas. If you would like us to do this for you, we will recreate these manually for you in your Canvas course via the Turnitin Grademark Integration method. Please specify this in your request if you would like us to do this for you.

My H5P videos are missing

H5P is not integrated in Canvas. Please use Kaltura as a platform to upload your videos. This can be found under "My Media". If you would like to replicate the look and feel of Moodle H5P pages, you can create a Canvas page and embed Kaltura media. This can then in turn be added to your course module. If you would like us to do this for you, we will recreate these manually for you in your Canvas course. Although we will likely notice this and do it for you regardless, specify this in your request if you would like us to do this for you.

I need to override grades in Moodle, will the grade change in the Moodle gradebook reflect in Canvas?

Yes, grades will synchronize back to Canvas.

A student for some reason accessed Moodle and took the Quiz from Moodle

Their grade will synchronize to Canvas on the next cycle (30 minutes) instead of synchronizing immediately. We create a banner in your Moodle course to strongly discourage this, and link to your Canvas course.

I have made a change to a user in my Moodle course, but it keeps getting reverted

Do not make roster modifications in Moodle. Users and IMS roles in your Moodle course are synchronized from Canvas, which in this case is authoritative to Moodle. As such, do not make changes to users or roles in your Moodle roster. These changes will be lost the next time a student takes a Moodle quiz (which includes autologin). Please make these changes in Canvas instead.

I have made a change to a Moodle grade in Canvas, but it keeps getting reverted

Do not make grade modifications of Moodle provider activities in Canvas. Grades for Moodle items are synchronized from Moodle, which in this case is authoritative to Canvas. As such, do not make changes in the Canvas gradebook for Moodle items. Make grade overrides on Moodle items from Moodle instead.

Do I still need to contact helpcs@colorado.edu for large Moodle exams in Canvas?

Yes. for exams that are over 150 concurrent users please send a notice to us as usual. Question types such as CodeRunner are compute intensive especially when students repeatedly execute their sandboxed code. As such would pre-scale the Moodle environment for you as we have found that autoscaling can sometimes not keep up with the sudden increase in processor demand.

Can I shift all my due dates?

Yes, we recommend the use of CidiLab's MultiTool. You can enable this from the Navigation tab.

How do I bring up design tools?

While in the page editor, press alt+shift+d (Windows) or option+shift+d (macOS). Visit the Canvas - Cidi Labs Design Tools page for more details.

I am not using Moodle exclusive question types in my Quizzes, but I do not have time to rebuild them in the Canvas quiz engine

Moodle is not going away, but please run your course from Canvas. Utilize the Canvas/Moodle Integrated route in this case so you can use all of your existing Moodle quizzes and quizbanks in Canvas without modification.

Something with the Integration is broken, who do I contact?

Create a ServiceNow incident by emailing helpcs@colorado.edu.

I need help with the Integration or Canvas

Create a ServiceNow request with CS by emailing helpcs@colorado.edu. We can provide basic support for you such as where to direct you to in Canvas, and make certain changes to your Canvas or Moodle course by your request. If you need more complex or administrative assistance with Canvas, create a ServiceNow request with the IT Service Center by emailing help@colorado.edu.

Are there Canvas learning resources?

Yes, there are several resources from various groups on Campus that provide deep insight on Canvas. This is another significant benefit of moving off Moodle due to the considerable amount of training resources and support already available. We as two individuals operating Moodle 10% of our time offer significantly less training resources.

Office of Information Technology - Canvas Help

Learning Design Group - CEAS Community Course

Do I need to manually enter grades from Moodle at the end of the semester?

No, Moodle grades are sent to Canvas, which in turn can be directly sent to the Registrar via Canvas Web Grading sync.

I need to add a new Moodle activity/quiz mid-semester or accidentally deleted it, do I need to open a new case?

Yes, we will pull your new keys from the database and then send it to ATAP. They will in turn feed these into a custom tool they developed for this to add the integration back to your course without much effort.

Do students need to create Moodle Accounts and enroll there?

No, Canvas will create their Moodle accounts and automatically enroll them into your Moodle sidecar course for the integration to function. This is completed transparently so students should not know of the existence of Moodle at all. This was one of the goals of the integration.

May I use my Moodle sidecar course to send course level e-mails to students?

No, please do not send course level messages with Moodle. That may cause confusion and will also expose the existence of Moodle to your students. Use Canvas to send course level messages. We may plan on disabling Moodle e-mail in the future.

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