IT Spotlight highlights the projects, initiatives, and areas where UMass Amherst team members are engaged.
When Ryan Scott’s son came home from class one day and asked, “Where’s my course? Is it on Blackboard or Moodle, and how am I supposed to find out?” Scott wasn’t too surprised.
As UMass Amherst’s senior learning systems administrator, Scott had been managing learning platforms across campus for more than 15 years. He knew exactly the kind of confusion his son was describing — and he was actively working to change it.
With support from university leadership, UMass Amherst was in the process of transitioning from two learning management systems — Blackboard and Moodle — to just one. It was a major effort aimed at creating a better, more consistent course experience for students. But it didn’t happen overnight.
The call for a simpler system
UMass Amherst’s use of multiple learning platforms was shaped over time to meet a wide range of teaching needs. For years, systems like Blackboard, Moodle, and OWL supported instruction across continuing education and on-campus programs, each with its own technical requirements.
But as digital learning became more central to instruction across the University, managing and using multiple systems grew increasingly complex, particularly for students.
“It created confusion for the student experience,” said Scott. “So after many years of discussion, it was decided — really for the end-user experience — that we needed to switch to one LMS.”
In 2021, a campus-wide Flexible Learning Task Force recommended that UMass Amherst converge to a single learning management system (LMS) after more than a decade of operating two systems. Following a year-long exploration, a joint announcement was made in March 2023 by then Provost Tricia Serio and Vice Chancellor Chris Misra that Canvas would become the official learning management system at UMass Amherst.
The selection of Canvas laid the groundwork for improving how courses are delivered and managed at UMass. Now it was time to prepare the campus for the change, so staff got to work.
The great course migration
The Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS) team partnered with the Provost’s Office and UMass Amherst Information Technology (IT) to develop a transition strategy. Many schools and colleges at UMass had input, with early adopters like Isenberg School of Management and the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing helping lead the way.
Now that Canvas was selected, the migration kicked off with a short pilot to test the new platform. There were 20 trial courses at first, then it expanded to 1,000, and finally evolved into a full-scale effort. The goal was to build momentum while ensuring the process was well-supported at every step.
But even with a deliberate rollout, the complexity of what came next was significant.
“This wasn’t just migrating from an old version of Blackboard to a new one,” said Scott. “It was migrating to a completely separate system.”
Some courses transferred cleanly. Others — especially those in Moodle — had to be rebuilt from scratch. Around 900 were reconstructed manually, often with direct support from the Instructional Media Lab.
It was an all-hands-on-deck effort, with staff across IT, IDEAS, and an outside service provider working closely with faculty to rebuild, test, and transition their courses — sometimes one at a time. But because the systems operated under different rules and structures, technical migration was only part of the work.
“Blackboard had different policies compared to Moodle,” Scott explains. “So we had the technical migration, but we also had to work on creating new, cohesive policies. As you can imagine, that was a pretty heavy lift.”
Ultimately, it took strong collaboration across departments, units, and support teams, but they got the job done.
Life after the switch
Despite the scale of the change, many faculty have embraced the new system, especially after getting over the initial hurdle of course migration.
Students, too, noticed an immediate difference.
“They find it’s very easy to see their grades and assignments that are due,” said Scott. “It just made their lives so much easier.”
As of Spring 2025, UMass Amherst is nearly finished with the migration. Blackboard was shut down well ahead of schedule. Just a handful of courses remain in Moodle, and they’ll soon be archived.
“Bringing UMass Amherst to a single learning management system was a major undertaking, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the combined hard work of our IDEAS and IT teams,” said Monica Kane, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology at UMass Amherst. “This effort, years in the making, is only because of those across campus who stayed focused on improving the student and faculty experience. We are grateful for everyone who helped make this important upgrade happen.”
And for Scott, hearing feedback from his son brought home just how impactful the transition had been.
“He doesn’t always understand what I do for a living,” Scott joked. “But when he saw the Canvas page open on my computer and realized I had helped lead the switch, he and his roommates thanked me. That meant a lot.”